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2 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Akira Kurosawa described his 1961 hit Yojimbo as a tale of “rivalry on both sides, and both sides are equally bad… we are weakly caught in the middle and it is impossible to choose between the evils”. Toshiro Mifune’s nameless rōnin pitches up a run-down village purely by chance, tossing a stick in the air at a fork in the road to choose which direction to take.
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2 weeks ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Vox Feminae: Works for voices, theorbo/tiorbino/ baroque guitar, bass viol, triple harp by Barbara Strozzi, Antonia Bemba and Hieryonymus Kapsberge Les Kapsber’girls/Albane Imbs (Alpha) What a complete transformation from one album to the next. The last one, Vous-avez dit brunettes? – did you say brunettes – (Alpha, 2021) opened tongue-in-cheek with the bleating and bells of a flock of sheep, then launching into occasionally over-theatrical songs about shepherds, love or drinking.
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1 month ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
One of The Barnabáš Kos Case’s incidental pleasures lies in its relatively accurate depiction of orchestral life. Much of the action in Peter Solan’s 1964 Slovak black comedy (originally title: Prípad Barnabáš Kos) takes place in a rehearsal studio, one filled with real, non-miming musicians. Actor Milivoj Uzelac, playing one of the conductors, was also a composer and actually looks convincing on the podium.
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1 month ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Quartets Through a Time of Change: music by Ravel, Durey, Tailleferre and Milhaud Brother Tree Sound (First Hand Records) There are plenty – and I mean plenty – of recordings of the Ravel String Quartet, the majority, I would guess, paired with the Debussy Quartet, in what has become something of a programming cliché.
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2 months ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Snow Dance for the Dead: Choral Music by Seán Doherty New Dublin Voices/Bernie Sherlock (Voces8 Recordings) I have come across the choral music of Seán Doherty increasingly recently and always liked what I have heard. His music is imaginative, wide-ranging and original, and all these things are evident in his debut disc with New Dublin Voices, under their enterprising conductor Bernie Sherlock.
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2 months ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Snow Dance for the Dead: Choral Music by Seán Doherty New Dublin Voices/Bernie Sherlock (Voces8 Recordings) I have come across the choral music of Seán Doherty increasingly recently and always liked what I have heard. His music is imaginative, wide-ranging and original, and all these things are evident in his debut disc with New Dublin Voices, under their enterprising conductor Bernie Sherlock.
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2 months ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth. Piotr Szulkin’s dark 1979 film debut makes reference both to this legend and to Gustav Meyrink’s unsettling 1914 novel, moving the action forward from the latter’s fin-de-siècle Prague to a geographically non-specific dystopian future.
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2 months ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Akira Kurosawa’s mastery of different genres is a given and one of High and Low’s strengths is a seamless blending of various styles within a single film. Though highly rated by Japanese critics, this 1963 adaptation of an Ed McBain 87th Precinct crime novel has been long overlooked, High and Low taking in corporate politics, familial tensions and a thrilling race to catch an enigmatic villain. Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune plays Kingo Gondo, a senior executive at National Shoes.
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2 months ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Michael Tilson Thomas: The Complete Columbia, Sony and RCA Recordings (Sony) Big box sets continue to arrive. This one’s a whopper: 80 discs celebrating Michael Tilson Thomas’s 80th birthday. Artistic qualities aside, the production values here are superb, Sony’s 200-page hardback book accompanying individual discs replete with original sleeve art and spines that display each CD’s contents.
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2 months ago | 
theartsdesk.com | Graham Rickson
Reynaldo Hahn: Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet, Songs Karim Sulayman (tenor), Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Chandos) I’ve been a fan of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for some time, having heard them in concert and on their excellent previous albums, which often seek out under-recorded composers and give them the spotlight: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Fanny Mendelssohn, Alma Mahler, Luise Adolphe le Beau.
