The Makropulos Case; Trio Zimmermann; BBC Prom 46 – review

Festival theatre; Queen's Hall, Edinburgh; Royal Albert Hall, LondonAt the abrupt start of The Makropulos Case, strings and wind hurtle into flight while the rest of the orchestra bustles and shoves like gossips elbowing for attention. Those few opening bars, gone in a flash, epitomise one aspect of Janácek's originality. He wanted to capture human conversation in music: choppy, aphoristic and elusive, with brief eloquence or bursts of poignant rhapsody. The harmonies are safely tonal, the impa...

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