Music and Opera

Our curation of music and opera reviews

Saturday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Rickrolling Oregon

Silly but kinda fun too: Ooh for the win, of course. Here’s how it went: [A]ssembling the video was about as tricky an undertaking as as one can imagine. First, Smith had to sell his colleagues on the joke–which wasn’t as hard as he initially feared. Most of his fellow lawmakers–at the time, the legislature was split evenly, with 30 Democrats and 30 Republicans–knew of Astley’s 1987 hit and understood the basic concept of a “Rick Roll,” he insists. “I pitched the idea to a few members, and they liked it,” he recalls. But Smith–who developed the concept with his wife, a few colleagues and several friends, one of whom

Marcus Berkmann

Middle age angst

I need something new to listen to, and I need it now. But for some reason the latest CDs I have bought are not casting the right spell, and all the old albums I return to out of desperation sound worn and weary to my ears. We all have these little phases. Maybe there’s something in the air. (Call out the instigator, because there’s something in the air.) Maybe love is in the air. (Everywhere I look around. Love is in the air, every sight and every sound.) At least I am not walking in the air. This is getting serious. (I can feel it coming in the air tonight,

Saturday

Ed Rex

This charming man

Charlie Siem, the half-British, half-Norwegian violinist, only came to the virtuosic style late in his development (‘probably because I was lazy’, he explains, not convincing me for a moment); but when he did he was hooked. His new, self-titled album (Warner Classics) is, ostensibly, a homage to the virtuosic tradition established in the early-19th century by Paganini, who once proclaimed, ‘I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet.’ Siem, who is currently the global face of Dunhill, does not have that problem. Charlie Siem, the half-British, half-Norwegian violinist, only came to the virtuosic style late in his development (‘probably because I was

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Shop talk

Last Friday I popped into Gramex, the world’s best second-hand classical CD and record shop, just behind Waterloo Station. Last Friday I popped into Gramex, the world’s best second-hand classical CD and record shop, just behind Waterloo Station. The owner took one look at me and declared, ‘This gentleman is tired. He needs a cup of tea and a Belgian bun.’ Before I had time to reply he dashed into the bakery opposite. Two minutes later I sat there, sticky bun in hand, while he put the kettle on. They wouldn’t do that in HMV. Actually, I suspect they won’t be doing anything in HMV by this time next year.

Saturday

James Rhodes

The greatest living pianist

Why, despite his devoted fans, Grigory Sokolov won’t play live in Britain Grigory Sokolov is a pianist in his fifties; he is overweight, Russian, sleeps only three or four hours a night, is a strict vegan and is obsessed with the occult. He can calculate with one glance the number of seats in an empty concert hall and remembers instantly, to within an inch, where a piano used to be on a stage he hasn’t played on for years. Sokolov is also the reason we must overhaul, right now, the ridiculous visa system that prevents so many foreign artists from performing in the UK. Lord Clancarty started a debate on

Charles Spencer

Trip switch

The drugs don’t work sung the Verve on one of their best songs, and I’m feeling the same myself at the moment. The drugs don’t work sung the Verve on one of their best songs, and I’m feeling the same myself at the moment. The stash in my bedside cabinet aren’t drugs of the recreational variety but anti-depressants that I have been taking, on and off, but mostly on, for 30 years now. Depression for me always starts with acute anxiety and sudden rushes of panic. Indeed, I was first prescribed the pills, and sent to a day-care psychiatric hospital for several weeks, when I became so stressed out by

Saturday

Liz Anderson

Rock on

In December 1956, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins met at the recording studios of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. And Million Dollar Quartet, at the Noël Coward Theatre (booking until 1 October), charts this memorable get-together with 90 minutes of rock’n’roll played and sung by a not-exactly lookalike group of four — plus a few extras. In December 1956, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins met at the recording studios of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. And Million Dollar Quartet, at the Noël Coward Theatre (booking until 1 October), charts this memorable get-together with 90 minutes of rock’n’roll played and sung

Saturday

Marcus Berkmann

Remembering Rafferty

It should no longer come as a surprise when old pop stars keel over and die. Ten years ago, obituary columns were dominated by heroes of the second world war, with the occasional member of the Carry On cast included for light relief. Nowadays, barely a day passes without some old heavy metal singer croaking, and a funk guitarist or two. The shock, if there is any, is that so many have survived so long. Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison were all 27 when they died, and years later Kurt Cobain secured his legend by hanging himself at exactly the same age, conscious that, if he

Saturday

Saturday

Clarke Hayes

Gimme Patti

‘Hi,’ said Patti Smith, giving us a slightly awkward wave. ‘You know it’s really great here, by the sea. The air is so fresh. You guys are really lucky.’ Well, we felt lucky, sitting inside the iconic De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill of all places, within touching distance of our collective icon. ‘Hi,’ said Patti Smith, giving us a slightly awkward wave. ‘You know it’s really great here, by the sea. The air is so fresh. You guys are really lucky.’ Well, we felt lucky, sitting inside the iconic De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill of all places, within touching distance of our collective icon. Blessed, though, would be

Charles Spencer

Passing pleasures

I was in New York the other week, furtively sneaking into a preview of the doomed new Spider-Man musical, which features music from Bono and The Edge of U2. Just typing the infinitely silly names of those two humour-free and tiresomely bombastic rock stars makes me feel irritated, but not nearly as irritated as the $65-million show itself, with its pretentious and sometimes downright incomprehensible storyline, and a score that contains nothing approaching a decent tune. Spider-Man is one of the biggest fiascos I have endured in more than 30 years of reviewing theatre, and so po-faced that it doesn’t even achieve ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ status. What a terrible disappointment from the

Saturday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Saturday Morning Country: The Flying Burrito Brothers

There seems to be a sad shortage of Burrito* footage on Youtube but you can see them, quality Nudie Suits and all, in this video accompanying the great Sin City: *In his lovely book No News At Throat Lake Lawrence Donegan, now the Guardian’s golf correspondent, but once upon a time bassist for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions has a great story of how a ticketless Lawrence tried to gain admittance to one of Lloyd Cole’s comeback gigs in Dublin. He fails to melt the heart of some Dublin bouncing-jobsworth despite claiming, accurately, “But, but…. I used to be a Commotion“. Good as that is, imagine how great it would

Robert Gorelangton

‘I play to middle England’

Raymond Gubbay is a hard man to avoid. Especially at Christmas. Last year Raymond Gubbay Ltd presented roughly 600 concerts, of which 180 were part of his annual Christmas Festival and he lived up to his festive catchphrase: ‘You want carols? We’ve got carols.’ Gubbay’s packaging of live classical music has been amazingly successful. He came up with the idea of Vivaldi by candlelight played by men in wigs. His regular Johann Strauss galas are a big hit, as is Strictly Gershwin, and his own-brand laser-lit Classical Spectaculars. The genial man with the Midas touch is famous, too, for his operas at the Albert Hall, where Madam Butterfly is about

Peter Phillips

Massed voices

The news that Decca will release a recording of Striggio’s colossal Missa Ecco sì beato giorno on 7 March promises an oxymoronic treat for some of us. The news that Decca will release a recording of Striggio’s colossal Missa Ecco sì beato giorno on 7 March promises an oxymoronic treat for some of us. There we were, on the stage of the Albert Hall in the 2007 Proms, the new scores in hand, giving the world première of just this piece. A recording was repeatedly discussed at the time, but in the end it was decided that the cost of such an endeavour was too high for the quality of

Saturday

Marcus Berkmann

Hungry for novelty

My first — and so far only — proper job in journalism was, many years ago, as a staff writer on a kids’ computer-games magazine. My first — and so far only — proper job in journalism was, many years ago, as a staff writer on a kids’ computer-games magazine. We were pretty good for what we were, but if we had a flaw it was that we were obsessed, absurdly and often fruitlessly, with being the first magazine to feature some new game that absolutely no one was talking about, usually because they hadn’t finished writing it yet. It was my introduction to a particular kind of journalistic mindset:

Saturday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Pill-popping pianist

What would Glenn Gould’s playing have sounded like if he hadn’t chomped his way through bucketloads of Valium? It’s not a question that is asked in Genius Within, a much-praised documentary about the tortured Canadian pianist that has just been released in Britain. What would Glenn Gould’s playing have sounded like if he hadn’t chomped his way through bucketloads of Valium? It’s not a question that is asked in Genius Within, a much-praised documentary about the tortured Canadian pianist that has just been released in Britain. But perhaps it should have been. In the nine months before his death at the age of 50 in 1982, Gould consumed more than

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Charlie Louvin 1927-2011

Sad news. Charlie Louvin has died. Here’s his New York Times obituary. And here he is with his brother Ira reminding us just why these Alabama boys were one of the great double acts in the history of American music.