Martin Kettle's Blog, page 68
April 20, 2016
Yundi review – Chinese superstar never quite lets rip
Royal Festival Hall, London
This stark all-Chopin recital had some mesmerising moments – but the young pianist’s risk aversion was at the expense of spontaneity
It is unfair that so much of what is written about Yundi – including this review – involves a comparison with his compatriot Lang Lang. Yes, they are both pianists, both Chinese, both 33, both heavily marketed and both command an enormous fanbase – some of whom came out in force for Yundi’s recital at the Royal Festival Hall. And, yes, the embrace of western classical music by China is the single biggest thing in the music business of our times..
Yet the two could hardly be more different musicians. While Lang Lang is the ultimate extrovert pianist of the age, Yundi offers pianism of an altogether more inward kind. His playing is contained, consistent and structured, even frugal at times. He avoids display and demonstrative gestures – almost to a fault. The most striking thing about Yundi’s playing is the care he applies to his sound not his technique, although the one depends on the other.
Yundi has a considered approach. The fault, if anything, was his avoidance of risk
Continue reading...
April 15, 2016
LSO/Simon Rattle review – compelling conductor delivers full sonic spectrum
Barbican, London
Already on his third LSO outing of this season, the orchestra’s music director-in-waiting offered work that was anguished, imposing and apocalyptic
It is a year and a half before Simon Rattle officially takes over as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, but it is beginning to feel as though he has already moved in at the Barbican. This Messiaen and Bruckner programme came at the end of a short European tour with the LSO and marked Rattle’s third substantial appearance with the orchestra this season – more than some music directors manage when they are already in post.
Related: Pelléas et Mélisande review – Rattle's moving statement of intent
Continue reading...April 14, 2016
Corbyn’s ‘yes, but’ on Europe was right – we all think that too | Martin Kettle
The panic in the governing class about the Brexit vote is palpable. Almost every pro-European one meets says they have a bad feeling about the referendum. “I take no pleasure in being the Cassandra of the pro-Europeans,” Labour’s former Europe minister, Denis MacShane, said this week, “but the point is that Cassandra got it right.”
On Thursday the most improbable potential saviour of the British governing class rode into town to calm the mood. Opposition to the European Union was a core part of the world view on which Jeremy Corbyn cut his political teeth in the 1970s. For 40 years he rarely deviated from that stern view, even though almost everyone else of his era on the left did so.
Related: Corbyn's EU referendum speech verdict: rambling but also rather special
Even David Miliband made similarly conditional points this week, taking Brexit apart as Project Fantasy
Related: Why Brexit would be nothing less than an act of political arson | David Miliband
Continue reading...April 13, 2016
Isabelle Faust/Kristian Bezuidenhout review – magisterial, dancing Bach
Wigmore Hall, London
The partnership between Faust’s violin and Bezuidenhout’s modern harpsichord was exhilarating
It took a few pages of Bach’s Sonata No 1 for violin and harpsichord in B minor for Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout to get the balance between their instruments right in this Wigmore Hall recital. Yet once they had done so, with Bezuidenhout’s bright modern harpsichord, a 2010 copy of a French instrument of 1769, reined in and Faust’s violin sound more consistently projected – in itself a fascinating process of in-flight adjustment – this all-Bach evening hit its stride and never lost it for a single moment thereafter.
In each half of the programme, two of Bach’s set of six sonatas for violin and harpsichord bracketed a substantial solo by each player. In Faust’s case, this took the magisterial form of the second solo violin sonata in A minor. This received a reading that managed to be both utterly focused yet full of grandly expressive contrasts, resulting in a sumptuous musical journey from the broadly phrased arcs of the opening grave, through the concentrated fugue and fragile andante to the firm-fingered fleetness of the finale. Bezuidenhout’s solo was more overtly virtuosic, the youthful Toccata in D minor, with its swirling opening flourishes and rapid-fire fugal counterpoint, all compellingly articulated by this most characterful of keyboard personalities.
Continue reading...April 7, 2016
Any party that fails to speak for England can forget about No 10 | Martin Kettle
Forget about London. Forget about Scotland. Forget, even with Port Talbot, about Wales. Forget the city mayors. And forget, assuming you are aware of them, the two Westminster byelections in May as well.
That’s not to say that London, Scotland, Wales, the mayors or the byelections are politically unimportant, let alone that the contests in these places on 5 May are uninteresting. On the contrary. But the place that holds the key to the future of this country isn’t any of these. It’s the rest of England. Ignore that England at your peril.
Related: Do you know more about London than Zac Goldsmith? – quiz
Labour needs to be the party of Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent; the voice of Carlisle, Plymouth and Telford
Continue reading...April 6, 2016
Itzhak Perlman review – a packed-out love-in celebrates the violinist's 70th
Barbican, London
Perlman was breathtaking in Stravinsky and Franck, and no matter that his tone slipped elsewhere – his audience remains devoted
Itzhak Perlman has had a five-star career, made five-star recordings and remains indelibly a five-star presence on the concert platform. This Barbican recital, nominally to mark Perlman’s 70th birthday last August, was a rare chance to pay homage to indisputably one of the great violinists.
What it was not, though, was a five-star recital. And nor, these days, is it true to describe Perlman, as the concert programme did, as “undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin”. For all the enduring ease of his playing, there was no mistaking that the unequalled technique of his prime has gone down a notch, nor that his tone is less easily summoned than it once was. Even in the eight additional pieces that he played after his published programme – encores are always a highlight of a Perlman evening – there was the sense of a devoted audience willing the artist to play better than he could.
Continue reading...March 31, 2016
Sajid Javid's favourite film shows he's not a man of steel | Martin Kettle
Of course the business secretary won’t help the steel workers of Port Talbot. He’s consumed too much Ayn Rand to see that governments can both aid and protect
In January 2015 Sajid Javid, then culture secretary and now business secretary, was invited to choose and introduce a film for members of parliament’s new crossbench film society to watch. Javid’s choice caught the audience by surprise. No Star Wars, no Godfather, no Brief Encounter for him. Instead Javid picked the 1949 movie The Fountainhead, directed by King Vidor and starring Gary Cooper as the defiant architect Howard Roark. Why? The important clue, Javid explained, was the script, which had been adapted by the implacable libertarian Ayn Rand from her novel of the same name.
Javid admitted that The Fountainhead was not his favourite movie, but he said that it was the most important to him. When he first saw it, he said that evening, he thought it was “a film that was articulating what I felt”. So taken with its message was he that Javid even, he remembered, read the movie’s courtroom scene aloud to his future wife, Laura, when they were courting – a scene I find difficult to banish from my view of Javid. And still today, he went on, he made sure to read that same scene to himself twice a year.
Permanent nationalisation wouldn’t work and it won’t happen
Related: Nationalisation not the answer to steel crisis, says David Cameron
Continue reading...Nationalisation is a red herring. But the state should save steel | Martin Kettle
In January 2015 Sajid Javid, then culture secretary and now business secretary, was invited to choose and introduce a film for members of parliament’s new crossbench film society to watch. Javid’s choice caught the audience by surprise. No Star Wars, no Godfather, no Brief Encounter for him. Instead Javid picked the 1949 movie The Fountainhead, directed by King Vidor and starring Gary Cooper as the defiant architect Howard Roark. Why? The important clue, Javid explained, was the script, which had been adapted by the implacable libertarian Ayn Rand from her novel of the same name.
Javid admitted that The Fountainhead was not his favourite movie, but he said that it was the most important to him. When he first saw it, he said that evening, he thought it was “a film that was articulating what I felt”. So taken with its message was he that Javid even, he remembered, read the movie’s courtroom scene aloud to his future wife, Laura, when they were courting – a scene I find difficult to banish from my view of Javid. And still today, he went on, he made sure to read that same scene to himself twice a year.
Permanent nationalisation wouldn’t work and it won’t happen
Related: Nationalisation not the answer to steel crisis, says David Cameron
Continue reading...March 24, 2016
New Zealand’s decision on the flag has lessons for Britain’s EU referendum | Martin Kettle
Never underestimate the capacity of human beings to step back from the brink; or in many cases their wisdom in choosing to do so. That would seem to be the wider message from New Zealand’s national flag referendum this week. The more you think about it, the more reassuring that message seems right now.
Look at the current New Zealand flag. What proud independent nation – and no one can doubt that New Zealand is one of those – would want a flag dominated by another country’s? Especially when that other country is the former colonial power thousands of miles away. And even more when you are a country that is nowadays extraordinarily aware of its own racial history and mix. A modern New Zealand flag for a modern New Zealand would seem a no-brainer to me.
Related: New Zealand votes to keep its flag after 56.6% back the status quo
In 1975, British voters opted to remain in Europe; in 2011, to keep the alternative vote
Continue reading...March 23, 2016
LA Philharmonic/Dudamel review – seriousness of artistic purpose and exquisite playing
Barbican, London
Dudamel’s opening message of peace is superbly fulfilled in moments of quiet optimism and moving contemplation in performances of Williams, Copland and Herrmann
News from Brussels made for a sombre backdrop to the start of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s latest residency at the Barbican. Gustavo Dudamel made a short speech at the start dedicating the concert to the people of Belgium, to whom he offered “a message of beauty, love and peace”.
It was a promise on which the orchestra delivered. These residencies by visiting bands sometimes involve just a couple of showcase concerts and not much else. The better model, although of course more costly, involves more carefully planned programmes, along with daytime breakout events with lots of interaction. The Angelenos, who move on tonight to a Messiaen evening, followed by an open rehearsal with young east London mixed-ability musicians and a big Mahler finish, have clearly taken this welcome second route.
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