Classical Features
Hearing Voices: Jocelyn PookSunday, 02 December 2012
“I am always fascinated by how much is in a voice, by their textures and qualities,” says composer Jocelyn Pook. “They’re like aural photographs of a person and you recognise them instantly.” We are in her studio in north London and Pook flicks through audio-files in her computer to prove the point. Some of the voices she was chosen for their inherent musicality – voices on answerphones rise upwards as questions are asked and intervals are sounded for multi-syllabic words. Read more... |
Elliott Carter RememberedMonday, 12 November 2012
It’s hard to imagine that a composer’s death at the age of 103 could be a loss to music, in the sense of possible future work, as well as a personal loss, which of course death will always be. But Elliott Carter was a unique exception. Read more... |
Opinion: why arts education mattersMonday, 05 November 2012
There’s been a star-studded attack from leading figures in the arts on the decision by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, to exclude the performing arts from the English Baccalaureate, the planned replacement for the GCSE examination. To the Coalition’s credit, they've also published a National Plan for Music Education, “part of the Government’s aim to ensure that all pupils have rich cultural opportunities alongside their academic and vocational studies”. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Calgary: Innovation and Iconoclasm at the 2012 International Honens Piano CompetitionSunday, 04 November 2012
Can you name the last three winners of the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition? The Van Cliburn? The Queen Elizabeth? Chopin? Probably not. There was a time when winning a piano competition was a ticket to success, a star-making, career-changing event. Now it’s lucky to land you an agent, let alone a record contract. Read more... |
The Composer and the Water-Nymph: Hans Werner Henze's OndineWednesday, 31 October 2012
Hans Werner Henze, the composer who died on Saturday aged 86, wrote the music for one of Margot Fonteyn's signature ballets, Ondine, a ballet about an inhuman spirit who longs to be joined to a man - but when she does, he must die. It might almost be a metaphor for the death of the thought the moment it is realised. Read more... |
Exclusive: Friar Alessandro, The Voice of AssisiSunday, 07 October 2012
By day, Friar Alessandro Brustenghi lives and works in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi. In his spare time, he works as a carpenter. But he also has a new career as, in the words of his producer Mike Hedges, “the next Italian tenor”. The fruits of his entry into Abbey Road’s recording studio is Voice from Assisi. You can listen here on theartsdesk to the entire album, exclusively until midnight on Thursday. Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bonn: Tradition and Innovation at the 2012 BeethovenfestSunday, 07 October 2012
It’s Beethoven all right, but not as you know him. The scowl is there, and the broad heroic shoulders too, but the iconic tousled hair is glowing a rather unexpected shade of orange. A purple cloak sweeps down to the floor, setting off a jaunty pair of Elton John-style glasses and a leopard-print waistcoat. Read more... |
3D: A First for the Last NightMonday, 10 September 2012
During an orchestral rehearsal, it’s tense in a TV scanner at the best of times. A scanner is one of the huge vans parked outside the Royal Albert Hall with a wall of screens showing the shots from the cameras within. There’s a large huddle of BBC radio and television vans for the whole season. But there was another outside broadcast encampment on Saturday for the Last Night of the Proms, which was being broadcast in 3D for the first time. Read more... |
Insomnia: A Nocturnal Voyage in SongWednesday, 05 September 2012
Classical albums are seldom biographical, but Insomnia turned out to be a much more personal journey than I first realised. In the summer of 2010, I was a prize winner in the Ernst Haefliger Competition in Bern, Switzerland. Part of the award was a debut recital in the Lucerne International Festival the following year. The festival theme for 2011 was “Nacht”. That’s it; one tiny word that encompasses so much. Read more... |
Opinion: How much noise is too much noise in the classical concert-hall?Tuesday, 31 July 2012
We’ve all been there: the persistent sweet-unwrapper during a Beethoven slow movement, the mobile-phone screen glowing at the corner of your field of vision throughout King Lear, the fidgeter who seems to drop their programme every time the music subsides to pianissimo. But where do we draw the (battle) line between ambient noise and outright intrusion? And how, more importantly, should we address these concerns in the heat of the moment? Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
Dunedin Consort, Mulroy, Wigmore Hall review - songs of love...
The sixteen voices of the Dunedin Consort raided the large store of music inspired by the Song of Songs and the sonnets of Petrarch in a sensual...
People, Places and Things, Trafalgar Theatre review - a scin...
It’s unusual for a play to be revived with its original director and star, let alone a decade after they premiered the piece. But here we are,...
Withnail and I, Birmingham Rep revenue - Bruce Robinson’s 19...
Let’s put our cards firmly on the table here. I am a big fan of Bruce Robinson’s cinematic masterpiece about two out-of-work actors who live in...
Jack Doherty, Soho Theatre review - warm and witty childhood...
For fans of a certain age the name Jack Docherty will always be associated with a very good run of chat shows on Channel 5; he was also the star...
Album: Jack Savoretti - Miss Italia
It’s a long way to the middle. Jack Savoretti has worked hard to get there. He’s grafted. His first album, 2007’s Between the Minds,...
Two Tickets to Greece review - the highs and lows of a holid...
Two women were best friends at school but they haven’t...
Hoard review - not any old rubbish
A visually dazzling, fiercely acted psychological drama with a manic comic edge, Hoard channels an 18-year-old South Londoner’s quest to...
Hidden Door 10th Birthday Party, St James Quarter, Edinburgh...
It’s hard to imagine that The Arches – a string of stylish glass-fronted units in prime city centre location, housing boutique bars,...
Blu-ray: Chocolat
Claire Denis’ 1988 debut is a sensual madeleine to her Cameroonian childhood, with its taste of termites on butter, sound of birdsong and insect...
Coote, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - the triumph of...
Programme notes for Mahler’s monumental symphonies will often...