Roger Scruton: Music as an Art review - how to listen?

★★ ROGER SCRUTON: MUSIC AS AN ART Odd and uncategorisable essays fail to enlighten

Odd and uncategorisable essays fail to enlighten

Hegel, Kant, David Hume, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Leibniz are all adduced, referred to, and paraphrased, and that’s just for starters. Add Rameau, Schubert, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten and the contemporary composer David Matthews (who is also a friend) into the mix for Professor Sir Roger Scruton’s odd and uncategorisable series of essays on music and – especially – listening to music. Underneath it all is a kind of call to arms about how to listen.

Ariadne auf Naxos, Opera Holland Park - stylish staging, world-class singing

★★★★★ ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, OPERA HOLLAND PARK Stylish staging, world-class singing

Strauss and Hofmannsthal's 'mystery of transformation' applied to two women in love

"When the new god approaches, we surrender, struck dumb". Especially if, for the singer of those words, popular entertainer Zerbinetta, the “new god” takes the shape of same-sex love.

Prom 1, BBCSO, Oramo review – spectacular First Night of the Proms

★★★ PROM 1, BBCSO, ORAMO Spectacular First Night of the Proms

Dynamic but sensitive Holst, multi-media show high on spectacle but low on substance

The First Night of the Proms is always a tricky one to programme, bringing together themes of the season, perhaps a new work and, most importantly, a grand finale. This year’s Prom No. 1 ticked all the boxes, and without feeling like pick-n-mix.

CD: Gruff Rhys - Babelsberg

★★★★ GRUFF RHYS - BABELSBERG Heading for the apocalypse armed with hope and an amazing clutch of songs

The sometime Super Furry frontman heads for the apocalypse armed with hope and an amazing clutch of songs

For his fifth solo album (not counting last year’s delayed soundtrack to Set Fire to the Stars) Welsh singer-songwriter and sometime Super Furry frontman Gruff Rhys inhabits an imaginary landscape in order to deal with issues that are all too real. Like its filmic predecessor, it has been a long time coming. The songs were recorded back in 2016 and, given the world's trajectory in the ensuing years, the dystopian landscape Rhys paints could easily be seen as visionary. 

The reason for the delay was not to encourage comparisons with Nostradamus but to ensure that composer Stephen McNeff was available to score the songs. The best things really do come to those who wait. The orchestration drives but never overpowers, and is delivered with a beautifully harnessed sense of sympathy. The same is true of the band that Rhys gathered for this project. In particular, the basslines provided by Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo) are astounding, marrying form and function in a way that would make Carol Kaye proud. 

Rhys manages to inject humanist hope into scenarios with a gentle unfolding of the human conditionThe songs on Babelsberg contain timeless echoes of songwriting royalty. Touchstones include Scott Walker, Lee Hazelwood and Jimmy Webb but, crucially, at no point does this feel like anything other than a Gruff Rhys record. Rhys has one of the most distinctive voices in modern songwriting, and the fact that this cuts through such a diverse range of work is testament to his vision. 

The scope of this collection feels bigger than previous solo outings. These are songs that depict a world gone wrong, heading for a catastrophic date with destiny. Rhys manages to inject humanist hope into this beak backdrop by invoking a sense of compassion and a belief that all might not be lost. “They threw me out of the club, into the darkest alley,” he sings in “The Club”. It’s a wonderful rendering of the sentiment felt by nearly half of the country as we stagger into the darkened cul-de-sac of independence from Brussels. Yet even here there is optimism as the song ends in defiance with “I pick myself up into the blazing sunset.” 

The sunset also features in the album’s closer, the apocalyptic duet with Lily Cole, “Selfies in the Sunset”. As well as containing one of the funniest lyrics I’ve heard in years, “Mel Gibson howls with rage / The worst Hamlet of his age”, the song tempers the dread of oncoming armegeddon with the line, “Wake me in the morning at the beginning of a new dawn.” It’s a gently buoyant ending for an album that sees Rhys offer the best of songs for the end of times. 

@jahshabby

Overleaf: watch the video for 'Frontier Man'

Picks of Brighton Festival 2018 by writer-director Neil Bartlett

PICKS OF BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2018 Writer-director Neil Bartlett

The playwright and novelist on what's making him head for the Brighton Festival 2018 box office

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

Ibragimova, Tiberghien, Wigmore Hall review – light, bright and melodic Brahms

★★★★ IBRAGIMOVA, TIBERGHIEN, WIGMORE HALL Light, bright and melodic Brahms

Sensitive but dynamic playing perfectly conveys the music’s carefree spirit

The Brahms violin sonatas make a perfect spring evening recital. The Second and Third were inspired by a summer retreat, but all three are light, bright and with direct melodic appeal. Violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien conveyed that carefree spirit perfectly, the long melodic lines simply but elegantly shaped and the accompanying textures always carefully calibrated.

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