I am extremely late to this party, as ‘Broken Greek’ has now been in paperback for a couple of months. Back in 2020, its initial appearance was greeted by a chorus of rave reviews and widespread, well-deserved appreciation. It not only won the Royal Society of Literature’s 2021 Christopher Bland Prize, it was also my…
Pianist Siqian Li plays Chopin’s Sonata in B-flat minor and a thrilling new arrangement of Ravel’s Valse
On a blistering hot afternoon in July, pianist, Siqian Li, delivered a spectacular performance of romantic repertoire at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. Chopin’s Sonata No.2, comprising the famous Funeral March, and a new arrangement of Ravel’s Valse, topped the virtuosic bill. Li drew quite a crowd*, even in the heat. Karine Hetherington of ArtMuseLondon went…
Heart songs: Elizabeth Llewellyn & Simon Lepper; Isata Kanneh-Mason
As soon as I read about ‘Heart and Hereafter’, Elizabeth Llewellyn’s debut recital album on Orchid Classics, I was excited and intrigued to hear it – for three main reasons. First, I had seen and heard her give a magnificent performance in the title role of Verdi’s ‘Luisa Miller’ for English National Opera back in…
Vixen in the Park
Leoš Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen is a popular work on the opera circuit. Man’s uneasy alliance with the natural world is a theme which chimes particularly well with our times. Janácek wrote it way back in 1921 however, and he spent many an hour studying forest animals (as did many other composers worth their salt before him). …
Paula Rego at Tate Britain
Anglo-Portuguese artist Paula Rego (born 1935), Dame of the British Empire, Royal Academician, holder of six honorary degrees, with a museum devoted to her work in her native country, is one of today’s most important figurative artists. Not bad for someone who arrived in Britain as a refugee at 16, packed off by her liberal…
Michael Armitage at the Royal Academy
The artist Michael Armitage presents his views on Kenyan politics and society, and the legacy of colonialism in phantasmagoric paintings that delight and unnerve. Guest review by Sarah Mulvey Featured: Detail from Pathos and the Twilight of the Idle, 2019 Michael Armitage is an artist of mixed heritage; he was born in Nairobi to a…
Despax plays his dream concerto
Brahms always preferred to let his music do the talking rather than explain the origins of his work. That said, it is certainly interesting to look at what was happening in Brahms’s life when he started to write his first large scale composition – his Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor. By then he had…
Lieder among wo/men: Carolyn Sampson, Roderick Williams & Joseph Middleton in concert
At this year’s Leeds Lieder festival, I finally got to see – for the first time – a form of classical recital I’d been thinking, and even occasionally writing, about for some time: one that behaved like a rock concert. Fitting, then, that we were surprised, amused, shaken up and energised. But was it a…
Clarinettist Sparovec and Odense Symphony Orchestra play Debussy’s Rhapsody
Debussy was never fond of the establishment. When he did accept a chair on the Board of the Paris Conservatoire in 1909, it surprised everyone who had regarded him as a musical rebel. But by that time he was ill, and was being prescribed exercise, morphine and cocaine. He might have been in a euphoric…
The Making of Rodin at the Tate Modern
Guest review by Sarah Mulvey Featured: Mask of Camille Claudel with Hand of Pierre de Wissant, after 1900, plaster assemblage Detail from the Monument to the Burghers of Calais,1889, plaster Rodin’s work evokes very different responses; his humanity is recognised through the fragility and compassion of his works, or by his tolerance of imperfection, but…
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