Fink - Doornroosje in Nijmegen 31-10-2024.
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Usually I do not think much of Honeck but that sounds heavenly! 
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Exquisite LHF concert last night at Cadogan Hall by the London-based Jazz Repertory Group organised by drummer Richard Pite and directed by Pete Long.
This concert featured music with strings and french horns associated with Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott, George Shearing and Acker Bilk. In this shot, tenorists Simon Spillett and Pete Long are recreating a Jazz Couriers number. Spillett was his usual excellent self - the strings, led by Charles Mutter, were sublime and great credit to Ian Bateman for reverse engineering the arrangements.
The part of Acker was undertaken in great style by Alan Bateman and he donned his bowler for ‘Stranger On The Shore’.
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I don’t know… The Munchner Philharmoniker with Celibidache didn’t sound so shabby in the Gasteig when I last heard them.
Well the Gasteig themselves claim the acoustics are better in the interim hall but it’s interesting to hear your opinion because you have a direct comparison. Still, as I say, they have all been outclassed by the Bergson which proves again how private investors can get the job done. It‘ll likely be 2030 before they can build the new Gasteig.
As I said, the concert at the IsarPhilharmonie was amplified so a comparison is difficult, but I heard the same performers at the Dal Verme theatre in Milano:
and I seem to remember that the sound was better balanced.
The Gasteig was opened in 1985 I think, and in 1988 I once asked Celibidache himself about the new hall and its acoustics. He said that they weren’t bad but ‘the upper octaves fizzled a little’. So you may well be right…
David Murray + 2/3 of The Thing @ Cafe OTO tonite. Pyrotechnics on all instruments but also a delightful ensemble rendition of Natural Born Woman showing just how to improvise around a familiar choon.
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Lintu/CSO + Frang
Program:
**John Adams**Slonimsky’s Earbox
Stravinsky
Violin Concerto
Gubaidulina
Fairytale Poem
Tchaikovsky
Suite from Swan Lake
Conductor: Hainu Lintu
Violin: Vilde Frang
John Adams and Stravinsky’s VC were right on the money. Lintu was zipping through those pieces with a laser precision and breakneck speed. Almost acrobatic feat! I finally got to hear Frang play live in Chicago ( I keep missing her ) Her tone was rather thin and delicate sometime she is over powered by the orchestra especially this Stravinsky piece which orchestra is always present with no cadenza. But I enjoyed it overall due to their exciting rhythmic cohesion.
John Adams is one of the few contemporary classical composer. This was a fun piece especially under Lintu’s tight handling.
Swan Lake was problematic. My issue was Lintu played the piece as fleet of F-35 rather than graceful swans. He kept that fast pacing which I was ok with it but where I had a problem is that overuse of percussions and drums. A dancing swans with steel toes! This is the first time I actually heard this piece live and I see why I avoided it all these years. I just was way over exposed over the years and I did not hear any new insight out of even the live performance.
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wow. that looks great. Looks like they have done a total gut job.
Concert halls are the most photogenic places… And they eerily look better empty than full (except to the eyes of the performer 
).
Hi N.,
a very good report! I thought I was almost hearing the performance.
I tend to agree about the Swan Lake, I love and respect Ćaikovskij but a whole Ballet is a painful experience. As for Stravinskij, he was such a splendid writer for the orchestra that I suspect some fault in the performers if the balance was ‘heavy’. From what you say, I think I would have loved Frang and Hated Lintu. 
(Celibidache used to say that young conductors learn on records. They take a Toscanini one, a Furtwængler one and choose a pace somewhere in between…)
Lintu set was definitely Toscanini-esq.
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I guess so, that’s why I quoted C…
Glen Matlock supported by Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s at The Tivoli in Buckley, North Wales. This place, more often than not, has a superb sound, this gig included.
It was a cracking gig but poorly attended, around 80 people. Saddens me that so few people attended a gig by a guy who was one of the four who changed the course of modern music in 1975, yet when there’s some crappy tribute band playing there the place is full.
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Tubular Bells 50th Anniversary tour in Eindhoven.
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Anohni and the Johnsons playing the songs of Lou Reed at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday evening. Extraordinary voice…
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The utterly brilliant Jean-Efflam Bavouzet at the Wigmore Hall last night. The final concert of a 2 year series covering all Debussy’s piano works plus music that he thinks works with it so last night we had works by Schumann and Stockhausen. He really is the most extraordinary pianist and probably the finest interpreter of French classical piano music. The programme:
As an encore he played a storming version of Ravel’s Toccata from Le Tombeau de Couperin to remind us that next year is Ravel’s 150th anniversary. Get your tickets now!
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Ahead of the The The gig last night in Fremantle….
What is it with Aussies and outdoor gigs…?! They bring 1/2 the house – chairs, rugs, food platters…they’d have the BBQ there if they could…!
I saw a couple in front of us with a whole Sushi spread…!
It’s a bleedin Rock gig…!
Great gig though…sharp band.
SC
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How come you get the inside gig and we get the picnic version…?!
Good gig though hey…!? I do really like Ensoulment, so enjoyed the first set (according to Matt our gig, last night of the AU tour, was the last time they’re going to play it in entirety) but the 2nd set was superb – some of the stuff from Infected and Soul Mining was brilliant…Such a big sound 
SC