Reviews
Adam Sweeting
There have been legendary conductors, and then there was Herbert von Karajan. He was a colossus of post-World War Two classical music, equipped with fearsome technical mastery allied to a vaguely supernatural gift for extracting exquisite sounds from orchestras. But that wasn't all. An expert skier with a passion for high-performance cars and flying his own jet, he was as charismatic as a movie star or sporting idol.John Bridcut's superb profile surveyed the Salzburg-born Karajan as if he were Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn, considering the contradictions in his character as though studying Read more ...
graham.rickson
Prokofiev: Symphonies 1 and 2, Sinfonietta Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits (Onyx)Only two of Prokofiev's seven symphonies seem to be performed with any regularity. Of the remainder, nos. 2 and 4 remain the shadiest, so it's pleasing to hear a blistering, cogent account of the former. Prokofiev's friend Konstantin Balmont described the composer as "a sunny Scythian". Knowing that, it's far easier to enjoy this 1925 symphony's many positives. The first movement's relentless energy does sound undeniably positive in Kirill Karabits's hands, and his Bournemouth Symphony Read more ...
Barney Harsent
There is a tradition in oral storytelling of individual embellishments and flourishes, of one tale taking many forms – the more it is told, the finer the detail. Characters are added and the narrative extended. In this way, stories stand up to near endless repetition for they always have something new to offer us, there is always something new to learn.Sadly, The Story of Funk: One Nation Under a Groove is not one of these stories. As soon as the titles had rolled, we were told, again, how James Brown invented the funk. We heard, for the umpteenth time, of Sly Stone’s daring pairing of funk Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
The Last Door is a game out of time. Its point 'n' click adventuring has a retro feel matched by deceptively simple, pseudo-8-bit graphics and an almost total lack of handholding. You are instantly dropped into the game's prologue with no tutorial and no indication as to what you need to do. It's just your blocky avatar in a room with some objects. What now?The way that intro plays out is disturbing, even given the faux-primitive presentation and goes a long way to establishing the gloomy atmosphere that envelops the game. Prologue complete, you play Jeremiah Devitt, a young Victorian Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Hong Kong master Wong Kar Wai has ventured into new territory with The Grandmaster. Many years in the making, his new film is a remarkable portrayal of martial-arts traditions, specifically the story of kung fu master Ip Man from his early life in mainland China on the eve of World War II, through to post-war exile in Hong Kong. It was there that he set up his own Wing Chun school, which would with time achieve huge international popularity; Ip went on to train future kung fu stars, most notably Bruce Lee.Fans of the heightened aesthetics of Wong’s early arthouse masterpieces like 2000’s In Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The last time I saw Jon Hopkins he was bangin’ out techno to a marquee full of sweating ravers at a festival on the Silesian plains of Poland, one man and a small gaggle of black boxes. Today the boxes have expanded from a small gaggle into a congregation and he is joined, upon occasion, by guitarist Leo Abrahams and a violinist, as well as a hefty dose of backdrop visuals and lighting. He also has a grand piano to which he occasionally retreats so that he might play lilting pieces culled from his soundtrack to 2010’s giant-aliens-take over-the-Tex-Mex-border movie Monsters. The audience is Read more ...
Miriam Gillinson
A chalky-faced man stands in the shadows and his limbs jolt about, as if battling for position beneath his skin. This is the ghost of Hamlet's father and he is a fearful sight in ACS Random's Victorian and spectral take on Shakespeare's tragedy. When Hamlet senior's spirit croaks "Remember me!", it seems superfluous. This is a creature impossible to forget, even if this production's real-life characters aren't as vibrant as its figures from beyond the grave.Andrew Shepherd's production kicks off with a ferocious seance, involving Horatio (wearing a Victorian-era bowler hat) and some lace-clad Read more ...
Florence Hallett
I must admit to feeling, briefly, just a little disappointed on first sight of Maggi Hambling’s Walls of Water, nine new paintings on show at the National Gallery. Perhaps it was the evocative title, which promises high drama and instant gratification, something obviously and extravagantly impressive. In short, I was expecting something bigger, an absurd statement because eight out of the nine canvases measure more than six by seven feet. And yet, they are small. Unframed, and with minimal information on the walls, protected from visitors by the finest of wires, these paintings, hanging in Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The single spacious room that is the central location of Tena Štivičić’s 3 Winters has seen plenty of ghosts. It’s part of an old Zagreb mansion, and through the course of the play witnesses the diverse events of Croatian history of the last 70-odd years played out in miniature. Three overlapping time-schemes chart the full rotations of surrounding society: from the war-end move towards Communism in 1945, through 1990 eve-of-break-up Yugoslavia, and on to 2011, not long before EU accession. We may not literally see anything on either side of these three eras, but the action is implicitly Read more ...
David Nice
If Brahms’s First Symphony has long been dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth”, then the 23-year-old Rachmaninov’s First merits the label of “Tchaikovsky’s Seventh” (a genuine candidate for that title, incidentally, turns out to be a poor reconstruction from Tchaikovsky’s sketches by one Bogatryryev). Yet unlike the other near-contemporary works in last night’s programme, Szymanowski’s Concert Overture and Scriabin’s Piano Concerto, it has a disturbing individuality, a heavy heart that is truly worn “inside out”, as Vladimir Jurowski’s season-long Rachmaninov festival with his London Philharmonic Read more ...
Matt Wolf
God love Bill Murray. Just when you think you can't take yet another film about the cross-generational divide that finds crotchety older person transformed by the company of youth (and vice-versa), along comes Murray's latest star vehicle, St Vincent, to inject new life into a more than time-honored conceit in a movie that feels quietly revelatory in all sorts of small ways, as well. (Example: Melissa McCarthy for once isn't reduced to a screaming banshee and visual sight gag.) In synopsis, writer-director Ted Melfi's narrative might seem like one where you can foretell every turn when the Read more ...
David Nice
In one way, it makes sense to give your London comeback concert in the venue where you made your European debut 44 years ago. Yet the Royal Festival Hall is a mighty big place for a violin-and-piano recital. Kyung Wha Chung had no problem nearly filling it last night with an audience including whole Korean families, but might have wished she hadn’t in the ailment-ridden dead of winter; her look could have killed a coughing child ("go and get a glass of water" is what I think I heard her say, from my very distant seat). There were swathes of panache in an emotionally demanding programme, but Read more ...