Music Reviews
Natalia Strelchenko, Wigmore Hall, London
Published: 08 January 2007
The auguries weren't good: a Russian pianist I hadn't heard of, seemingly bent on making her name on the back of a 19th-century Norwegian female composer of whom I also hadn't heard. And when her record producer walked on to introduce - in leaden, halting English - Natalia Strelchenko's performance of the works of Agathe Backer Grondahl, plus the CD he wanted us to buy, I was ready to walk out.
Konstantin Lifschitz, Wigmore Hall, London
Published: 08 January 2007
In 1994, a 17-year old Russian-born pianist named Konstantin Lifschitz had the temerity to issue a recording of Bach'sGoldberg Variations,which won him international attention and a Grammy nomination. Thirteen years on, he appears before a packed Wigmore Hall to meet the still more formidable challenge of unfolding the entire Book 1 - 100 minutes of florid and densely contrapuntal writing in all 24 keys of Bach'sWell-Tempered Clavier.
The Magic Flute - relay, Clapham Picture House, London
The King's Consort, Wigmore Hall, London
Published: 07 January 2007
Kylie, Wembley Arena, London
Riders on the Storm, Roundhouse, London
Published: 07 January 2007
Album: The Good, the Bad and the Queen
Published: 05 January 2007
Messiah, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow
Published: 05 January 2007
The first two days of January are a drab time in Scotland, after the junketing of Hogmanay. So there's a tradition of spicing things up with performances of Messiah. For some reason, this oratorio has attached itself to this period, attracting many punters who, one suspects, never otherwise see the inside of a concert hall. At least, the person next to me, who beat time, stamped her feet and sang along throughout the evening, clearly didn't know how to behave.
Roy Ayers, Jazz Café, London
Published: 05 January 2007
Rarely has an American artist made so durable and warm a connection with the British public as has the vibraphonist and singer Roy Ayers. Since the acid jazz movement of the early Nineties - a style which he prefigured by at least 20 years - Ayers has probably spent an average of a month each year in the UK, drawing packed audiences again and again while other home-grown names basked briefly in the limelight and then disappeared.
Voland Quartet, The Wigmore Hall, London
Published: 04 January 2007
The Voland Quartet consists of the players in Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. That's half a short concert taken care of - what about the rest? It's hard to come up with a repertoire. Yet this Bulgarian-Polish ensemble not only filled its programme but kept the audience intrigued and, eventually, entertained.
The King's Consort/ Robert King, The Wigmore Hall, London
Published: 04 January 2007
In these days of phone-ins, quizzes and prizes, you'd think an annual competition to come up with the most appropriate music (for that year) to see out the old year would be de rigueur.
Riders On The Storm, Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow; Spare Snare / The Grim Northern Social, King Tut's, Glasgow
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Published: 04 January 2007
Belmont Ensemble, St Martin In The Fields, London
Published: 03 January 2007
New year is when the main concert halls go mushy or shut up shop, and audiences are forced to look elsewhere. The result is that lovely venues that are ignored for the rest of the year briefly come into their own. But where better to listen to Baroque music than in a Baroque church? Since court music of the 18th century was first and foremost a matter of sensory delight, it makes sense to give that delight a visual component: to let the eye wander over sculptural and architectural beauties, while harmonic intricacy beguiles the ear.
Duke Special, Purcell Room, London
Published: 03 January 2007
His press photographs don't do him justice, that's for sure. It's not the ginger dreads or the kohl-lined eyes so much as Duke Special's mad-eyed stare. On stage, the Belfast singer (known to his friends by the rather more humdrum moniker of Peter Wilson) cuts a far cuddlier figure.
Tallis Scholars/Phillips, St John's, Smith Square, London
Published: 02 January 2007
Taking place within St John's regular Christmas Festival - now 21 years old - this concert by The Tallis Scholars, under its founder/director Peter Phillips, drew the largest audience I have ever seen in this space. The galleries, bar, and restaurant, plus the main space of this deconsecrated church, were absolutely brimming.
Philharmonia Orchestra/Salonen, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Published: 02 January 2007
So Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia are finally engaged. The relationship that began so auspiciously back in 1983 when Salonen stepped in at short notice to conduct Mahler's Third Symphony will be consummated at the start of the 2008/09 season when he becomes principal conductor.
The Sixteen, St John's Smith Square, London
Published: 01 January 2007
Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the fact that fog had brought the outside world to a standstill, but no one in St John's Smith Square seemed content to just sit and listen. So when Harry Christophers turned his back on his singers before they'd sung a note, and invited the audience to intone "O come, O come, Emmanuel", everybody did, fortissimo. Then it was "Good King Wenceslas", with the gents booming out "Yonder peasant, who is he?" to be answered by the ladies' dainty: "Sire, he lives a good league hence." And what a nice, old-fashioned feeling it was, to sing without fear of being critically listened to.
Anna Picard: The merging of sound and vision
Published: 31 December 2006
Put me on a couch in a darkened room and ask me about the last year in music, and this is what would come to mind: the expression on Stuart Skelton's face in the last bars of David Alden's English National Opera production of Jenufa, as poor, unloved Laca is frozen in fear of finally being loved in return; the wry speech inflections of the cello in Steve Reich's docu-opera The Cave; the blaze of intelligence and pity and outrage in London Sinfonietta's Proms performance of Hans Werner Henze's Voices; Peter Quint calmly lifting Miles from the bath in Jonathan Kent's meticulously disturbing Glyndebourne production of The Turn of the Screw; the absurd thrill of watching the themes of Act III of Siegfried ripple through the Hallé Orchestra like a Mexican wave; and the beautiful rhetoric of Penelope's aria "Torna il tranquillo al mare" in Welsh National Opera's production of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria sua.
Simon Price: Breast in peace, The Darkness
Published: 31 December 2006
When an enormous pair of breasts hovered above my head on 7 February, Justin Hawkins was literally flying high. Nestled in the cleavage of the fibreglass knockers, The Darkness singer was launching the band's UK tour with the first of two nights at Alexandra Palace, having just released a second platinum-selling album. If this was failure, then most bands would sell their grandmothers for an eighth of it. And yet, the urban myth that The Darkness were "over" or "finished" was everywhere. During the mega-success of the quartet's debut Permission to Land, they annoyed almost as many as they enchanted, and the vultures had been hovering ever since, waiting for the merest whiff of a backlash.
Pharrell, Brixton Academy, London
Published: 29 December 2006
Pharrell is only two songs in, and the baking metaphors are flying off the shelf. "Just picture yourself holdin' pies," he suggests, like a pie sales rep, on "How Does It Feel?" "Implement a plan and and you'll surely rise/ Shaking, boiling, lacing, baking, shaking, shaping, gotta get this cake right!"
Larrikin Love, Brixton Academy, London
Published: 29 December 2006
Edward Larrikin shares the bohemian urchin image and yearning rock sound of The Libertines. But he dreams of "the Big Music", the inclusive vision proclaimed by The Waterboys' Mike Scott in the 1980s, which holds that genres of sound run into each other.
Brandenburg Ensemble/Pinnock, Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Published: 28 December 2006
Ten nations come together in Trevor Pinnock's new European Brandenburg Ensemble. Originally dreamt up as a kind of 60th birthday present to himself, the project will occupy Pinnock and his musicians, on and off, up to his next birthday. As well as touring, they will release the six concertos next April, which should provide a fascinating comparison with his landmark 1981 recordings with the English Concert.
