Music and Opera

The Biophilia live show at Harpa, Reykjavik is another cog in the complex wheel that makes up Björk’s eighth album, which is not simply a collection of nice songs, but a concept record about nature, a series of educational apps and a showcase for its specially created instruments. The performance is, however, where it all comes to fruition, with the extensive thinking behind it distilled into the joy of putting on a show. Björk is the star attraction of the Iceland Airwaves annual music festival, and there’s a particular magic at seeing her not only perform in her home town, but her 20-strong girls’ choir, too, who add a dance

In all the heavier-duty excitement of Liszt’s anniversary I had failed to register that W.S. Gilbert expired 100 years ago; and, perhaps just as significant, the copyright of the D’Oyly Carte opera company expired 50 years ago. I am old enough to remember the fuss which that moment provoked — the highbrows hoping to kill off the whole dreadful phenomenon there and then; the not so high, including Harold Wilson and Spike Milligan, trying to extend it. The company muddled through to 1982, but finally the Arts Council had had enough, and a lot of well-educated people heaved a sigh of relief that the Savoy Operas had finally passed into

What with one thing and another, I had rather lost track of what Sting was up to. Still on the lute? Moved on to nose flutes? Thrash metal rereadings of back catalogue? It turns out that he has taken to the road with an orchestra, in a heroic stand against the bitter frugality of these gloomy times. Drummers don’t cost much, and bassists come cheapest of all, but a whole orchestra has to be fed and watered, housed in very nearly sanitary conditions, transported by lorry from one location to the next and, apparently most tiring of all, listened to, as none of them ever stops talking. Sting obviously has

Well, after the sodding rugby* I think it is time for some George Jones and Things Have Gone to Pieces: *Well done England.

What was it Sir Thomas Beecham said about Stockhausen? ‘I’ve never conducted any of his music, but I once trod in some.’ So far as I know, Beecham never commented on the work of Pierre Boulez, but I’m sure his verdict would have been the same. Both composers adopted a modernist language that is politely described as ‘uncompromising’. Until his death in 2007, Stockhausen stoutly maintained this refusal to compromise (except on the question of accepting subsidies, always a flexible principle for the avant-garde). His projected opera cycle Licht would have taken about a decade to perform and swallowed the entire German GDP, and so it remained unfinished — actually

Here’s an improbably, even impossibly, young Steve Earle jamming with a bunch of great old boys at Guy Clark’s place way back in the day. It’s a groovy side of country and, you’ll observe, one fuelled by ample quantities of booze, tobacco and dope. Quality all the way. And, blimey, Steve’s just a kid singing the Mercenary Song…

Actually, this is in memory of the Man in Black’s life-support machine Marshall Grant who died this week. But here are the boys at San quentin with I Walk the Line, a tune Cash wrote in 1956 that, it is said, was inspired by Grant:

The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra will be giving the concluding two concerts of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival under its chief conductor Jonathan Nott. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra will be giving the concluding two concerts of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival under its chief conductor Jonathan Nott. The programmes aren’t what you might expect from one of Germany’s leading orchestras, but then very little is typical about the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. It will be performing Messiaen, Bartók and Ravel.   A few weeks ago I went to watch the orchestra rehearsing in its home concert hall, and moved on with it to Baden-Baden where it gave a performance in the Festspielhaus

This year is the 500th anniversary of the death of Tomás Luis de Victoria, whose work, as I have written before, I consider to be the most moving High Renaissance music there is. This year is the 500th anniversary of the death of Tomás Luis de Victoria, whose work, as I have written before, I consider to be the most moving High Renaissance music there is. But we could have had little idea how the world’s tragedies would follow the Tallis Scholars around, making performances of his ineffable six-voice Requiem as useful as they have been appropriate. From the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, through the disaster at Fukushima to

You’ll notice that the great man has some good friends helping out on this version of Riding That Midnight Train. Among them: Tony Rice and Ricky Skaggs. All good, rollicking stuff.

Sure, you don’t necessarily think of Elvis as a country singer. But then you remember his gospel roots and the rockabilly and it all makes sense. How could such a great American ever escape the greatest American musical genre of them all? He never did. Or, if you prefer, he just often returned to it. Here he is with that great Hank Williams tune I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry:

In honour of the debt-ceiling fiasco currently crippling Washington George Jones’s Things Have Gone To Pieces seems rather appropriate. Happily, it’s also a great song.