Best of 2020: Classical music concerts | reviews, news & interviews
Best of 2020: Classical music concerts
Best of 2020: Classical music concerts
Heroic smaller enterprises have kept music live under unpromising circumstances
by David NiceMonday, 28 December 2020
Steven Isserlis on the first day of the Fidelio Orchestra Cafe concerts, 8 JulyNick Rutter
No picture of a musician tells more of a story about 2020 than the above image of cellist Steven Isserlis, stepping out on 8 July to play, what else but Bach, to his first live – albeit small – audience in just under four months.
No picture of a musician tells more of a story about 2020 than the above image of cellist Steven Isserlis, stepping out on 8 July to play, what else but Bach, to his first live – albeit small – audience in just under four months. At that point it took a rare missionary to check out government guidelines on concert presentation and dare to bring back live music to London. The missionary in question was Raffaello Morales of the Fidelio Orchestra Cafe in Clerkenwell. His programmes lasted while the rules said they could, adapting to earlier closing times (no spontaneous music-making from the star performers and their friends in the small hours after a while, having to close abruptly when lockdown fell in November and again in December). But "the Fidelio" became a hub for great performances by top players who happened to be in town.