from Wilton's Music Hall to Kings Place - from Pirates to Gormley/Aitchison via Mozart Whilst a huge Varese celebration was underway at South Bank Centre, Musical Pointers covered some remarkable fringe events in London, a centre of diversity as ever. The Pirates of Penzance on Saturday April 17 was true to Gilbert and Sullivan even though the cast was entirely male, with Alan Richardson soaring into the leger-lines as an affecting Mabel. The Pirates have survived with ease since 1880 and are embedded in the national psyche, a work of popular culture regarded with great affection. Sasha Regan directs an all male cast with sensitivity, the gender reversal heightening a subsversive stereotyping of female characters with insightful and gentle humour. Alan Richardson's Mabel is spell bindingly exquisite, his high notes of bell-lke clarity. Lizzy Gee choreographs the cast to use the small stage and the auditorium with inventivenedss and balletic precision. A heart warming show, one not to be missed. Reviews: 1 - Financial Times: an object lesson in the art of successful G&S: don’t monkey around with the inherent silliness; instead take it seriously but not earnestly. A dozen or so pretty boys don’t hurt either. Mozart at Wilton's
Also at Wiltons, on Sunday the resident Kreutzer Quartet was augmented for an exceptionally spectacular Mainly Mozart evening, given on stage in front of the mountain upon which the Major General's daughters had been climbing and frolicking. This concert (introduced with his usual erudition by Peter Sheppard Skaerved) was far more innovative and interesting than the established summer Mostly Mozart festivals which regularly go to The Barbican, where they have often disappointed. The ad hoc band, partly recruited from the royal Academy of Music, was at full strength for the great Sinfonia Concertante, with Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Morgan Goff perfectly matched as the two soloists, even though their platform manners were so very different each from the other. It is good to have seen that this concert was being recorded. The Kreutzer Quartet's unswerving dedication to music new and newest has them usually including something special even within a mainly classical programme. homegrown and from abroad, On this occasion we had a UK premiere for the Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson's Symbiosis (q.v. the Gelland Duo's recorded performace reviewed by Musical Pointers). Peter Sheppard Skaerved was for this matched by a superb guest violinist Aisha Orazbayeva, whom we all are eager to hear again. Also included alongside Mozart was Jim Aitchison's 2 Fugue Refractions, a substantial solo for Peter's solo violin, and a link which helped persuade us to follow the Kreutzers from Wilton's to Kings Place next day. Aitchison at Kings Place The Kreutzers moved to Kings Place for a concert developed from their work with composer Jim Aitchison. There was some preliminary improvisation in the foyer and inside the hall [pictured], before the performance of his Memory Field with Nicholas Clapton countertenor, given in Hall Two rearranged in the round for an audio-visual presentation, with images of Aitchison's inscrutable scores and of Anthony Gormley sculptures.I found it did little to help me connect with this relentlessly modernist music; so I defer to Fern Bryant, who was there with us: You can see a substantial video excerpt of Memory Field, as given in Anthony Gormley’s studio, on the Kings Place website:
Peter Grahame Woolf See also Varese 360 at South Bank Centre
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