20th century
Highlights from Photo London 2017 - virtual reality meets vintage treasureSaturday, 20 May 2017
At heart, Photo London is a selling fair for expensive photographic prints. You wander through the steamy labyrinth of Somerset House from gallery show to gallery show surrounded by black-clad snapperati, assaulted on all sides by images until lost... Read more... |
No Dogs, No Indians, Brighton Festival review – poor production shoulders too big a taskFriday, 19 May 2017
A whacking great story has gone largely untold in British theatre: the legacy of colonialism in India, including the cultural ghosts the British left behind. With the 70th anniversary of Indian independence just round the corner this summer, poet... Read more... |
CBSO, Wilson, Symphony Hall BirminghamThursday, 11 May 2017
It’s been said – and with some justification – that John Wilson’s own Orchestra has the finest-sounding string section in the world today. What’s certain is that when Wilson guests with other orchestras, he transforms their string sound. It’s not... Read more... |
Queer British Art 1861-1967, Tate BritainThursday, 20 April 2017
"Good for the history of music, but not for music," one of Prokofiev's professors at the St Petersburg Conservatoire used to say of artistically dubious works which created a splash, according to the composer's diaries. I'm not even sure that this... Read more... |
Dego, CBSO, Rustioni, Symphony Hall, BirminghamThursday, 09 March 2017
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari has never quite been a one-work composer. No points for knowing the fizzy overture to his delightful 1909 pro-smoking comedy Il segreto di Susanna; quite a few more if you know the whole opera. Extra credit for being able to hum... Read more... |
Juan Diego Flórez, Vincenzo Scalera, Symphony Hall, BirminghamWednesday, 22 February 2017
“Who says Mozart is not like Rossini?” remarked Juan Diego Flórez, about a quarter of an hour into his debut recital at Symphony Hall. “There are seven high Cs in this aria.” And with a flicker of notes from the pianist Vincenzo Scalera, he was off... Read more... |
Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932, Royal AcademyMonday, 13 February 2017
This must be the most depressing exhibition I have ever seen. Dedicated to the leaders of the Russian Revolution, the first room features official portraits by Isaak Brodsky of Lenin and Stalin plus drawings and models of Lenin’s vast mausoleum in... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Jakub HrůšaSaturday, 04 February 2017
Only four flutes were on stage at the start of Jakub Hrůša’s latest concert with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the reins of which he took over from Jonathan Nott last September. Charles Ives would have been amazed to hear his “Voices of Druids” on... Read more... |
Van Keulen, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 26 January 2017
Readers might be wondering how often the spectre of Trump is destined to loom in reviews. Well, Vladimir Jurowski's daring (and undersold) second concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the loose aegis of the Belief and Beyond Belief... Read more... |
Bavouzet, BBCPO, Collon, Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterMonday, 16 January 2017
Colin Matthews’s arrangements for orchestra of the 24 Debussy Préludes (originally commissioned by the Hallé) have been widely admired. The BBC Philharmonic’s concert, conducted by Nicholas Collon, at the Bridgewater Hall on Friday night began with... Read more... |
Best of 2016: ArtThursday, 29 December 2016
Before we consign this miserable year to history, there are a few good bits to be salvaged; in fact, for the visual arts 2016 has been marked by renewal and regeneration, with a clutch of newish museum directors getting into their stride, and... Read more... |
Robert Rauschenberg, Tate ModernThursday, 08 December 2016
The Good American, a Texan no less, has landed at Tate Modern in style. This posthumous retrospective of the great Robert Rauschenberg includes a paint-bespattered, fully made-up bed hung vertically on the wall, and called – you guessed – Bed,1955 (... Read more... |
