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Barenboim – the waggon rolls

January 29, 2010 By

At ten o'clock this morning (Friday, Jan 29) at the Royal Festival Hall, Daniel Barenboim began his attempt to rekindle the Beethoven intensity of his London piano cycle of 2008. Over the next four nights he will perform the five Beethoven piano concertos in conjunction with the orchestral works of Arnold Schoenberg. Tickets for two of the concerts sold out within minutes. Some 900 Londoners bought the cycle outright and demand for the whole has been so heavy that the hall opened its general … [Read more...]

01/29/10 12:47 PM | filed under: main |

The sun shines in Australia

January 29, 2010 By

The imbroglio - wonderful word, reminiscent of Dutch masters and Borgia Popes - let me start that sentence again. The imbroglio that has been festering around Melbourne's Recital Centre inestimably beautiful recital centre has finally been tackled by its political overlords.The chief executive, Jacques de Vos Malan, has departed only three months into his second contract and a sage pair of hands, Joe Carponi, has been hauled out of retirement to deal with the financial deficit. … [Read more...]

01/29/10 7:53 AM | filed under: main |

More concert disturbances

January 28, 2010 By

What people can and cannot do during a concert came up this morning on the BBC's Today programme, according to a respondent to my previous posting: A similar theme was taken up by (Vladimir) Jurowski on this morning's "Today" programme on R4. Audiences at the OAE's(Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) Roundhouse gigs should be allowed to drink beer and eat crisps, apparently. I'm all for a relaxation, but crisps? Honestly... Still, I would rather depend on the decency of my neighbour not … [Read more...]

01/28/10 5:31 PM | filed under: main |

Permission to listen? And to share what I feel?

January 26, 2010 By

Richard Morrison, the Times music critic, had an eye-popping experience in New York. At a Philharmonic concert, he relates in BBC Music magazine, 'audience members were allowed - nay, encouraged - to "live blog" or "live tweet" comments to each other, or their "followers" in the world outside, during the performances.' Indeed they were, and we have read much about it elsewhere. What struck me here, though, was Morrison's use of verbs and inverted commas to signify his distance - nay, disdain - … [Read more...]

01/26/10 11:13 AM | filed under: main |

Is your music really kosher?

January 21, 2010 By

I was sitting in an Indian restaurant the other evening managing a family birthday when an ooze of canned botulism smacked my eardrums and I summoned a waiter for edification. What I heard was not to be dignified with the noun 'sound'. It was a conflation of Beatles songs and one or two Abbas played on a synthesiser that seemed to have been set on penny-whistle mode. 'What the-?' I demanded. 'It's the rabbis,' said the waiter, by way of apology. 'How the-?' I exploded. 'When … [Read more...]

01/21/10 9:45 AM | filed under: main |

This fiddler comes with an organic farming certificate

January 20, 2010 By

The most pleasing aspect of Vilde Frang on first sight is her resistance to typecasting. On the eve of an international record launch, with hedge funds rising and falling on her success or failure, the Norwegian violinist has held out against makeover pressure. She appears with rare wholesomeness in harvest-ready wheaten hair that falls below her shoulders and an unshadowed hint of plumpness in her cheeks. Before she plays a note, we know there is nothing affected about this … [Read more...]

01/20/10 11:12 AM | filed under: main |

Why I’m going on the fiddle

January 17, 2010 By

Over the last eight months, while finishing a book and doing as little journalism as I liked, I took a long, cool overview of the media and made some changes in my life. One of them was to think niche. After 15 years of writing a weekly column and 30 of being tied to mass-market newspapers, I felt an urge to speak directly to an expert readership. Writing for newspapers is great fun and I don't intend to give up, but there is a sacrifice involved every time … [Read more...]

01/17/10 12:04 PM | filed under: main |

Why Mahler?

January 15, 2010 By

Starting Mahler year tomorrow on BBC Radio 3, I am giving a short talk, Why Mahler?, which is also the title of my forthcoming book, and the working title of a documentary I am making.   It's on Music Matters at 12.15 and streamed for a week on BBC i-player, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ps0p2/Music_Matters_Henze_Mahler_and_Beatboxing/   More on Why Mahler in the coming weeks.   … [Read more...]

01/15/10 2:55 PM | filed under: main |

Putting the new Chagall in context

January 10, 2010 By

Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall's recent biographer, reviewing the newly discovered crucifixixon image in the Financial Times, suggests that it has obliged her to rethink the artists's Jewish engagement, as well as the role of Jewish art in the 21st century. Here's a pull-out quote: His work, and indeed this show, raises the whole vexed question of whether there is such a thing as Jewish art, and in turn whether a Jewish Museum of Art has a role in a multicultural … [Read more...]

01/10/10 11:25 AM | filed under: main |

In the eye of the storm – Chagall’s lost crucifixion revealed

January 8, 2010 By

One eye is shut in the agonies of approaching death. The other follows you around the room where Marc Chagall's lost crucifixion has been exposed to public gaze. In the last of ten attempts to depict the German persecution of Jews as a contemporary act of God-killing, Chagall in 1945 sketched a naked Christ-figure in a Jewish prayer-shawl and phylacteries, tormented on a cross by a creature with a Nazi armband, half-man, half-beast. The sketch was found in a Paris … [Read more...]

01/8/10 10:43 AM | filed under: main |
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