London Times, April 24, 2009: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> Elvis Costello / [[Brodsky Quartet]] at [[The Anvil| Anvil]], [[Basingstoke]] </h3></center> | |||
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<center> David Sinclair </center> | |||
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Elvis Costello | As Elvis Costello wryly observed, it is not every day that you go to see a recital by a string quartet and get treated to a pyrotechnic display. He was referring to a stage light that exploded rather dramatically above the musicians’ heads on the opening night of his British tour with the Brodsky Quartet. The distraction occurred, with appropriate timing, during [[I Thought I'd Write To Juliet| I Thought I’d Write to Juliet]], a lyric inspired by a letter written by a soldier in the field of battle, and was followed by [[Bedlam]], in which Costello conjured even fiercer images of dread: “Easter saw a slaughtering, each wrapped in bloodstained fleeces.” It is not every day you see a string quartet accompanied by a superannuated rock star, for that matter. | ||
But the collaboration, which began with the release of the album [[The Juliet Letters]] in 1993, has stood the test of time better than some of Costello’s other quixotic alliances. There was a distinct rapport to the performance that went beyond the obvious mutual respect between the two parties, and a sense of musical adventure was in the air as they opened with a radically revised version of [[Accidents Will Happen]]. The arrangement of just about any pop song for string quartet inevitably harks back to Eleanor Rigby, and this was no exception. And as they moved on to [[Rocking Horse Road]], incorporating a brief, humorous quote from [[Wild Thing]], there was a slight sense of old pop being tarted up with a coating of classical varnish. | |||
But when they moved on to some of the numbers from The Juliet Letters, the music took on a deeper and more characterful tone. Costello was clearly at pains to sing and project to the absolute best of his ability and reached some impressive notes, particularly during [[Shipbuilding]], an emotional performance that he ended with a sensational flourish. But there was still a certain incongruity between the finesse and technical exactitude that the classical players brought to the performance and the slovenly rock’n’roll method which remains embedded in Costello’s performing DNA. | |||
An encore of the [[Johnny Mercer]] standard [[P. S. I Love You]] took the performance yet farther into intriguing realms. Costello remains one of the most restlessly enquiring performers — in any genre. | |||
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'''The Times, London, April 24, 2009 | |||
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[[David Sinclair]] reviews ''[[Concert 2009-04-22 Basingstoke|Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet at Anvil, Basingstoke]]''. | |||
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==External links== | |||
*[http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/livereviews/article1867056.ece The Times online] <small>paywall</small> | |||
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times Wikipedia: The Times] | |||
[[Category:Bibliography|The Times 2009-10-24]] | |||
[[Category:Bibliography 2009|The Times 2009-04-24]] | |||
[[Category:The Times| The Times 2009-04-24]] | |||
[[Category:Newspaper articles|The Times 2009-04-24]] | |||
[[Category:Concert reviews|The Times 2009-04-24]] |
Revision as of 11:45, 16 March 2013
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External links
- The Times online paywall
- Wikipedia: The Times