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Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Jack Massarik's rating
Reader rating
Description:
Phone: 020 7489 1011
Website: www.childrenssociety.org.uk
Email: institute@stpaulscathedral.org.uk
Hats off to the City of London Festival for reuniting Norwegian saxophone virtuoso Jan Garbarek with the four male-voice Hilliard Ensemble, a cross-cultural combination that produces some of the most beautiful acoustic music ever made. Officium, their debut album, revealed how well medieval motets blend with the Nordic purity of Garbarek’s tone, a keening sound that for writer Richard Williams conjured visions of “tall sailing-ships crossing half-frozen lakes”.
Last night they delved into their latest ECM album, Mnemosyne, with works by two modern composers, the Scot James MacMillan and Estonia’s Arvo Pärt. The formula seemed largely as before, with the choir singing from manuscript while Garbarek, choosing his moment like a latter-day Miles Davis with Gil Evans’s orchestra, swooped in and out with strategic embellishments of his own.
Physically unremarkable men, the Hilliard Ensemble become special when they sing. The vocal blend of baritone Gordon Jones, counter-tenor David James and tenors Steven Harrold and Rogers Covey-Crump is rich, their range, dynamics and close-harmony accuracy all excellent. As in their previous performance here, they did without microphones, making even more adventurous use of the cathedral’s vast acoustics by leaving the central area and drifting all around the perimeter, either singly or in groups, before returning to base in close-formation, just like the Red Arrows.
After 20 minutes of soothing vocal themes that drifted languidly between consonance and dissonance, Garbarek ghosted in from behind the pulpit, scattering bittersweet notes from his curved soprano-sax like rose petals. On tenor sax his use of echo was instructive, the dying notes harmonising cleverly with the newborn ones. How well earned was the standing ovation for them all.
Bobo Stenson-Emil Viklicky quintet, HMS President, Victoria Embankment, 30 June (0845 120 7502).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
