Berlin
Prom 60: Gerstein, Berlin RSO, Jurowski review - a master conductor returns with his German bandFriday, 01 September 2023
During his transformational time at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski conducted the complete Threepenny Opera in concert and two performances of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony which changed my mind about its being good... Read more... |
Tannhäuser, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 - compelling concert WagnerSaturday, 26 August 2023
This was one of the more strait-laced concert performances, with few concessions to Wagner’s underlying stage drama. The soloists were in formal concert dress, strung out in a line at the front of the stage, with interaction between them limited to... Read more... |
Die Verlierer, New River Studios review - Berlin punks instantly find an audience at their UK debutMonday, 08 May 2023
It’s flabbergasting. OK, there’s the power of the internet as a propagation tool but here’s a German band playing their first UK show to a jumping-up-and-down audience punching the air while shouting along with the chorus of “X-Ray Vision” – which,... Read more... |
DVD: Babylon Berlin, Season FourTuesday, 07 February 2023
It’s coming up for two years since some of us watched the first three seasons of what’s increasingly coming to seem like television’s greatest dramatic triumph. Babylon Berlin. So we might be excused for being in a bit of brainwhirl when it comes to... Read more... |
Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall / Secret Byrd, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - genuine versus theatricalTuesday, 31 January 2023
It’s dangerous to claim a sense of absolute rightness about a musical performance; that could mean no more than responding to an interpretation which happens to chime with your own subjective expectations. Yet I’m happy to stick my neck out and say... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Musikfest Berlin - orchestral and choral rainbows around the clockSaturday, 24 September 2022
In its three weeks of world-class events, Muskfest Berlin has managed to be all things to all people – like a mini-Proms distilling the aspects of top international visitors alongside home-grown excellence, and of a focus on at least one relatively... Read more... |
Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall review - Brahms the chameleonWednesday, 21 September 2022
Epic-lyric magician Brahms wears a very adaptable garment for certain masterpieces: black on the outside with fur trimming, reversible to show its exquisitely wrought, variegated silk patterns on the inside.For the celebrated G minor Piano Quartet... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Kuhle WampeTuesday, 20 September 2022
Kuhle Wampe is a fascinating curio, a blend of documentary, social realist drama and political debate which so bothered the German authorities upon its release in 1932 that they promptly banned it. The censorship board’s justification condemned the... Read more... |
Album: Julia Hülsmann Quartet - The Next DoorMonday, 29 August 2022
Not every musician has friends in high places in quite the way German jazz pianist and composer Julia Hülsmann does these days.A few weeks ago she played a private concert at the invitation of the German Head of State. Bundespräsident Frank-Walter... Read more... |
The Audition review - love and hate at music schoolSaturday, 02 April 2022
If Roman Polanski had directed Whiplash, something like this study of music’s psychological cost might have resulted. Ina Weisse’s film is more incremental and naturalistic, as violin teacher Anna (Nina Hoss) gives special attention to teenage... Read more... |
Album: Plastikman & Chilly Gonzales - Consumed in KeyWednesday, 30 March 2022
The three Canadians Richie Hawtin (Plastikman), Jason Beck (Chilly Gonzales) and Tiga Sontag (aka just Tiga, who exec produced this album) are each so laden with image and persona it is easy to forget they are musicians sometimes. Hawtin has since... Read more... |
Cabaret, The Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre review – polymorphous, prodigiousMonday, 13 December 2021
Has there ever been a Cabaret as dangerous as this one? Rebecca Frecknall’s disorienting take on the Kander and Ebb classic pulls you in and spits you out in a reinvention that pushes or dissolves boundaries at every twist and turn.Transforming a... Read more... |
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