50 h. ago Even Happy Birthday has a dark side: my quest to tell the history of the world in 50 pieces of music

The Nazis adopted Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Happy Birthday hides a tale of corporate greed. And Putin uses Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony as a call to arms. That’s why I put them in my soundtrack to the complexities of human existenceThe idea was always a ludicrous one: to reduce millennia of human musical history – not to mention billennia of the Earth’s sonic geology – into a book of 50 pieces of music. And yet that’s the challenge I decided to take on. The most pressing question was: why? To which my answer was: the inevitable failures and gaps of the project are precisely where its interest lies.The next concern was how. Called A History of the World in 50 Pieces, the book is not a digested history of music, nor a list of my favourite songs, performances or recordings. Instead, it’s centred on the definition of a “piece of music”. This is a democratic principle – a belief that works don’t belong only to their creators but are shared and reinterpreted by generations of musicians...

Culture

6 d. ago Dorothy Parker ‘fwowed up’ in a 1928 review of which children’s classic? The Saturday quiz

From demon, equal and encyclopedia to The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz 1 Inflation adjusted, what is the highest-grossing film of all time?2 What was revamped in 1279, 1560, 1696, 1816 and 1971?3 Dorothy Parker “fwowed up” in a 1928 review of which children’s classic?4 Native to South America, what is the world’s largest bird of prey?5 Which fabric is protected by the orb certification mark?6 The Almanach de Gotha is a directory of what?7 Which amusement park was opened in Vienna in 1766?8 What British term for rare US R&B 45s was coined by Dave Godin?What links: 9 Năstase; Connors twice; Tanner; McEnroe twice?10 Menevia, c600; County Down, c460; Lydda, c303; Patras, c60?11 Choral by Beethoven; The Great by Schubert; From the New World by Dvořák?12 Reverend Joy Carroll Wallis; hotelier Donald Sinclair; US military surgeon Richard Hornberger?13 Demon; equal; encyclopedia; eon; fairy; medieval; primeval?14 The Tour of Life in 1979 an...

Politics

7 d. ago Beethoven child star Joe Pichler vanished after 'sobbing' 4am call

Joe Pichler made an inconsolable 4am call, left a cryptic note, and was never seen again.

Politics

1 week ago Hannigan/Chamayou review – strange and beautiful musical magic

Wigmore Hall, LondonBarbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou were exhilarating and extraordinary in John Zorn’s monumental Jumalattaret; a beautifully intimate performance of Messiaen’s Chants de Terre et de Ciel completed an enthralling eveningOne generation’s “unperformable” is another’s repertoire staple. Tristan und Isolde, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Ninth were all once declared beyond reach. But when Barbara Hannigan – the fearless, seemingly limitless soprano with more than 100 world premieres to her name – admits that a work came close, reducing her to “a state of panic” over a multi-year study period, you believe her.Inspired by Finland’s national epic the Kalevala, John Zorn’s Jumalattaret is less a song-cycle than a musical seance, summoning a series of spirits and goddesses in sound. The singer morphs from persona to persona in yelps and keening cries, guttural moans and shouts, sometimes anchored, sometimes released by the piano (here Bertrand Chama...

Politics

3 w. ago Beethoven & Brahms: Violin Concertos album review – as supple and coherent as ever as the ACO celebrates 50

Tognetti/Australian Chamber Orchestra(ABC Classic)Under Richard Tognetti the ACO has established itself as world-class and this 50th anniversary live recording of these two great concertos are a wonderful souvenir of a remarkable groupOver the past quarter of a century the Australian Chamber Orchestra has become a regular visitor to Europe, establishing itself as one of the world’s foremost chamber bands. The group was founded in 1975, and this pairing of perhaps the two greatest violin concertos in the repertory is being released to mark the ACO’s 50th birthday. The soloist and conductor in both works is Richard Tognetti, who has been the orchestra’s leader and artistic director for the past 35 years.Both recordings are taken from concerts given in Sydney’s City Recital Hall, the Beethoven concerto in 2018, the Brahms last February. The close recorded sound very faithfully reproduces the intensely involving approach of the ACO when heard in the flesh, with its amalgam of modern pla...

Culture

3 w. ago Hania Rani: Non Fiction review – atmospheric and absorbing storytelling by Polish composer

Barbican Hall, London From ghost-story minimalism to wartime memory, Rani’s two new works, premiered here, shimmer with imagination, although issues of balance diminished the piano concerto In a crowded post-minimalist world, Hania Rani has carved herself out a respectable niche. The Polish pianist and composer’s erudite yet accessible work often defies genres, appealing to classical, jazz and electronic aficionados alike. This concert comprised two 40-minute premieres and fell pretty firmly into the classical category, yet the lively audience skewed significantly younger than the Brahms and Beethoven crowd. Stylishly performed by the envelope-pushing Manchester Collective, it felt like quite the happening.Shining occupied the first half, a piece devised for the kind of 12-piece band favoured by Steve Reich and Philip Glass. It’s based on a short story by Jon Fosse; a stream of consciousness tale of a man lost in the woods at night. Opening with sinister discords on bass clarinet, b...

Politics

4 w. ago Víkingur Ólafsson: Opus 109 album review – pianist’s concept album opens up transcendent vistas

(Deutsche Grammophon)Olafsson’s account of Beethoven’s Op 109 is one of the most beautiful on record, the centrepiece of a recording that links the composer to Bach and SchubertDisinclined to follow the herd and record Beethoven’s three final piano sonatas as a job lot, Víkingur Ólafsson has chosen to circle one of them, No 30 in E major, Op 109, locating it in a musical timeline that reflects both the composer’s past and the Viennese milieu of the early 18th century.For Ólafsson, looking backwards means turning to Bach, whose musical fingerprints he detects all over late Beethoven. The latter’s uninhibited invention, he argues, has its roots firmly in the baroque with its improvisatory elements and enthusiasm for the dance. Continue reading...

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