December 2008
12 posts
Adrian Brendel's father retires
Performance Today’s Fred Child marks Alfred Brendel’s retirement with extracts from their conversation in 2005, including Alfred’s thoughts on making music with Adrian.
EA
Madžar takes Chopin north of the border
Aleksandar Madžar:
Did anyone get Aleksandar decent gloves for Christmas? We certainly hope so: on Monday 2 February at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, he joins violinist Anthony Marwood, 2006 Instrumentalist of the Year at the Royal Philharmonic Awards, for a performance of works by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. And a month later, on Monday 9 March, Aleksandar’s at the Perth Concert Hall,...
Fellner's spending Valentine's Day in Tokyo
Till Fellner:
Till’s playing Beethoven’s Appassionata (among others) at the Toppan Hall, and returns on May 8 for the third and final part of his sonata cycle.
New Yorkers can enjoy the same programmes on March 6 and May 8 at the Met.
EA
Raga Lalit
Hayden Chisholm:
My gift into the gaping digital void is this, one of my favourite Indian Ragas and a long held secret. Raga Lalit uses a pentatonic scale a semitone away from the root, creating some beautiful tensions. This 50 minute version by Hariprasad is a also a good study in motivic development - bon voyage! :
Humility rewarded
Frank Gratkowski:
Mark Corroto, writing in All About Jazz, likes the self-restraint of Wake – a new album of improvisations with pianist Chris Brown and percussionist William Winant.
EA
Appetizer
Jochen Ruckert:
Jazz magazine The Deli ran this profile of Jochen’s new NYC trio I Led 3 Lives.
EA
The people have the power...
Adrian Brendel:
Last week, Adrian took time off from accompanying his father on his farewell tour, and relaxed with Patti Smith at the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, München:
EA
Feeling the pressure
While we slump our way through the editing of Wellcome Collection’s Tune-In: Music with the Brain in Mind, Alan Coady puts us to shame with this detailed summary of the event. Chaired by the writer Simon Ings and featuring performances by Adrian Brendel, Gareth Lubbe and Julian Steckel (below),
the afternoon traced the musician’s journey from first glimpse of a score to eventual...
Sorrow-tinged, tortured, impassioned outpourings...
Tim Horton:
A nice little Christmas present from Bernard Lee, writing in the Sheffield Telegraph. Ensemble 360’s concert of Tim’s ‘desert island music’ in Upper Chapel on 11 December ‘was magnificently played, culminating in a marvellously taut, superbly balanced account of the Brahms C minor piano quartet Op 60’.
Our founder (centre)
Ethan Ames:
The imminent retirement of Alfred Brendel sent photographer Martin Davis leafing through his albums: this shot from 1976 also features Adrian, some years before he dreamt up Plushmusic.tv…
Reinventing Tyner
Matt Penman:
Anywhere near San Francisco in Spring 09? Then put 21 and 22 March in your new diary: Matt Penman and the SFJazz Collective have signed up to play original compositions and new arrangements of work by pianist McCoy Tyner at the 10th Anniversary SFJazz Spring Season - a spectacular four-month-long concert series running from March 6.
It begins...
Till Fellner:
Sunday 7 December saw the first installment of Till Fellner’s Beethoven cycle in Washington, co-sponsored by the Embassy of Austria, the Embassy Series and Washington’s National Gallery of Art. In his concert review the musicologist Charles Downey (caught in the act here by photographer Joe Albright) reminds us that he’s a card-carrying convert to Till’s interpretations of Bach -...