Reviews
Robert Beale
The Philharmonic’s chief conductor John Storgårds was enjoying the taste of his pure, northern native air in Saturday’s concert: Sibelius at the heart of it, with the Violin Concerto played by a brilliant fellow-Finn, plus Rautavaara and Nielsen.Simone Lamsma gave an outstanding account of what is surely one of the most attractive violin concertos for any listeners: her performance was characterized by panache, lyricism and fearless virtuosity – in fact everything the concerto encapsulates and requires.The concert’s beginning was intriguing. It’s not often, in that randomised period before Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Will viewers tire of Rivals before It runs out of Rutshire Chronicles to adapt? Not if these screen versions of Jilly Cooper’s novels about toffs and hot totty in the Cotswolds are executed with the brio of the first two series.Like The White Lotus, Rivals has already set out its stall as a brand. It luxuriates in its idyllic location, all imposing sandstone piles and legions of big dogs and polo ponies, and has recruited the cream of the acting profession to inhabit it. The dialogue is smart, the tone exceptionally cheeky. Like the US show, it has a distinctive musical landscape – here, a Read more ...
David Nice
Vivacious Carolin Widmann clearly adores her fellow players in the Irish Chamber Orchestra, where her brother Jörg served as Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Partner until 2021. His successor, Henning Kraggerud, has already set his idiosyncratic mark on the ICO, most recently at a bracing all-Mozart programme. Haydn brothers Joseph and Michael don't sell nearly as well in Dublin, it seems, but this concert deserved equal success at every turn, with violinist Carolin begging comparisons but bringing her own lovely style to a similarly well-calibrated programme.When Michael lost a silver Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
I was excited by what I had heard of this quartet – guitarist Julian Lage, keyboardist John Medeski, bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Kenny Wollesen – on their album Scenes from Above, which came out in January; I thought it was Lage’s strongest album in eight years.Their concert in front of a full-ish and highly appreciative Royal Festival Hall audience on Friday night absolutely fulfilled the best expectations. But perhaps above all I am excited by where this band can go over the next few years. Lage has had seven Grammy nominations until now, but never won one. Maybe that is about to be Read more ...
Mark Kidel
A gig with Tricky remains a trip to the Underworld: forever shrouded in almost total darkness, his haunting voice barely audible, he’s an artist who’s always shunned the spotlight, seen through the charade of celebrity fame, and made a virtue out being a shade rather than a hero. He’s never been shy of plumbing the depths – drawing, with tons of originality and creative energy, from a family and community background steeped in violence, the curse of suicide, and a super-sensitivity that prejudiced his breath and skin. His preference for a darkened stage might suggest a parallel with Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The last time I reviewed John Kearns, he mentioned being the father of a young child. Three years on, life has changed for the comic: he has separated from his partner of 12 years and is living back home with his parents. It’s a story that emerges through Tilting at Windmills, his most personal show yet.It could be a sad 70 minutes, but Kearns, an absurdist comic who performs in a tonsure wig and false teeth, mines the comedy of a man fast approaching 40, assessing his life choices after what he describes as an awful year.The show, which I saw at Wilton's Music Hall in London, is a sort of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Love Train” is first up. Rather than the 1972 O’Jays’ hit, this totally different song was originally released as the B-side of a 1971 single – though it’s often credited as a 1968 release. By The Lovemasters, a Chicago band active under that name from 1970, it’s an absolute winner – vaguely along the Temptations line, with a circling guitar figure, subtle piano fills and a loose funkiness. Their founder member Edith Andrews had been active in Chicago’s music from the late 1950s.
Image
The label which issued the Lovemasters 45 was Jacklyn, Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
This is a real humdinger of a Holmes, an intoxicating swirl through the mind of the fictional detective who has fascinated figures as diverse as Harrison Ford, Agatha Christie, and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Joel Horwood’s update takes Conan Doyle’s original The Sign of Four and liberally spices it with elements of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, the BBC’s Sherlock and an opium dream, to create a storyline that keeps you on your toes at the same time as it leads you through a labyrinth. It’s a quarter of a century since I reviewed the then unknown Benedict Cumberbatch in the Regent Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The last time I heard the excellent Carice Singers was last year as they marked the 90th birthday of Arvo Pärt. But Pärt’s meditative and inward musical language could not be further from the jagged and confrontational world of Steve Martland, the focus of last Thursday’s Kings Place recital. The seamless switch from one to the other shows the versatility of the choir, made of up some of the finest young choral singers in London, led by the presiding intelligence of conductor George Parris.Martland, who died at just 58 in 2013, was best known for the post-minimalist instrumental pieces he Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
After her lyrical tribute last year to a gone-too-soon young poet, Letters from Max, Sarah Ruhl returns to the Hampstead Theatre with the same director, Blanche McIntyre, though this time in the main house and with larger forces. It’s a big-hearted, funny production. Stage Kiss has a plot that’s almost Noel Coward-like in its ambitions: two actors who were once lovers are reunited in a 1930s melodrama, The Last Kiss, about a married woman, Ada, who is dying and wants to see her ex-lover one last time. The leads are required to kiss nine times per performance, 288 in the run in total Read more ...
stephen.walsh
With Cardiff’s St David’s Hall continuing under wraps while it gets a new roof, the BBC NOW is still having to be tyre-levered into the much smaller Hoddinott Hall for its public concerts. It refuses to be restricted by this minor inconvenience. Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung, in Thursday’s concert conducted by Alexandre Bloch (pictured above), was done with the usual army of strings and duly pinned us all metaphorically to the back wall with the sheer blast of sound in one of its composer’s noisiest tone poems.They even named the concert after the piece: "Death and Transfiguration", even Read more ...
Gary Naylor
In the 70s, a science-inclined schoolboy like me was directed to young adult oriented biographies of Thomas Edison, of which there were many. They left out the more problematic aspects of his life, the dubious business practices and some of his more Victorian approaches to demonstrating the power of electricity (don’t Google it). Instead, they favoured the legend of a lone genius beating the odds to, quite literally, enlighten the world.The iconography of his story runs deep in the human soul. But there’s always an Icarus to warn us of the dangers of hubris, lurking on our left shoulder and Read more ...