I'm always pretty much in favor of creative originality: BARBARA HANNIGAN AIMS TO CHANGE CONCERTGEBOUW VIBE
The concert on Thursday, 1 December is a compact, intimate Late Night programme without interval, in which the audience will be seated on cushions on the floor of the Concertgebouw’s Main Hall. The orchestra will perform Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child featuring Aphrodite Patoulidou. The Greek soprano will also be performing a Greek lullaby, accompanying herself on the nyckelharpa, a traditional Swedish string instrument.
On Friday 2 and Sunday 4 December Strauss and Vivier will be part of a more regular concert with interval, which will also feature Samuel Barber’s Mutations from Bach and Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto with soloist Vilde Frang. The programme is a musical voyage of ‘memory, loss, solitude, youthful innocence and coming of age’, in Hannigan’s words.
* * *
Here is a brief comment on a new book on James Bond and the Beatles: *Love and Let Die*. Remarkably, the Beatles first single, "Love Me Do" and the first Bond film, Dr. No were released on the same day in 1962. Personally, I think the early Beatles endure a lot better than the Bond films, but that's just me. This is a fascinating excerpt from the book:
In 1978, George married Olivia Arias and in the same year they had a son, Dhani. Dhani only discovered his father’s past when he was at school. ‘I came home one day from school after being chased by kids singing “Yellow Submarine”, and I didn’t understand why,’ he has said. ‘It just seemed surreal: why are they singing that song to me? I came home and freaked out to my dad: “Why didn’t you tell me you were in the Beatles?” And he said: “Oh, sorry. Probably should have told you that.” It’s impossible to imagine, John, Paul or Ringo neglecting to mention they were in the Beatles to their children.
* * *
From the annals of "who pays the piper calls the tune": English National Opera will close before it accepts move to Manchester, says chair
It’s do or die time for the English National Opera. Earlier this month Arts Council England, a Government body, said it would stop funding the ENO unless it agreed to move from London to Manchester. Now ENO chairman Harry Brunjes says the company will close rather than move up north.
“There is no relocation,” he told MPs on Wednesday. “This is closing ENO down. This is losing 600 jobs from London.” The forced move is part of the levelling up agenda, but there are mixed signals.
* * *
‘Well of Souls’ Review: The Banjo’s Backstory
The banjo gets a bum rap. A staple of American country music, its bright tone and rhythmic clangor threaten to overwhelm musical gatherings of other, milder string-band instruments, such as guitar, mandolin, bass and fiddle. This piercing, metallic quality has made it the butt of a host of musicians’ jokes (“What’s the difference between a banjo and a chainsaw?” “A chainsaw has a dynamic range”). In her compelling, thoroughly researched history, Kristina R. Gaddy reveals a different instrument entirely, one intimately rooted in the African diaspora and capable of expressing flights of sorrow and joy.
Popular culture has tended to obscure the banjo’s roots as a warm, wooden instrument built by enslaved Africans in the Americas for use in dancing and on holy days.
* * *
In September 2022, a music critic named Anthony Fantano received a string of angry Instagram D.M.s from Drake. Fantano reviews new albums in short YouTube posts, in which he monologues directly at the camera, standing in front of stacked, cherry-red record shelves. In a recent post, he had likened Drake’s latest release, Honestly, Nevermind, to “a sad solo dance party.” “Your existence is a light 1,” the Canadian rapper clapped back, a reference to Fantano’s practice of rating records on a 1–10 scale. Uncharitable, perhaps. But the fact that Drake—a global superstar who is generally cagey toward journalists—bothered to inveigh against a critic at all spoke to Fantano’s status: He may be one of the few working music critics who can, in this day and age, be conceivably called a tastemaker. It was the sort of ego-first collision of artist and critic that’s in increasingly short supply.
* * *
On the history of ballet: Pirouette power
History books will inform you that ballet properly begins in the late sixteenth century, with the elaborate marriage and birthday celebrations at the French court, drawing their imagery from the cabalistic and astrological geometry of Neoplatonic humanism. This may be true in terms of aesthetic theory, but in executive practice ballet also reflected more immediately the discipline of the military parade ground, with its insistence on straight lines, regular steps, and peremptory commands emanating from a central figure. For Louis XIV, courtly ballet at Versailles was, in the words of the historian and critic Jennifer Homans, “a matter of state” and yet “more than a blunt instrument with which to display royal opulence and power, a symbol and requirement of aristocratic identity.” And even when courtiers weren’t dancing, every move and gesture, every bow and curtsey in the royal presence was choreographed according to a strictly elegant etiquette.
* * *
In case you don't know the work of Barbara Hannigan, here she is performing a Ligeti excerpt with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony:
And, what the heck, here is the Prelude to the Cello Suite No. 1 by Bach on banjo:
And, of course, "Love Me Do"
No comments:
Post a Comment