Rush Hour Concerts

Peter Donohoe review a wonderfully direct guide to rarely heard first works

Wigmore Hall, London
Donohoe played a fascinating selection of rarely heard Opus 1s

Designating a work as "Opus 1" meant something special to many 19th- and early 20th-century composers; it was a public statement, a manifesto signalling a coming-of-age musically. Beethoven's Op 1 was a set of piano trios, Rachmaninov's his First Piano Concerto, Stravinsky's a Symphony in E flat. Others did not choose quite so well an all-but-forgotten Rondo in C minor for piano in Chopin's case but there are still plenty of worthwhile piano works that served as significant landmarks, and Peter Donohoe selected six of them for his Wigmore recital.

Whether by accident or design, the two halves of this recital left very different impressions. While the music that Donohoe played before the interval, by Tchaikovsky (two flashy salon pieces), Prokofiev (his Rachmaninov-like First Sonata) and Bartók (a Lisztian rhapsody), hardly hinted at what those composers would write for piano later in life, the three in the second half all seemed to emerge fully formed in their Op 1s.

Prom 5: Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich review sadness and celebration

Royal Albert Hall, London
David Zinman's final concert as chief conductor of the Zurich Tonhalle was a superb example of his intelligent musicianship

This beautiful Prom marked the end of an era. David Zinman's last concert as chief conductor of the Zurich Tonhalle, it brought to a close a 20-year partnership that has ranked among the most distinguished and consistently successful of recent years. The bittersweet feel of the occasion was captured in a programme in which sadness and celebration went side by side: Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony flanked Dvoák's Violin Concerto, with Julia Fischer as soloist. All three works were performed with the intelligence and emotional refinement that are integral to Zinman's style.

Till Eulenspiegel was all elegance, wit and disarming grace, a portrait of a roguish charmer, rather than a prankster. Zinman's understanding of Strauss's need to balance narrative and sentiment with classical structure was exceptional, and the logic of the underlying rondo was delineated with considerable clarity.

Symphony guide: Beethoven's Sixth ('Pastoral')

Beethoven's Pastoral is no musical cul-de-sac, writes Tom Service. It's a radical work, and in its final movement is music more purely spine-tingling and life-enhancingly joyful than almost anywhere else in his output

This week, Beethovens Pastoral Symphony, his Sixth. Well, it does what it says on the tin, doesnt it? A sentimental romp through the Viennese countryside, a programmatic sideline to the central sweep of Beethovens development, a gentle counterpart to the fire and brimstone of the Fifth Symphony and the bacchanal of the Seventh.

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