To paraphrase Bob Dylan, one of her heroes and creative touchstones, Barb Jungr contains multitudes. Anyone familiar with her work will know what a versatile talent she is. She personifies what cabaret at its absolute finest can be. She’s a consummate jazz vocalist – commanding, beguiling and arresting whether working within that genre or careering…
Author: ArtMuseLondon
ArtMuseLondon is a site for reviews of art exhibitions and music in London, and general cultural musings, written by people with a keen interest and an honest, accessible approach.
The Fairy Queen. Purcell in a Pastoral Setting
On July 1st, for one evening only, The Fairy Queen will be performed in the gardens of Wyke House in Somerset. ArtMuseLondon’s opera reviewer, Karine Hetherington, went to talk to bass-baritone, Timothy Dickinson, and soprano, Amy Carson about Purcell’s opera. Why did you choose this opera? Timothy : Having presented Acis & Galatea, the pinnacle of so-called…
Opera Holland Park Delivers A Polished Production of Rigoletto
Verdi’s opera Rigoletto marked the beginning of Opera Holland Park’s 2023 season last week. The story of a disabled jester who feels trapped in a society he despises makes for good drama. Not surprisingly Verdi saw in the court jester Rigoletto “A Creation worthy of Shakespeare”. “If I am evil – you are to blame”, Rigoletto sings but…
BAGATELLES Piano Music by Bernard Hughes
What makes this album truly special is the culmination of many years of collaboration between Bernard Hughes and pianist Matthew Mills, who commissioned and premieres Partita Contrafacta on the disc. The two musicians have been working together for years, resulting in a deep understanding of each other’s artistic vision and an unparalleled ability to bring Hughes’ compositions to life on the piano, which he does masterfully with colour and vigour, humour and warmth.
Beat poetry: Rick Simpson, ‘Twice Shaded’
After a few listens, this album feels like a heroically original achievement: without doubt, a jazz record, but unpredictable in ways one wouldn’t have predicted. Warm yet inscrutable; modest in approach but confident and fizzing with ideas: it’s improvised music that feels as though it’s always existed. How can something so spontaneous feel so permanent?…
Self-portrait: Berthe Morisot – ‘Shaping Impressionism’, Dulwich Picture Gallery
As this fascinating exhibition points out in its opening text panel, Berthe Morisot (1841-95) was an active participant in the Impressionist movement, fully-appreciated and successful in her lifetime. She presented her work in all but one of the major Impressionist exhibitions, missing only 1879, after giving birth to her daughter a few months earlier. There…
An inspired pairing: Schubert piano sonatas D537 & D959 | Garrick Ohlsson
Ten years separate the composition of these two piano sonatas by Franz Schubert. The earlier one, in A minor, was completed in 1817 when Schubert was just twenty, but had already written some 250 lieder. Having left several incomplete piano sonatas in the preceding years, he returned to the form with renewed enthusiasm, perhaps inspired…
Past and present collide: Saariaho, ‘Innocence’, Royal Opera House, London
Perhaps the most compelling testament to the impact of ‘Innocence’ is that I’ve thought about little else since the curtain fell. Knowing I would want to write about it, I’ve felt the intricacies of the piece turning round in my mind, dovetailing with each other, not unlike the interlocking 3D jigsaw of a set that…
‘the music of evaporation’ – Música callada | Federico Mompou | Stephen Hough, piano
Federico Mompou’s piano work Musica Callada is a set of twenty-eight short pieces that were written between 1959 and 1967. It was the last piece of piano music published in the composer’s lifetime The title, borrowed from the Cantica spiritual by the Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar St John of the Cross, translates as “Silent…
A Bad Night in Los Angeles – piano music by Robert Matthew-Walker
The title alone invites further exploration of this interesting, varied disc of piano music by Robert Matthew-Walker, a British composer and an influential part of the classical music recording industry for more than half a century (he ran marketing and publicity departments for leading record labels CBS and RCA, and has been editor of the…
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