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Irish Independent
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Photos from Cork show trad craic of a mighty weekend in memory of a musical legend
On Sunday, Anne's Bridge Street Céilí Band played a lively set and this was followed by a video presentation entitled 'The Man from Tureendarby', documenting Timmy's long and fruitful musical journey. The tribute event was organised by Eoin Stan O'Sullivan and friends to celebrate the life and amazing musical legacy of Timmy, who passed away last year. Raymond O'Sullivan who was MC at the Saturday night concert welcomed the full house audience and said: 'This is a celebration that is very fitting for a legend. All of our lives were touched by Timmy. At his funeral last year, we decided to have a bash for his 90th birthday which would have been this week. I'm sure there will be fierce craic in heaven for the birthday but I know he would love to be here with us as well. When we think of Timmy, we will always be smiling,' Raymond said. This reporter was lucky enough to be a lifelong friend of Timmy, through our mutual love of music, and a few years ago we sat down and spoke about his lifelong passion for playing the accordion. 'When I was very young, we used to visit my aunts in Kanturk and Rockchapel, there was a Gramophone in the two houses and I loved listening to the records, we had no radio at home at the time,' Timmy said. Around his home in Tureendarby, Newmarket, he said there was plenty of music when he was young. 'Someone was playing a melodeon one night and I brought out a few tunes on it. I saw a melodeon for sale in Tim Ryan's shop window, the bother was it cost £7.10 and I didn't have the money. A couple up the road from me bought it for their son and I was dying lonesome. Then another one came in and my sister Joan bought it for me. I was around 15 at the time. We had to hide it from my father, he thought it was a fierce waste of time but he found it one day inside in a press and said 'Oh great God, we're going to have an awful winter of playing'. 'I used to play every night with my two brothers and a neighbour,' Timmy explained. Timmy, as a fledgling musician, was taught by his neighbour Johnny Micky Barry who himself learned from the great Tom Billy Murphy of Ballydesmond. When he reached his 20s, Timmy began playing at house parties and at socials with his sister Sheila and brother in law Jim Barry. 'We were the Tureendarby Céilí Band, one night we were booked to play at a Pioneer Social by the local priest, we were late because we were all night looking for a drum, the Priest was going mad,' Timmy reminisced with a smile. A musician by night, Timmy worked on his farm during the day and was also employed at the sugar factory in Mallow. He recalls playing at the Listowel Wren Boys Festival, at Dan O'Connell's in Knocknagree and the Rambling House in Boherbue. For over 40 years, he was a key member of the traditional group that played at Scully's in Newmarket at the renowned Monday night sessions. He was also part of the group that performed throughout the country in the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Irish Tour. Timmy was featured on 'The Long Note Programme' on RTE 1 and was a member of the Monks of the Screw Traditional Group. He described music as the best therapy of all: 'Dr. Verling told me one time that it's probably better than all the tablets, and I said, one would maybe want to take the tablets as well. I went to Dr. Daly a while ago with a sore ear, I said I suppose it will kill me, I'll have to give up the late nights and Dr. Daly replied 'giving up the late nights would most likely kill you away quicker!' ADVERTISEMENT On a final note, I remember asking Timmy what advice he would give to young musicians. 'You have to like it, to have the grá for it, to like it is everything. If the pupil does not like music, it is impossible to teach them,' he said. Across the Tribute Weekend, it was wonderful to see both musicians and audience members pay tribute to Timmy, who was as renowned for his warm personality as for his music.
Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
That Bastard, Puccini! review — music, mischief and silky wit
You can't sit through James Inverne's engagingly dotty chamber play about operatic rivalry without thinking of Amadeus. Here we are, back on the faultline that separates talent from genius, this time with Leoncavallo and Puccini competing to see who can write the better version of La bohème. What makes this nimble production at the Park Theatre in London so seductive is that the tale of ambition and skulduggery is drenched in cleverly weighted meta asides. Inverne, a former editor of Gramophone whose debut play, A Walk with Mr Heifetz, ran off-Broadway in 2018, wraps his research in layers of humour and self-referential nods and winks. And at the heart of it all is a winningly mischievous performance by Sebastien Torkia as a Puccini who is a suave wheeler-dealer and womaniser. It's not so long since I saw Torkia bring an ever-grinning facsimile of Silvio Berlusconi to life in a bio-musical of that corrupt old rogue. This year he played both Professor Van Helsing and a simpering Mina Harker in the rumbustious vampire farce Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors. He is a silky comic force. • Read more theatre reviews, guides and interviews We first see his boulevardier eavesdropping on poor Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) and his ever-supportive wife, Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood). Dogged by fears that he is destined to be a one-hit wonder, the composer of Pagliacci is outraged that the man he thinks of as a friend is muscling in on his plans to bring Henri Murger's stories of wayward Parisian bohos to the stage. Puccini denies stealing the idea, of course, and as their feud bubbles away, he feels free to lecture his rival on the meaning of creativity. Inverne allows his characters to catch each other using language drawn from the psychobabble of our own day. Buchan's mournful, dishevelled Leoncavallo always wins our sympathy, and there are even moments when he seems close to grabbing the glory at Venice's La Fenice. Wood is kept busy too, singing the occasional aria, transforming herself into Puccini's formidable wife, Elvira, and even joining Gorka in delivering a hilarious impersonation of a pernicketty Gustav Mahler who, as Vienna's leading conductor, wields godlike power over the two Italians. Could the sewing up of loose ends in the final 20 minutes have been tighter? Perhaps. Still, the director Daniel Slater, a familiar face on the opera circuit, administers it all with a light touch. Carly Brownbridge's handsome set smuggles musical notation onto the floor. In this quirky realm, a chaise longue can become a gondola.★★★★☆120minPark Theatre, London, to Aug 9, @timesculture to read the latest reviews
India.com
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
India's forgotten singing superstar, once took more money than Lata Mangeshkar, Md Rafi, traveled in private train, her name was...
India's forgotten singing superstar, once took more money than Lata Mangeshkar, Md Rafi, traveled in private train, her name was... Long before the renowned legends like Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi dominated the music world. There was a woman who ruled the Gramophone. She rose from a series of rejections to becoming India's first music recording star. She carved a space for herself in the male-dominated world and became a millionaire. Yes, the person we are talking about is none other than Gauhar Jaan Gaurhar Jaan was one of the finest singers in the early 1900s. However, she was born on 26 June 1873 as Angelina Yeoward in Azamgarh to an Armenian Christian father and an Indian mother. But later, her parents got separated, and Guahar's mother converted to Islam after she married to Muslim man Khurshid. Her mother became Malka Jaan, and Angelina became Gauhar Khan. Eventually, Gauhar and her mother Malka moved to Kolkata, where she was trained in classical music and eventually began performing in royal courts by the age of 15. The 'Gramophone Girl' Back in 1902, Gauhar Khan recorded a song on a gramophone disc and became the first Indian artist to record a song on a gramophone. She became a trendsetter who redefined the way classical music was presented. At a time when people used to run their houses for a few hundred, Gauhar started charging Rs. 1000-3000 per recording. Decades later, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi used to charge Rs 500 per song in the 1950s. She also earned the title of 'Gramophone Girl'. Gauhar Jaan's Fame and Fortune Gauhar Khan soon earned name and fame, and became a millionaire with her voice reaching to masses. Not only that, she led a luxurious life; she travelled in a buggy driven by horses, which was exclusive only for the Viceroy of India. Besides this, she also owned a private train coach during that time. In 1911, she was invited to perform at the coronation of King George V in Delhi Durbar. A Lonely End Despite earning massive wealth and a name for herself, Gauhar Jaan died a lonely death. During her final years, she had moved to Mysore, where she was appointed as court musician by Ruler Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV. According to reports, she suffered from depression in her last years and succumbed to a lonely death. After she passed away, many claimants to her estate came in the hope of getting a share of her fortune. However, Gauhar Jaan had already spent all her money and had no fortune but an unforgettable musical legacy that she left behind.
The Guardian
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
David Watkin obituary
In 2013 David Watkin, who has died aged 60 from complications caused by the autoimmune disease schleroderma, recorded the six Suites for solo cello by JS Bach. The following year his illness compelled him to step back from a distinguished performing career to become head of strings, and later professor of chamber music, at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. When the CD set of the Suites was released in 2015, it proved to be an instant success, winning awards from Gramophone – which this year rated it as one of the 50 greatest Bach recordings – and BBC Music Magazine. His rhythmically alive, tonally beautiful and scholarly playing was realised by using a baroque bow by John Waterhouse and two historic cellos, one by Francesco Rugeri from around 1670 for the first five Suites, and a five-stringed instrument by the Amati brothers, Antonio and Girolamo, for the Sixth Suite. As well as teaching, he continued to conduct such ensembles as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Swedish Baroque Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Born in Crowthorne, Berkshire, David came from a musical family. His parents, Christine (nee Horney) and Ken Watkin, were violin teachers, and his elder brother, Simon, gravitated to the viola. When the family were living in Beckenham, Kent, he began taking cello lessons with a local teacher, eventually enabling the family to play quartets by Haydn and Mozart. When David was nine, the Watkin family moved again, to Pembrokeshire, where his mentors were Bridget Jenkins and the recitalist Sharon McKinley. He became the star cellist of the West Glamorgan Youth Orchestra, and went on to be a member of the National Youth Orchestra, and its principal cellist for two years. At 15 he won a scholarship to Wells Cathedral school, where he studied the cello with Margaret Moncrieff and Amaryllis Fleming. There he encountered historically informed recordings directed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Frans Brüggen, and a friend's father made him a baroque cello. Vocal lessons from the tenor Kenneth Bowen led to his seriously considering a career as a singer. His gap year was spent as a lay clerk, singing in the choir at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he went on to take a music degree (1984-87). He continued cello studies with William Pleeth and played in the Cambridge Baroque Camerata. As a full-time performer he led the cello sections of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, English Baroque Soloists, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Philharmonia Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Other ensembles he conducted included the Malta Philharmonic and Manchester Consort, and he had a stint as assistant conductor at Glyndebourne. While working with John Eliot Gardiner in the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, he and three colleagues – Peter Hanson, Lucy Howard and Gustav Clarkson – felt they should adapt the orchestra's authentic styles for Romantic music to quartet playing. Thus in 1993 the Eroica Quartet was born. Watkin adopted a transitional approach with this ensemble, playing with an endpin: until the mid-19th century cellists had held the instrument unsupported between their legs. The quartet's recordings of Beethoven, Mendelssohn (the quartets and the original version of the Octet), Schumann, Debussy and Ravel brought fresh perspectives to listeners. Characteristic of their approach for the Mendelssohn quartets was studying the bowings and fingerings adopted by Ferdinand David, the first performer of the composer's Violin Concerto, for his own ensemble, and the selective application of vibrato for expressive effect. Tours took them to France and the US, and they gave Beethoven cycles in the UK and abroad. With various colleagues, Watkin recorded concertos and sonatas by Vivaldi and sonatas by Boccherini. He and the fortepianist Howard Moody recorded three sonatas by Beethoven (1996), and to the book Performing Beethoven (2011) he contributed an essay on those works. In an article in the journal Early Music (1996) Watkin pointed to how Corelli allowed for the possibility of violin sonatas being accompanied by a string bass without a keyboard, by filling out the chords indicated by the numbers of the figured bass, and extended the principle to recitative passages in opera. As a teacher he aimed to lead students to think for themselves. An extract from a masterclass on Bach given at Kings Place, London, in 2017 can be seen on YouTube. In choosing Watkins' Bach recordings for its 50 best, Gramophone commented on the 'warm, expansive, generous and friendly' character of the playing, and many found the same qualities in him as a colleague. In 2002 Watkin married Sara Burton, and they had two sons, Noah and Sandy. They separated, and he is survived by his partner, Lisi Stockton, his sons, his parents and Simon. David Watkin, cellist, conductor, musicologist and teacher, born 8 May 1965; died 13 May 2025
New York Times
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Per Norgard, Daring Symphonic Composer, Dies at 92
Per Norgard, a prolific and daring Danish composer whose radiant experiments with sound, form and tonality earned him a reputation as one of the leading latter-day symphonists, died on May 28 in Copenhagen. He was 92. His death, at a retirement home, was announced by his publisher, Edition Wilhelm Hansen. Mr. Norgard (pronounced NOR-gurr) composed eight symphonies, 10 string quartets, six operas, numerous chamber and concertante works and multiple scores for film and television, making him the father of Danish contemporary music. Following his death, he was described as 'an artist of colossal imagination and influence' by the critic Andrew Mellor in the British music publication Gramophone. Mr. Norgard's musical evolution encompassed the mid-20th century's leading styles, including Neo-Classicism, expressionism and his own brand of serialism, and incorporated a wide range of influences, including Javanese gamelan music, Indian philosophy, astrology and the works of the schizophrenic Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli. But he considered himself a distinctively Nordic composer, influenced by the Finnish symphonist Jean Sibelius, and that was how newcomers to his music often approached him. The infinite, brooding landscapes of Sibelius — along with the intensifying repetitions in the work of Mr. Norgard's Danish compatriot Carl Nielsen and the obsessive, short-phrase focus of the Norwegian Edvard Grieg — have echoes in Mr. Norgard's fragmented sound world. The delirious percussive expressions of Mr. Norgard's composition 'Terrains Vagues' (2000), the plinking raindrops of the two-piano, four-metronome 'Unendlicher Empfang' (1997) and the vast, discontinuous fresco of the Eighth Symphony (2011) all evoke the black-and-white northern vistas of Sibelius, with their intense play of light and shadow. As a young student at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in the early 1950s, he was immersed in the music of Sibelius, writing to the older composer and receiving encouragement in return. 'When I discovered there was a kind of unity in his music, I was obsessed with the idea of meeting him,' he said in an interview. 'And to let him know that I didn't consider him out of date.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
