Geoff Brown
geoff brown
Articles by Geoff Brown
BBC Concert Orchestra, Nu Civilisation Orchestra, Lockhart, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Monday, 25 March 2013
Any conductor who ends a concert with only one leg on the ground, as if engaged in the Highland fling, is either a little fanciful or has been utterly carried away. In Keith Lockhart’s case last... Read more... |
Zimerman, Philharmonia, Salonen, Royal Festival Hall
Thursday, 31 January 2013
The centenary bandwagon always passes some composers by: how many organisations in Britain will be celebrating George Lloyd or Tikhon Khrennikov? Other figures almost get steamrollered flat with... Read more... |
DVD: René Clément films
Friday, 04 January 2013
René Clément? Who he? Sixty years ago the question didn’t need to be asked: 1952 was the year of his greatest triumph, Forbidden Games (Jeux interdits), one of four titles being issued separately by... Read more... |
DVD: Leave Her to Heaven
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Five million dollars: in the 1940s that was enough profit to make this Technicolor melodrama 20th Century Fox’s biggest box-office hit of the decade. Reaching cinemas in January 1946 on the heels of... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly
Monday, 03 September 2012
If you’re going to bash a tam-tam for six, the Albert Hall is the perfect place to do it. The reverberation lasts for ages; and everyone in the audience can see you bashing. That must explain in part... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Bronfman, Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle
Saturday, 01 September 2012
Champagne on ice in the private boxes; scarcely any spare seats. This isn’t the normal situation for a concert climaxing in Witold Lutosławski’s Third Symphony, a modernist work whose usual audience... Read more... |
BBC Proms: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Manze
Friday, 17 August 2012
One chocolate bar, OK. But eating three in a row? Is that altogether wise? Some may feel the same about a concert containing three symphonies by Vaughan Williams: a third of his output in the form.... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Hodges, Bickley, Daniel, Britten Sinfonia, Rundell
Sunday, 12 August 2012
A motley crowd at Cadogan Hall on Saturday afternoon: new music aficionados and interested parties; general music lovers; some passing trade; tourists; one dad with a young boy of six or seven.... Read more... |
DVD: Wonderful London
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Long before the invention of digital technology and the birth of Keira Knightley, cinema shows in Britain contained not one feature, or two features, but also what the advertisements called a "full... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Cooper, Juilliard Orchestra, RAM Orchestra, Adams
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
One top student orchestra playing on its own can be exciting enough. Two playing together can produce a charge of dynamite that might not leave the building standing. That was so anyway in last night... Read more... |
The First Night of the Proms, Royal Albert Hall
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Two weeks to go to the Olympics, of course, but the Proms Olympics – 84 concerts in 60 days – have already taken off, with Britain placed first, second, third and fourth. For last night’s First Night... Read more... |
Ibragimova, Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment, Gardner, Mansion House
Friday, 29 June 2012
For the general public, getting to see the Mansion House in the City of London is almost as easy a task as becoming a dentist who specialises in hen’s teeth. But that was not the only reason for... Read more... |
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Jansons, Barbican Hall
Sunday, 13 May 2012
I half expected to hear someone on the platform call out “Is there a doctor in the house?” For Mariss Jansons, principal conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and esteemed beyond measure,... Read more... |
Tetzlaff, London Symphony Orchestra, Eötvös, Barbican Hall
Monday, 30 April 2012
“I don’t want to be a Cyclops,” Pierre Boulez said in 2010, faced with the prospect of conducting a Chicago concert with only one working eye. Eye troubles, alas, have continued to bedevil the... Read more... |
Currie, LPO, Vänskä, Royal Festival Hall
Thursday, 19 April 2012
A mischievous part of me firmly believes that from the mountain of dubious art works produced in the world since the 1980s, the most dubious of all have been the percussion concertos. I know I’m... Read more... |
The Yeomen of the Guard, Philharmonia Orchestra, Wilson, Royal Festival Hall
Monday, 16 April 2012
Looking at John Wilson conduct, it’s possible to think that you’re watching an incarnation of that Proms favourite of decades past, Sir Malcolm Sargent. The immaculate tailcoat, shining white cuffs,... Read more... |
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