Category Archive: MUSIC
Tristan and Isolde at the Met
(2016, Directed by Mariusz Trelinski; conducted by Simon Rattle) The Varnished Culture had previously set out a prescription for the correct staging of Wagner’s greatest one-off, Tristan und Isolde. Now we had the chance to see if the Met would rise to our vision, in opening its 50th season at the Lincoln Centre. It didn’t, but there were still good things in it. The orchestra under Simon Rattle was superb. Each of the three sublime Acts carry various challenges, including the liaisons with the singers, and all were handled impeccably, to this ear at any rate. Met favourite Nina Stemme was Isolde;…
Continue Reading →Wake Up
Songs in Our Heart # 48 Wake Up (XTC) (written by Colin Moulding; released October 1984) [A sort-of clattering homage to Paul McCartney’s “Another Day,” with a great drum and choir fade-out.]
Continue Reading →Musical Heroics
(Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Festival Theatre, Saturday 29 October 2016) On this warm spring evening, a presage to summer, Adelaide’s creaking, soi-disant theatre played triumphant host to an evening of welcome nostalgia: the legendary Jeffrey Tate, conducting the grand and magisterial prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (described as “one of the great milestones of music…if Wagner had written nothing else this one would have put him up there with the greats.”*) The ASO, celebrating its 80th birthday, responded to Tate (who conducted the seminal Adelaide Ring Cycle in 1998) as they would have to Bülow, who conducted the Mastersinger premiere in Munich (curiously, not Nuremberg as Wagner…
Continue Reading →Suddenly it’s Christmas
(photo by Prathyush Thomas)
Tidings of Comfort and Joy! Yes, Christmas is almost here! If you haven’t ordered the turkey, or booked the restaurant, you’ve missed out….
Continue Reading →Gotta Love Millennials
We like Micah Taylor’s You’ve Gotta Love Millennials performed by Micah and his 3 twins…
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