The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
It is a glorious moment in the life of any music-loving parent when your progeny develop their own fierce musical tastes, and start looking rather askance at yours. My case may be extreme, as my two children have had to put up with my music for years. As previously mentioned in these columns, my tinnitus
Opera North’s latest and most ambitious outreach project is a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, which will end its tour with a month’s run from mid-August at the Barbican. The second performance in the Grand Theatre Leeds went down very well, and I’m sure that the whole run will be a great success.
The arrival of the Proms prospectus, with its glamorous pictures of the stars of today, makes me wonder how much those very palatable-looking people are costing the BBC. The question is prompted by the style of the photography — the sexing up of the Weapons of Mass Destruction dossier has nothing on how string players
Willie Nelson. An Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground. That is all.
A few weeks ago, feeling stale and stressed, I escaped to our dilapidated cottage in Dorset for a few days on my own. When I was younger, and especially when I was drinking heavily, I often felt ill at ease in my own company, but these days I get on quite happily alone, though I
I first became aware of Bob Marley when I heard ‘Put It On’ by the Wailers, and their version of Tom Jones’s ‘What’s New Pussycat’, in 1967. These tracks in turn led me to discover the ska songs recorded at Studio One, such as the blueprint of Bob’s all- time world classic ‘One Love’ and
Tim Minchin swept the board at the Oliviers last Sunday. The Australian’s hit musical, Matilda, won a record seven gongs at the West End’s most prestigious awards ceremony. The rise of Minchin has been stratospheric. Just eight years ago he started out on the Melbourne cabaret circuit performing quizzical spoofs like ‘Inflatable You’, a ballad
There was a sort of interesting documentary on BBC4 last night about a genre of popular music called ‘Southern Rock’ — ie what we, back in the 1970s, called Southern Boogie — Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Bros, Charlie Daniels, and so on. It was interesting for mainly two reasons. First it reminded me of how
In recent years there have been a number of exhibitions of Keith Vaughan’s work in commercial galleries, and his prices at auction have climbed steadily, but no major show in the nation’s museums. Yet interest in his life keeps pace with the revival in his art (the standard biography of Vaughan, by Malcolm Yorke, is
The death of Gustav Leonhardt at the age of 83 brings to an end the career of one of the giants of the early music movement. As an organist, harpsichordist and conductor he was long at the forefront of the experiments and revelations that the drive to perform music on period instruments made possible. He
The man who was probably the greatest banjo player in history has died, aged 88. Steve Martin says everything that needs to be said here. Here he and Earl are performing the immortal Foggy Mountain Breakdown.
In April, for the first time in ages, I am going to a wedding. At least it will make a change from all the funerals. The middle-aged pop fan feels this all the more deeply, because few of our favourite musicians seem to make old bones. Or, more accurately, they make old bones, but at
Every December, for the past decade, I have laid a red rose on Schubert’s grave in Vienna’s southern cemetery. What began as a gesture has become a custom, a way of giving thanks to the most lovable of all composers. Schubert may not be as great as Bach or Beethoven, who established the musical language
The main event in the E Street nation this month was not so much the release of the new Bruce Springsteen album as the litmus test live concert at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theatre last Friday. How would The Boss cope without The Big Man, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who died last year after suffering a stroke?
From an early Transatlantic Session. I think you’ll find it speaks for itself. How could it fail when it’s got Emmylou, Rufus, Kate and Anna? Simple but pretty nifty.
The Choirbook for the Queen, which has recently been launched, is a remarkable initiative, involving most of the leading Church musicians of our day and many philanthropists besides. The idea behind it is simple enough: to put together a collection of anthems (I use the word precisely) to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, with the
Speaking of Texas, here’s that fine old troubador and all-round country oddity Lyle Lovett reminding us That’s Right, You’re Not From Texas…
Johnny Cash would have been 80 tomorrow which is reason enough to resurrect some Saturday Morning Country. Here, from 1987, is a performance of Lefty Frizzell’s classic The Long Black Veil:
Whisper it ever so quietly, but I think we might just be through the worst that winter has to throw at us. I’m writing this down in Dorset, and though there was a ferocious wind at West Bay, whipping up huge waves that broke spectacularly over the pier, and a peculiarly spiteful heavy shower, precisely
Next month, a formidable band of women will take to the stage at the Southbank Centre for the Women of the World Festival, now in its second year. The line-up includes veteran Annie Lennox, who will perform with rising stars Katy B, Jess Mills, and Brit Award winner Emeli Sandé as part of an eclectic
One morning in 2007, the music critic Nick Coleman woke up to find that he was profoundly deaf in one ear. ‘The silence did not descend silently, however. It made a small sound. You might compare it to the sound of a kitten dropping on to a pillow.’ Within an hour this pffff had developed
We are all just trying to make a living here, obviously. Musicians are no different. There are so many of them now, several generations of them, for the old ones never stop and new ones seem to appear every day. To make any impression at all, then, you need what sportsmen call ‘momentum’. That’s the
There is only one place these days where the music of Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924) sends its hearers into reliable ecstasy, and that is in choirs and places where they sing. Otherwise he is something of a bust. Despite having written seven symphonies, nine operas, 11 concertos (including three piano, two violin, a cello and
For the first time in its 170-year history, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra has a native New Yorker at the helm. Music director Alan Gilbert (above) brings the band to the Barbican this month for a brief residency that crams four concerts into a little over 48 hours, starting with a performance of Mahler’s Ninth
There are few art forms with more colossal barriers to entry than classical music. Picture yourself finally plucking up the courage to go to your first classical concert. You arrive late, because at that gig last Saturday you had to sit through two ill-judged warm-up acts, an act of charity you’re not inclined to repeat;
We are already more than halfway through January and I am still managing to stick heroically to my new year’s resolution. This is to keep smoking throughout 2012 — with a particularly large intake of nicotine and tar planned for the dreaded Olympic Games when everyone will be banging on about the glories of physical
The phrase ‘community drummers’ strikes fear into me. When I read it in the programme notes for Survivor, Antony Gormley’s collaboration with Hofesh Shechter, premièred at the Barbican, I paused a beat. The elder cerebral artist paired with the young passionate choreographer: so what exactly is this? In the ladies afterwards I heard the disparaging
This ain’t necessarily Townes at his best. Then again, the singing was never the biggest point of TvZ. But of all his songs this is close to being my favourite and not just because it means much to at least one other person. Self-indulgent? Sure. But so what? This is a blog. My blog, actually.
What is Christmas for, exactly? For me, it’s a time of reflection and of sudden dawning realisation. Reflection on the year’s new music, and the sudden dawning realisation that I have hardly heard any of it. Not that I think it matters. Newness isn’t everything, or even very much, and there’s no reason why anyone