Southbank Centre
Jansen, London Philharmonic, Vänskä, Royal Festival HallThursday, 17 November 2011
Noticed that nip in the air recently? The reason now is obvious: conductor Osmo Vänskä, the brisk wind from Minnesota, has blown into town, challenging London’s orchestral musicians to give beyond their best and uncover new layers in repertory works... Read more... |
Soul Rebels Brass Band, London Jazz Festival, QEHThursday, 17 November 2011
Funkier than a James Brown bridge, the mighty Soul Rebels Brass Band swung back into town last night and flattened all before them. Possessing that rare combination of serious chops, impeccable stagecraft and down-home soul, they confirmed their... Read more... |
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Gardiner, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 10 November 2011
We all know the question at issue last night at the Young Vic where Hamlet was opening, but down the road in the Queen Elizabeth Hall it was one of applause. Clapping between movements is a well-worn topic; we’ve had editorial, essays, even an RPS... Read more... |
Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen, Royal Festival HallFriday, 04 November 2011
Sometimes the most disturbing images exist only in our imaginations - and so the questions posed in the preface to Bartók’s operatic masterpiece Duke Bluebeard’s Castle become especially pertinent: “Where did this happen - outside or within? Where... Read more... |
Glen Campbell, Royal Festival HallSunday, 23 October 2011
The anticipation of Glen Campbell’s valedictory concerts has gone far beyond the goodbye to his music. It’s involved a reflection on his entire life. The sugar-throated cowboy with film-star looks and ballads as epic as daybreak in Arkansas has... Read more... |
Armitage Gone! Dance, Queen Elizabeth HallWednesday, 12 October 2011
I wasn’t around to see when Karole Armitage won her spurs in her twenties as a punk ballet choreographer in America in the 1970s and early Eighties, so we must rely on her programme-sheet biography to explain to us that she is “seen by some critics... Read more... |
Uchida, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado, Royal Festival HallMonday, 10 October 2011
We're living through a golden age of Bruckner conducting. A revolutionary age. Young sparks like Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Ilan Volkov are doing extraordinary things with the Austrian's music, experimenting with speeds and phrasing,... Read more... |
Pierre Boulez Weekend, Southbank CentreMonday, 03 October 2011
William Glock once claimed that Pierre Boulez could literally vomit at music he believed to be substandard. I wonder what he would have made of my friend, who fled at the interval of the opening concert of the Southbank festival on Friday blaming... Read more... |
Coote, Vinke, Philharmonia, Maazel, Royal Festival HallFriday, 30 September 2011
It was bound, in vocal terms, to be a case of Beauty and the Beast. Stefan Vinke, though useful for killer heroic-tenor parts like this one in Mahler’s Song of the Earth, has made some of the ugliest sounds I’ve heard over the past few seasons,... Read more... |
Leiferkus, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 22 September 2011
How odd that Musorgsky, a composer sanctified beyond his very individual deserts for making social statements in his art, should be feted by an orchestra, or rather an orchestral management, which says music and politics don't mix. They clearly have... Read more... |
Orchestre National de Barbès, Queen Elizabeth HallMonday, 19 September 2011
I love the fact that under the “genre” tab on their Facebook page, Orchestre National de Barbès have opted for “Other” from the dropdown menu. Obviously in Facebookland “Other” simply means not rock, soul, hi-hop, jazz, reggae, classical etc.... Read more... |
Brian Wilson, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 17 September 2011
Summertime and the living is easy. Gershwin wrote it but it could almost be written by that apostle of California sun, Brian Wilson, who sung it with his band last night. Wilson wouldn’t have come up with a line like “your daddy’s rich, and your... Read more... |
