Buzz
judith.flanders
Mostly the Venice Biennale passes me by entirely: ho-hum, another tired bit of Brit Art, I think, and turn the page. But Mike Nelson, twice nominated for the Turner Prize, is a terrific artist, too little seen, too odd, too unsettling to have been shown much in the mainstream. His selection is a boost – for him, I very much hope, but even more for the profile of British art. No more cringing when old-hat, old-school Emin or Hirst get wheeled out again, same old, same old.Certainly, same old is not something that can be said about Nelson. An installation artist, he creates what almost Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Viscera, the new album by Norway’s Jenny Hval, is a striking, often disturbing, surreal examination of how the body can take control, winning out over thought. Hval enfolds her explicit, literature-inspired lyrics in music that suddenly shifts from the impressionistic to the surging. Her voice can be disquietingly detached, narrating, as she puts it, “a partly uncomfortable listen”.Jenny Hval was a highlight of February’s by:Larm festival. Live in Oslo, the interplay between her, Håvard Volden and Kyrre Lastad – both of whom have backgrounds in improvisational music – brought to mind Lorca- Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Sad news for arts lovers with an eye on the horses - Sadler’s Wells, dubbed the greatest-ever sire of racehorses, died this week aged 30. His parents were the champion sire Northern Dancer and Fairy Bridge, and the arts supplied the names for racing's most legendary dynasty that would dance to victory again and again. Half-brother to Nijinsky and Nureyev, sire of Old Vic, Sadler's Wells brought the dancing line in horseracing to a superb peak.Trained by Vincent O'Brien (who also trained Triple Crown-winner Nijinsky), he was a multiple winner as a three-year-old in 1984, and was within a year Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sometimes it seems as though every bit of music from the past has been disinterred, no matter how obscure or outré it is. But, of course, surprises keep on coming and the Psychedelic Pernambuco compilation is a reminder that great stuff still lurks out there. Collecting material recorded for the Brazilian independent Rozeblit label, Psychedelic Pernambuco roams through weird folk, post-Tropicália strangeness, fractured instrumentals and more.Brighton’s Mr Bongo label issues Psychedelic Pernambuco next month. The specialist Latin imprint seems to be on a roll right now as last month they Read more ...
David Nice
In 2010, the prospectus didn't excite but the concerts turned out better than ever. "Let's hope it's not the other way round this year," commented Proms Director and Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright on Thursday afternoon as we milled around with our tea and biscuits under the eaves of the Royal College following a very jolly press briefing. For what's on offer looks, this time, very promising indeed, to me at any rate. (See theartsdesk's full listings.}And there's no sign of the cuts kicking in yet, because they haven't. Wright quipped that a certain arts presenter asked him precisely Read more ...
David Nice
It's just been crowned the BBC Music Magazine Awards' CD of the Year. But is Valery Gergiev's second complete recording of the 20th century's greatest ballet score, captured live at the Barbican for the LSO's own label, right at the top? In my Building a Library survey for BBC Radio 3, condensed in print for the BBCMM, I suggested it might be the best in state-of-the-art sound - but not the finest overall version of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. That palm went to Rozhdestvensky's much more impeccably paced old Melodiya version, in mono and dating from 1959.There's enough ravishingly beautiful Read more ...
theartsdesk
There is an intriguing heresy planted several paragraphs down in Adam’s review of Lewis, which resumed last night on ITV. “It’s the relationship between Lewis and Hathaway that makes the thing worth watching. In fact, it sometimes seems more interesting than the slightly ponderous master-and-servant routine Lewis used to go through with Morse.”
Can this really be so? Or maybe Adam has given voice to a suspicion millions of viewers have secretly nursed for a while. What do you think? On our Facebook page we have posted a question: “Is the partnership between Lewis and Hathaway actually more Read more ...
David Nice
The Sapporo Symphony Orchestra had already scheduled a London appearance as part of its 50th-anniversary tour when the Japanese earthquake and tsunami struck. Now all proceeds from the Royal Festival Hall concert on 23 May will go directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Japan Society Tohoku Earthquake Relief Fund.Sapporo’s long-serving principal conductor Tadaaki Otaka, whom audiences here will know from his fine concerts and recordings with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, said: "It was an unforeseen and terrible disaster, from which all Japanese people are working extremely Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Anyone turning on BBC Four last night expecting to watch the first episode of Room at the Top will, at least in part, have got what they were expecting: lashings of sex. Only one problem. It wasn't in Room at the Top. Owing to a late-blooming rights dispute, the BBC decided on the day of broadcast not to go ahead with their new adaptation of John Braine's 1957 novel. On the principle that if you would have liked that, then you'll like this, they had a rummage in the archives and produced a rabbit: their version of Fanny Hill, first broadcast in 2008.It's a shame the BBC didn't get their legal Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Ever controversial, America's Kennedy clan continues to create turbulence. On Thursday, 7 April, the History Channel in the UK will begin airing a new $30 million miniseries, The Kennedys, which traces the lives and political fortunes of John F Kennedy, his brother Bobby and their domineering father Joe. But the History Channel's American counterpart announced in January it was dropping the show (which stars Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes, Barry Pepper and Tom Wilkinson), despite having spent two years overseeing its development. The channel, which usually specialises in documentaries and Read more ...
David Nice
Last night the programme for the Royal Opera's current production of Fidelio included a special tribute to that most characterful of tenors, Robert Tear, who died this week at the age of 72. Only once did I have the immense pleasure of spending time in the company of this warm and witty man in a Radio 3 book-review programme, which was funny and easy thanks to his interesting, and interested, conversation. He was, though, a constant presence in my life through his wonderfully interactive response to the performance around him when sitting on a concert platform and the number of precisely Read more ...
David Nice
After what must seem like a long exile, the opera director with one of the most distinctive track records in the business is to return as chief executive of a company which has been on fitful form recently. As, it must be said, has Pountney's recent history after the celebrated "powerhouse" era at English National Opera alongside Mark Elder and Peter Jonas. Since then, he has veered from the trademark business verging on chaos to a tender, painstaking rediscovery of recent works which deserve our attention.Both aspects, in fact, have been represented at the Bregenz Festival, where Pountney Read more ...