The titles of Jonathan Dove’s musical works — Flight, Tobias and the Angel, Palace in the Sky, The Little Green Swallow, Man on the Moon — might lead one to consider his winged surname a highly appropriate one. However, while the composer undoubtedly possesses a soaring imagination, it is allied to a refreshingly pragmatic, earthbound
The National Gallery of Art in Washington presented a feast for the eyes this week. Three feasts, in fact. To celebrate Rembrandt year, the NGA organised the largest exhibition of his drawings, etchings and prints ever assembled in the United States. In an adjoining gallery, the NGA has rehung its celebrated Woodner collection of hundreds
Louis le Brocquy is 90 this year and his new show at Gimpel’s is merely one of four current celebratory exhibitions. (The others are at Tate Britain, The National Gallery of Ireland and Galerie Jeanne-Bucher in Paris.) He once wryly observed: ‘I’m aware that my age and vulnerability could be mistaken for some kind of
Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) and Francis Bacon (1909–92) were near contemporaries but their work holds little in common. Although both are painters of crisis and intensity, their very individual achievements may be said to embody diametric opposites — the heaven on earth of Spencer’s beloved Cookham, and the ‘hell is others’ Grand Guignol of Bacon. Distinguished
Honestly, before I took up this beat I had no idea how many new movies aren’t that great and aren’t truly terrible but are simply so-so and when it comes to so-so Stranger Than Fiction is just so so-so, which is a shame because: a) I’d been looking forward to it and b) I have
Glyndebourne on Tour is having a vintage year, and that’s not counting its Die Fledermaus, which, favourite work of mine as it is, I couldn’t bear to see again in that production. Così fan tutte, on the other hand, I couldn’t bear not to see, having been at the first night in Glyndebourne last May,
The death of Nick Clarke, The World at One, Any Questions and Round Britain Quiz presenter, jolted many commentators — and listeners — to bewail the loss of a news broadcaster noted for his courtesy, his integrity, his ability to ferret for ‘the truth’ without being provocative or volatile. It says a lot about how
There was much pre-publicity around Tsunami — The Aftermath (BBC1, Tuesday) implying that the second anniversary of the disaster was a little early to turn it into drama, and that the film would be distressing and demeaning for the victims’ families. I could see the point, though what struck me most was that with more
