The ebullient presenter, writer and director Waldemar Januszczak opens his enthusiastic and proselytising hour-long film on Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) by reading out a series of disparaging quotes from other artists.
There is nothing quite like Fretwork at their best. When the viol consort put themselves through their paces in the music of the late 16th and the 17th centuries, with music by Byrd, Dowland, Lawes and Purcell, the results are infallibly and unvaryingly stunning. The mutual listening, the sense of pacing, the balance, the homogeneity of sound, the results they reach are joyous.
It has to be the ultimate cornucopia of choral and early-instrumental invention. So long as the musicians immerse themselves in the beauty of a strange adventure, it doesn’t matter where you hear Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610: however selective the acoustic, you’ll always get something out of one rare combination of sounds or another. The challenge of The Sixteen on their latest tour was never going to be one of communication, only of adapting in the move between cathedrals and concert halls.
Wicked women have always sold well, but more than that, they have fired the artistic imagination in a quite exceptional way. Exploring the depiction of the witch from the 15th to the 19th century, this exhibition is packed with images that must number amongst the most dramatic, atmospheric and gripping ever made, proof if it were needed of the energising effects of a truly inspiring subject.
The chatty, loquacious, exuberant Simon Schama, whose seminal 1987 book on Holland in the 17th century, The Embarrassment of Riches, transformed the anglophone’s understanding of the Dutch Republic, describes himself as historian, writer, art critic, cook, BBC presenter. He is also the University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia, and has written 14 substantial and even significant books. On several of his subjects, from British art, slavery in America and landscape in culture to the history of the Jews, he has presented popular television series.
All human life, as they say, is here: we witness displays of warmth and tenderness in virtuous matrimony; reflection and contemplation in quiet solitude. We respond to the soft seductions of the flesh in its yielding ripeness, and we feel the pathos of the withering of the flesh in age; there’s even the mocking of the aged flesh still lusting for the piece of the old action. There’s civic pride and intellectual curiosity. And then there’s simply being; being in a fully conscious, thinking and feeling sense – don’t we get exactly that when we stand before a Rembrandt self-portrait?
Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea is an opera with a one-track mind. The music throbs and pulses with dancing desire, suspensions and elaborate embellishments defer gratification, while recitative is poised constantly on the edge of melodic climax. Desire is everywhere, from the innocent flirtations of a young courtier and his lady, to the hopeless love of Ottone and of course the knowing, mature passions of the Emperor Nerone and his mistress Poppea. Without it, there’s a void at the core of the opera – a void no amount of fine singing or playing can fill.
The doctoring of political images became something of a tradition in the last century, with Stalin, Hitler and Mao all airbrushing their enemies from photographs. The latest infrared technology has revealed that something similar may have happened during the English Civil War, with a portrait of Oliver Cromwell apparently having been painted over with an image of the Parliamentarian Sir Arthur Hesilrige, who fell out with Cromwell when he became Lord Protector in 1653.
Jordi Savall has spent half a century combining instrumental performance on the viola da gamba with being the leader of ensembles of pioneering scholarship. Now in his early 70s, he has certainly had the recognition he deserves: a Grammy (he has made over a hundred albums), an honorary professorship (he has taught since 1974), and the Légion d'Honneur. These days he is also a prominent public figure supporting the “Catalunya should have the right to vote” campaign. His solo recital at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse last night showed what a lifetime of patient endeavour can achieve.
Baroque operas are like buses. You wait years for some Cavalli to come along, and then three of his operas arrive almost at once. It all started with English Touring Opera’s Jason last October – a witty and endlessly shape-shifting work – followed by the Royal Opera’s glossy L’Ormindo at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse last month. Now, undeterred by larger rivals, Hampstead Garden Opera continue the trend with La Calisto.