Denmark
10 Questions for singer Live Foyn FriisTuesday, 18 September 2018
Norwegian-Danish singer Live Foyn Friis (for English-speaking readers, Live is her first name) has released six albums, and leads several different ensembles, scattered intriguingly across the divide between jazz and pop. Her voice is recognisably... Read more... |
The Bridge, BBC Two, series 4 review - Scandi saga is darker than everSaturday, 12 May 2018
In the 1990s, which brought us Morse, Fitz and Jane Tennison, an idea took root that all television detectives must be mavericks. They needed to be moody, dysfunctional, addictive, a bit of an unsolved riddle. These British sleuths were all... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Hans Abrahamsen, Lully, Strauss, Duo JatekokSaturday, 21 April 2018
Hans Abrahamsen String Quartets No. 1-4 Arditti String Quartet (Winter & Winter)The opening section of Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen’s 2012 String Quartet No. 4 is subtitled “light and airy”, and, aptly, the four strings produce extraordinary... Read more... |
Below the Surface, Series Finale, BBC Four review - tense and twisty to the bitter endSunday, 08 April 2018
In the previous couple of episodes, some light began to seep into the subterranean gloom of the Copenhagen kidnappers, or at any rate onto their identities and motivations. The military theme with which Below the Surface opened, with Philip Norgaard... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Borup-Jørgensen, Mahler, Philippe Grisvard & Johannes PramsohlerSaturday, 24 March 2018
Axel Borup-Jørgensen: Marin Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Sôndergård (OUR Recordings)The physical effort involved in composing Marin was a huge strain on the Danish composer Axel Borup-Jørgensen (1924-2012). This ear-stretching musical... Read more... |
Below the Surface, BBC Four review - terror in CopenhagenSunday, 11 March 2018
Read Adam Sweeting's review of the Below the Surface FinaleAfter recent experiences with the likes of McMafia, Troy and Collateral, mysteriously moribund affairs apparently designed by a committee of box-ticking zombies, many a viewer will turn with... Read more... |
Emil Nolde: Colour Is Life, National Gallery of Ireland review - boats, dancers, flowersThursday, 15 February 2018
Colours had meanings for Emil Nolde. “Yellow can depict happiness and also pain. Red can mean fire, blood or roses; blue can mean silver, the sky or a storm.” As the son of a German-Frisian father and a Schleswig-Dane mother, Nolde was raised in a... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray review: Land of MineTuesday, 24 October 2017
Danish director Martin Zandvliet brilliantly explores a little-known episode in 1945 when more than 2,000 German POWs were forced to clear almost two million land mines that had been buried on the beaches of the west coast of Denmark in anticipation... Read more... |
Mads Mathias, Pizza Express Jazz Club - honeyed yet preciseTuesday, 19 September 2017
Caressing the microphone, and gazing into the audience with winsome, soulful sincerity, tousled auburn locks glistening in the stage light, Mads Mathias looks like nothing so much as Ed Sheeran’s more handsome older brother. His voice has the... Read more... |
Peter Høeg: The Susan Effect review - Nordic noir turns surrealSunday, 23 July 2017
Peter Høeg is still overwhelmingly known for a novel published a quarter of a century ago. Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow featured a half-Inuit woman whose suspicion over a young neighbour’s death in Copenhagen lures her from Denmark back to... Read more... |
The Last Kingdom - 'one of the very best things on television'Friday, 07 April 2017
The first series of The Last Kingdom in 2015 kicked off with a blockbuster episode which managed to encompass savage violence, dynastic rivalry and a speedy tour of the state of Britain in the ninth century, while allowing the central protagonist,... Read more... |
There's more to Karen Blixen than Meryl StreepMonday, 03 April 2017
Karen Blixen (1885-1962), the prolific Danish storyteller, is perhaps most immediately recognised for the portrayal of her and her works on the big screen, above all by Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. But her own story, and her place in the literary... Read more... |
