In the right hands, the music of the various Viennese Schools can still sound almost startlingly original. Imogen Cooper’s are very much the right hands, containing a rare, refined artistry that only continues to grow with the years.
Have you ever wondered why the Steinway grand piano is invariably the instrument of choice in every hall you visit, great or small? Why do the halls in question not offer a choice between two or three pianos of different manufacture, as so many did before the Second World War?
Ryuichi Sakamoto has conquered underground and mainstream with seeming ease over four decades, never dropping off in the quality of his releases. Indeed his most recent projects, following his return to public life after treatment for throat cancer in 2014-15, are among his best.
First the good news: Cédric Tiberghien, master of tone colour, lucidity and expressive intent, playing the 24 Chopin Preludes plus the Bach C major and the C minor Nocturne in the red-gold dragons' den of the Royal Pavilion's Music Room.
Arctic Monkeys are the great British guitar band of the 21st century so far. Only now they’re not. For the last couple of albums, Sheffield’s ever-smart rock four-piece have pushed their innate indie guitar sound further and further into 21st pop territory. This time, centred on lead singer Alex Turner’s piano, Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino leaps off somewhere else entirely, dipped in Rat Pack cool and sun-blissed retro easy-listening.
Turner’s lyrics remain as poetic as ever, but he’s become more conceptually abstract, positing rather than commenting. He lives in LA now and the lovely, Bowie-esque “Four Out of Five” and jazz-fringed title track both have that “Hotel California” sense of lush surface undermined by cynical forces. The album is a journey through the plasticity of contemporary life, even imagining a US President who’s a wrestler (“bendable figures with a fresh new pack of lies”), but at its conclusion, the maudlin waltz-time “Ultracheese” brings the singer back to himself, his values and his past.
The big news, however, is the music. Turner composed it alone on his new Steinway Vertegrand, recording the rest in Paris with the band, regular producer James Ford, and a bunch of mates (including members of Klaxons and Tame Impala). It is, lyrics aside, closer to the opulence of his Last Shadow Puppets project than anything Arctic Monkeys have ever done. The Seventies are a key reference but filtered through a sprawling, loose Hollywood sci-fi lounge pizzazz. Imagine Supertramp or Pink Floyd filtered through the sensibilities of a Las Vegas house band. It’s a shock and not every song is as sure as the idea behind it, but as the ear settles in, it works.
Decades ago, The Jam built their reputation on fiery guitar music and scalpel-sharp observational lyrics. Their leader, Paul Weller, grew sick of what his band became, trapped, and he formed The Style Council, wherein he could embrace jazz and soul, sometimes swapping polemic for ironic distance and satire. It bemused many of his staunch punk/mod fans but freed him. Arctic Monkeys have now made a similarly drastic move. It feels fresh, good, but, as with Weller, it’ll be interesting to see how many of their fans can follow them.
Below: Arctic Monkeys perform "Four Out of Five" on The Jimmy Fallon Show
This Brighton Festival opener is a perfect fit for day one, coming shortly after the Children's Parade and coasting on the gorgeous, beachy day outside the Brighthelm Centre. I have come from said beach, armed with my own Boy. He's 3. His opinion here is probably more vaild than mine, although he's a little short on the vocabulary.
Beethoven: Symphony No 3, Méhul: Symphony No 1 Solistes Européens Luxembourg/Christoph König (Rubicon)
Director, playwright and novelist Neil Bartlett has been making theatre and causing trouble since the 1980s. He made his name with a series of controversial stark naked performances staged in clubs and warehouses, then went on to become the groundbreaking Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 1994. Since leaving the Lyric in 2005, he’s worked with collaborators as different as the National, Duckie, the Bristol Old Vic, Artangel, and the Edinburgh International Festival.
Four of his previous Brighton Festival shows have been at the Theatre Royal: his Oscar Wilde homage For Alfonso in 2011; his one-man show What Can You Do in 2012; The Britten Canticles with Ian Bostridge in 2013; and his play Stella in 2016. This year he is collaborating with performer Francois Testory and electronic sound-artist Phil Von to present Medea, Written In Rage (26th May), a tour-de-force solo reimagining of the classical legend .
“The Theatre Royal is one of my favourite venues in the country," he says “It's a real sleeping beauty of a building, and somewhere you can create a real rapport between the performer and the crowd. Medea is a pretty spectacular piece - big frock, big sound, big performance - but it's also very personal, very intense, and I think the stage of the Royal is going to be ideal"
A Brighton Festival regular, then, Neil's picks of this year are as follows (all dates are in May).
The Myth of Sisyphus (11th, Grand Central): “Camus is a writer we could all use to pay attention to right now - he's all about how to live in impossible times. And what a great idea this is. Simon is a terrific performer - so go for the day and really get stuck in.”
Yomi Sode’s Coat (10th-11th, Brighthelm Centre): “I cut my teeth making solo out of stories that nobody was hearing at the time, and I'm fascinated to see how a whole new generation is right now using solo performance to tell a whole new set of stories. Plus he's dishing up stew!”
Britten’s War Requiem (12th, Dome): “I love the way the festival is unafraid to let the great voices of the past ring out for new audiences. The Requiem is a masterpiece of political rage and yearning, in lots of unexpected ways. It’s going to make an amazing companion piece to Hofesh Schecter's Grand Finale. And I have to say that with those three soloists – blimey! - you're never going it hear it sung more beautifully or with more personal commitment.”
Joan (13th -14th, The Basement): “This was one of my favourite shows of last year when it toured - punchy, funny, in your face. Drag King Heaven.”
Ursula Martinez (14th, Old Market, FREE ADMISSION): “Takes solo lady-performance and really weaponises it. There are a lot of great queer voices in the festival this year, and I think Ursula might be the one who's going to be showing us all how it's done.”
Brownton Abbey (25th, Dome): “With that title, how can we go wrong? This looks like being the party that really brings this year's festival to the boil. Expect fabulousness.”
Ezra Furman (26th, Dome): “A major new voice, perfect for those who like their rock'n'roll really wrecked. And being one myself, I can never resist a man who wears pearls.”
Songs of the Sea (13th, Glyndebourne): “If you know these artists already, then you'll need no persuading; but if you think the classical music programme is maybe not for you, then this might be the show to change your mind. In particular, pianist Julius Drake can make a keyboard speak like nobody else does. In the perfect acoustic at Glyndebourne, his playing is going to be like being given a new pair of ears. Plus those standing seats are only £10.”
Nicola Barker and Nick Harkaway: Future Perfect (13th, Brighton & Hove High School): “When I'm not making theatre, I'm a novelist. My last one, The Disappearance Boy, was set in Brighton in 1953. These two writers are all about trying to find new ways of writing the right now and the just over the horizon. I reckon the conversation will be fascinating for anyone who's thinking ahead about how words actually work these days."
Overleaf: Neil Bartlett and Francois Testory talk about Medea: Written In Rage
Reaching for philosophical terms seems appropriate enough for two deep thinkers among Russian pianists (strictly speaking, Kolesnikov is Siberian-born, London-based). In what Kant defined as the phenomenal world, the tangible circumstances, there were equal if not always predictable measures of innocence and experience in these Wigmore recitals two days apart.
Featuring two Russian composers, the two halves of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s programme could hardly have been more different. In the first, pianist Xiayin Wang (pictured below) joined the RSNO for Scriabin’s florid, rarely-heard Piano Concerto.