Reviews
Florence Hallett
Standing inside the Gemeentemuseum’s life-size reconstruction of Mondrian’s Paris studio, the painter’s reputation as an austere recluse seems well-deserved. Returning from Holland to France after the First World War, he lived and worked in what seem like impossibly cramped conditions, a narrow and unforgiving-looking bed the only comfort in a room dedicated to the rigorously geometric compositions for which he had become famous. Walls, furniture and even books were painted white, with selected features like the stove and an ashtray left black, and squares of primary colour pinned here and Read more ...
Tim Cumming
It’s the seventh Songlines Encounters festival, with musical meetings ranging from Portugal (Thursday’s Ricardo Ribeiro) to India (Friday’s Bollywood Brass Band with South Indian violinist Jyotsna Srikanth). Its closing Saturday night saw English folk singer, song collector and consort of the nightingale, Sam Lee, with Vindauga, a quartet of musicians from Norway and Scotland – singer Unni Lovlid, hardanger fiddler Erlend Apnesath, Scottish violin player Sarah-Jane Summers, Juhani Silvola on electric and acoustic guitar, and the harmonium of Andreas Utnem.Their repertoire ranged from swirling Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we are enjoying a host of cultural and historical reminders, from Tate Britain to the British Library, and many locations in between, all affording a degree of prominence that over most of the last century would have been inconceivable. And now we have Peter Ackroyd’s Queer City to put it all in context – 'Twas ever thus, if you like – charting the history of gay life in the capital from the Romans to the present day.The historian par exellence of London, and chronicler of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the triumphant vindication of the Beatles' decision to quit touring and instead exploit the possibilities of the recording studio. Could there be anything new to say about an album so thoroughly analysed, anatomised, eulogised and mythologised?Eager to answer that question with a resounding “yes” came Howard Goodall, bounding eagerly into the studio to tell us why, exactly, Sgt Pepper is so blinking marvellous and how it blew open the doors to a limitless new Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Fat cigar at hand, Jim Morrison is pondering the future of music. “Maybe it might rely heavily on electronics, tapes,” he says. “I can envision maybe one person with a lot of machines, tapes and electronic set ups, singing or speaking and using machines.” When that prediction was first broadcast in late June 1969, what he described may have seemed outlandish but it came to pass. He can’t be held responsible for Howard Jones, but whole genres of music evolved which revolved around solo artists utilising, indeed, machines, tapes and electronic set ups.However, at that moment, it’s unlikely many Read more ...
David Nice
"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to me in art: simplicity, depth and spirituality". The same is true of the personality revealed in this slim but by no means undernourishing volume from one of our time's most fascinating pianists.The reflections on music and literature in the second half are more revelatory than the memoir of his precociously gifted childhood and youth, where Kissin's refusal to be hard on anyone or waspish gives a Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Nicely covering the many bases of Frederick Ashton's genius, the Royal Ballet triple bill which opened last night is a chance to see both the company and its founder choreographer on top form. The Dream shows Ashton at his narrative best, handling comedy and kisses with equal aplomb. Symphonic Variations displays his slightly less well-known talent for abstract ballet, and is one of the most enjoyable 20 minutes in the entire repertoire. And Marguerite and Armand commemorates his abiding fascination with Margot Fonteyn, who inspired him more than any other dancer except perhaps Pavlova.The Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The Shepherd – original title El pastor – is a Spanish film which carried all before it at the Raindance Festival. It’s a very Raindance kind of movie. Shot on a low budget with a small cast, a single handheld camera shaking like a leaf, it sticks up for the little guy against a big bad corporate world. And it’s very much the vision of one sensibility: Jonathan Cenzual Burley wrote, shot, directed and produced it. It’s his third film - not bad for someone who only six years ago was a junior research on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.The shepherd of the title is Anselmo (Miguel Martín), a solitary Read more ...
David Nice
When are the big international opera houses going to wake up to the great British talent that is Elizabeth Llewellyn? With her opulent soprano – shaded middle register, full bloom at the top, cutting chest voice – she was born to sing Verdi and Puccini, and her stage presence is undeniable from the moment she steps out. English National Opera threw her a few roles – Micaëla, Mimì, Mozart's Countess – but then seemed to pass over her in favour of American sopranos. Now Opera Holland Park has showcased her brilliance in an opera made for a London summer night – Puccini' Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is a master of family drama, carrying on the traditions of his illustrious predecessors Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse. But these are not films of raised voices or open conflict, rather highly nuanced studies of the emotional dynamics between parents and children – differences across the generations – or partners whose relationships have cooled. There’s always a gently melancholic tinge, and Kore-eda has a particular gift for working with his child actors, movingly presenting their point of view on the issues that divide the adults who surround them.In Read more ...
Richard Bratby
The CBSO is justifiably proud of its association with Benjamin Britten. There’s rather less proof that he reciprocated, dismissing the orchestra as "second-rate" after it premiered his War Requiem in 1962. Throughout the 1950s, he’d repeatedly promised to write an orchestral work for Birmingham, only to renege on the deal after the orchestra’s then chief conductor Rudolf Schwarz moved on to the BBC in 1957. What the CBSO did get from Britten, in September 1954, was the world premiere of an unwieldy Symphonic Suite from what's generally agreed to be one of his patchier operas, the 1953 Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Oh dear, writing this review is a bit like being mean to a small cuddly animal. Dough has such very good intentions – characters separated by race, religion and age can find common ground in a bakery – it’s a shame that it doesn’t rise into a tasty loaf but instead remains just a bit wholemeal and stolid. The excellent Jonathan Pryce plays Nat Dayan, an orthodox Jewish widower whose sole reason to get up every morning at four is to work in his beloved shop. He inherited it from his father and still bakes traditional bagels, pastries and challah bread. But the neighbourhood’s Read more ...