Reviews
peter.quinn
And we're off. Marking the official start of the London Jazz Festival, “Jazz Voice: Celebrating a Century of Song” provided a superbly paced and brilliantly conceived curtain-raiser. Hosted by Scottish actor Dougray Scott and presenting vocalists from both sides of the Atlantic, this paean to the art of song featured Guy Barker's consummate, high-spec arrangements lovingly performed by his hand-picked orchestra.From the engulfing beauty of Gretchen Parlato's “Butterfly” and China Moses's touchingly intimate “Walk on By” - the gorgeous, suspended ending of the latter was just one of many heart Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
There’s a moment during Hjaltalín’s encore when bolero rhythms take over and you wonder if the Reykjavik septet have invented a new musical hybrid: a Ravel-driven makeover of Seventies-slanted soul. As singer Sigrídur Thorlacius lets rip on the thrillingly anthemic “Feels Like Sugar”, it’s clear that Hjaltalín aren’t bothered with current musical templates. They take from the unlikeliest sources, smoosh them together and end up sounding like no one else. After all, this is a band with a stand-up bassoon player. At home, they topped the charts covering a song by Icelandic disco star and Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
First, an admission. I have a blindspot for the chamber work of Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Ravel. I've tried my best, acquainted myself with the most stirring recordings of the finest pieces, got friends to hold my hand. But I've never been able to shake off the feeling that these French composers are mostly a bit drippy in this genre, a bit Watercolour Challenge, a bit I-eat-yoghurt-vote-Lib-Dem-and-don't-have-much-of-a-pulse. So last night was laser-eye-treatment time. If Steven Isserlis and his clever colleagues couldn't banish my blindness at their Wigmore Hall recital, no one could. Read more ...
David Nice
Where is the real Elgar to be found – in his boisterous self-portrait at the end of the Enigma Variations, the warm, feminine sentiment of the Violin Concerto and the First Symphony’s Adagio, or the nightmares of the Second Symphony? No doubt in each of them, and more. John Bridcut’s painfully sensitive documentary hones in on the private, introspective Elgar, the dark knight of "ghosts and shadows", always with the music to the fore. And by getting the good and great, young and old of the musical world not just to talk but to react to the works as they hear them, he may have broken new Read more ...
mark.kidel
Bellowhead are 21st-century genre-busters: punk music-hall madness born out of British folk, seasoned with a zeitgeist-friendly dose of multicultural spice. Sounds gimmicky? Well, not at all, as Bellowhead’s greatest quality, apart from being an outstandingly enjoyable live act, comes from the way they ride their eclecticism with brio and intelligence, inventing as they go a new folk music for our times.British folk has two distinct but interconnected strands, reflecting perhaps the (oft-forgotten) fact that we are an island people: a rootsy and sometimes purist obsession with homegrown tunes Read more ...
stephen.walsh
How much do you know about centaurs? Probably you know they are horses below the withers, human above. But did you know they were heavy drinkers who once got out of hand at the wedding of the King of the Lapiths, tried to rape the bride and got beaten up for their pains?This fight is the Centauromachy of Simon Holt’s new work for the BBC NOW, whose Composer-in-Association he is. From the title, I expected some rough-housing, perhaps even a corpse or two, certainly a few ASBOs. But it turns out that Holt quite likes centaurs and is intrigued by the musical possibilities of their double nature Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
A 70-minute song cycle for soprano and violin, the Kafka Fragments is the magnum opus (the irony of its miniature forms seems entirely deliberate) of György Kurtág, a composer known for the inscrutability of his music. His lines arrive at the ears fully armed, unwilling to surrender their meaning. A performance of the Fragments at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2008 famously drove a musically literate audience from the room, so can Peter Sellars's staged interpretation really offer a more engaging experience? Up to a point.The fragment: embodiment of an absent presence, encoding loss while Read more ...
fisun.guner
It’s amazing what you might have found in your average bathroom cabinet 100 years ago. For those niggling aches and pains, what could be more effective than a bottle of Bayer’s Heroin Hydrochloride? Or how about a soothing spoonful of Sydenham’s Laudanum? If you’re simply in need of a quick pick-me-up, a sip or three of Hall’s Coca Wine – the “Elixir of Life” (basically liquid cocaine) - might put a jolly spring in your step. Oh, and don’t forget those cocaine eyedrops after a particularly long day staring at the officer ledger.In your great-grandmother’s bathroom cabinet, you’ll find Read more ...
graeme.thomson
So, did they play all the singles? Well no, not all of them, given that they’ve released 26 of the buggers in the past year alone, frisbeeing one out every fortnight in the sort of kamikaze experiment contemplated by only the truly inspired or the slightly desperate. Ash, on the evidence of last night's gig, might just be a bit of both.In one respect this immensely likeable band provide a window into the future. Having kicked around since the mid-1990s with no little success, after being dropped by Warner Brothers in 2008 they decided to go it alone. Setting up their own label and website, Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
To vajazzle or not to vajazzle; it’s the question on everyone’s, er, lips. Thanks to ITV’s unlikeliest of hits, The Only Way is Essex, tans will be brighter, teeth whiter and bodies more diamante-encrusted across the nation this winter. It’s the aesthetic equivalent of missionary work, and boy are these guys devout. Just when Big Brother has stopped watching and we’ve finally waved goodbye to The Hills, reality television has taken a new and sinister turn with a series so holes-in-your-fishnets, last-night’s-cold-pizza-eaten-off-a-copy-of-Heat-magazine trashy as to make even Christine Read more ...
howard.male
I’d not been to the Bloomsbury Ballroom before, but over the past five years or so the likes of Amy Winehouse and Martha Reeves have played this plush Art Deco space. Somewhat disconcertingly, apart from the stage, the rest of the hall was in virtual darkness which suited Dub Colossus perfectly: this intriguing collective of British and Ethiopian musicians are purveyors of intense, atmospheric dance music who actually benefited from this dramatic lack of lighting which made the stage appear to glow like a coal furnace.Since releasing their groundbreaking debut album, A Town Called Addis, in Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Directing an Oscar Wilde play is rather like being a chaperone at a party: at best you are invisible, at worst actively intrusive. Marshalling Wilde’s politicos, dandies and duchesses through this latest ball of An Ideal Husband, Lindsay Posner is quick to lose himself among the elegant riot of gilded sets and gorgeous dresses. Faithful to the letter (pink-papered, naturally), the production plays it straight, relying on the skills of a splendid cast to save it from straying into the limp pastiche of amateur dramatics.Weightier than either Lady Windermere’s Fan or A Woman of No Importance, Read more ...