Berlin
DVD/Blu-ray: Der müde TodFriday, 28 July 2017
"Weary Death" – "Destiny", the English-language title, is weak by comparison – settles in a small German town, an impressive simulation constructed on a back lot of the Babelsberg Studio outside Berlin. He buys a plot in the churchyard, builds... Read more... |
CD: Mary Ocher - The West Against the PeopleSunday, 12 March 2017
OK, the title could be offputting, suggesting as it does the crassest of adversarial politics. But this record is something far deeper, far subtler and far more enjoyable than that. Yes, the Russia-born, Israel-raised, Berlin-based singer-songwriter... Read more... |
Richard III, Schaubühne Berlin, BarbicanFriday, 17 February 2017
Hated the Schaubühne Hamlet (same lead actor, same director as this latest Shakespeare auf Deutsch); loved Ivo van Hove's Toneelgroep Kings of War, with Hans Kesting's Richard III on the highest level alongside the Henrys V and VI. Thomas Ostermeier... Read more... |
Beware of Pity, Complicite & Schaubühne Berlin, BarbicanFriday, 10 February 2017
Prolific, fitfully great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's two biggest popular biographies, Marie Antoinette: The Story of an Average Woman and Mary Stuart, would be a gift for any screenwriter, given their fully realised dramatic scenes. His best-... Read more... |
Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence, BBC TwoSunday, 29 January 2017
Francis Bacon died in April 1992, aged 82, but heaven knows how he managed to live that long. The tortuous story of his life is now fairly well known, but Richard Curson Smith's documentary marshalled a formidable array of critics, biographers and... Read more... |
CD: AYBEE - The OdysseySaturday, 29 October 2016
Berlin's electronic music world has been traditionally been very white. Sometimes, as with the inward-looking minimal techno of the 2000s, it could feel painfully so. Obviously a city can't really help the nature of its demographic, but monoculture... Read more... |
Prom 64: Berlin Philharmonic, RattleSaturday, 03 September 2016
What do Boulez's Éclat, for 15 instruments, and Mahler's Seventh Symphony, for over 100, have in common? Most obviously, guitar and mandolin, symbols of a wider interest in unusual sonorities. But while Boulez aims, as often, for needle point... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician/DJ Mark Hawkins aka Marquis HawkesMonday, 29 August 2016
This is not a standard dance music story. Marquis Hawkes is one of the club music success stories of the past couple of years – since the first release in 2012 on Glasgow's revered Dixon Avenue Basement Jams, there've been many 12" club hits on... Read more... |
Proms at...Cadogan Hall: Hardenberger, Gruber, ASMFTuesday, 09 August 2016
Superior light music with a sting, done at the highest level: what could be better for a summer lunchtime in the light and airy Cadogan Hall? Our curator was that most collegial of top soloists, trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger. He'd invited colleagues... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Simple MindsSunday, 31 July 2016
As the album featuring Simple Minds’ first Top Twenty single, “Promised You a Miracle”, 1982’s New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was aptly titled. After the success of the next single “Glittering Prize”, it hit number three in the album charts. Five... Read more... |
X-Men: ApocalypseTuesday, 17 May 2016
It's getting mighty crowded in the superhero lounge. After the underwhelming Batman v Superman and the overwhelming Captain America: Civil War, here's the X-Men posse back on the warpath, once again under the bombastic helmsmanship of Bryan Singer.... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Cindy Cox, NielsenSaturday, 07 May 2016
Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)Inevitably there's the question of whether anyone needs another modern-instrument cycle of Beethoven symphonies. If the answer's yes, Paavo Järvi'... Read more... |
