Latest news with #QueenElizabethHall
Times
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
George the Poet/Chineke! review — the climate crisis in words and music
George the Poet isn't really a climate activist, and he knows it. Appearing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London as part of the Southbank's ambitious Multitudes festival, in a concert billed as a meditation on the climate emergency, the spoken word artist established a narrative in which he had been commissioned to say nice things about nature. He entered wielding a laptop from which he 'read' his 'drafts' and took Zoom calls. He code-switched from his easy north London accent to a chirpy corporate RP, to face eager PRs. It was a clever setup for some slightly fuzzy poems on the natural world — nevertheless recently released as an album. In any case, they paled in comparison to the tighter, more informed, more fervent
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Maria Tipo, Italian pianist acclaimed for her interpretations of Bach, Scarlatti and the Romantics
Maria Tipo, who has died aged 93, was an Italian pianist revered for her brilliant articulation, immaculate precision and admirable control of the instrument; she was among the first European pianists to bring the complete Bach Goldberg Variations to the concert platform inspired, she said, by the playing of Glenn Gould. The Goldberg Variations were at the heart of a 1969 Wigmore Hall concert in which a Daily Telegraph critic noted that her 'excellent finger technique and perfectly poised, effortless-sounding part-playing told immediately and strongly in her favour'. While purists derided her 'Bach-maninov' approach to Baroque music, she was one of the great contrapuntalists, attracting acclaim for her interpretation of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and Muzio Clementi both in concert and on disc. Yet Maria Tipo, a tall, sultry-looking blonde, did not consider herself a specialist in any particular composer. Her performance of four Chopin studies at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1970 was a 'tour de force'; her account of Beethoven's First Piano Concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra was 'vivacious and sparkling'; and the impression given by her Schumann recording for EMI was, noted Gramophone, 'of an artist who takes whatever she plays very much to heart'. Maria Tipo was born in Naples on December 23 1931; her first piano lessons were with her mother, Ersilia Cavallo, a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni, and she made her public debut at the age of 4. Her parents, however, refused to pass her off as a child prodigy and took her to study in Rome with the elderly Alfredo Casella, who gave lessons in his dressing gown, and Guido Agosti, another Busoni student. In 1949 she won the Geneva Piano Competition. Three years later Arthur Rubinstein heard her at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium, where she came third, and wrote: 'She is not only a complete pianist, but she has the most exceptional talent of our time.' The impresario Sol Hurok launched her on a whirlwind tour of North and South America, including an exhausting 125 concerts in three months. As a result, it was 1967 before her London debut, the long-anticipated occasion moving a Daily Telegraph critic to raptures over the 'vitality and reverence… crystalline ornamentation… brilliant and compelling'. Marriage, family and a weariness with travelling limited Maria Tipo's career. But on returning to the US in 1991 after a hiatus of 32 years she was hailed as the 'Neapolitan Horowitz', after the mercurial American pianist Vladimir Horowitz's long absences from the concert hall. She was having none of it. 'He was Horowitz. I am from Naples,' she told Harold Schonberg in The New York Times. British audiences were less fortunate: her last appearance here appears to have been a 1973 recital in Cardiff. 'Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 3 was full of character and Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No 5 both brilliant and lyrical,' observed the critic Kenneth Loveland. She settled in Florence, teaching at the Conservatory and later the Fiesole School of Music; her students included the Argentine pianist Nelson Goerner. By her 70th birthday, she told an Italian newspaper, she no longer felt the need to play endlessly. 'You travel, you eat, you sleep alone. There is the concert, yes, but it only lasts a couple of hours, and then you are alone with yourself again,' she said. Maria Tipo's two marriages, to the guitarist Alvaro Company and the pianist Alessandro Specchi, were 'important slices of life', though both were dissolved. She had a daughter, the violinist Alina Company, from her first marriage. Maria Tipo, born December 23 1931, died February 10 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Radical statement or eyesore? Japan's divisive brutalist buildings
Emerging after the second world war, Japan's brutalist architecture is characterised by its geometric shapes, functionality and unconventional use of concrete – which is often left unfinished to showcase the material's textures and imperfections. Paul Tulett traveled the country to photograph extraordinary examples. 'Brutalist architecture in Japan might not ruffle feathers locally but it's considered divisive elsewhere,' he says. Brutalist Japan by Prestel publishing can be purchased here Paul Tulett: 'Brutalism outside of Japan is like Marmite. Love it or hate it. Some find it refreshingly raw – an honest counterpoint to contemporary glass-based disingenuous attempts at state transparency. Others are reminded of communism or when the UK nearly slid down the pan in the 1970s. Having failed to do the most basic research prior to moving to Okinawa, I was pleasantly surprised by the preponderance of brutalism here and the absence of negative associations' 'The general line is that the brutalism here is born out of necessity, as Okinawa is seasonally battered by typhoons. Homes must be robust and 90% of new dwellings are concrete. Swift adoption of the material was prompted by postwar reconstruction needs. We also need to factor in concrete's resistance to termites – pests greedy for the traditional material of wood. Then there are earthquakes and a damp climate' 'Weathering and deterioration of concrete can lead to stains, cracks and crumble that upset some. Intended radical philosophical statements become eyesores. With hindsight, I became concrete-obsessed at a young age. During a school trip to London, I envisaged a battalion of Star Wars stormtroopers pouring from Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Hayward Gallery and the National Theatre. A sure gauge of whether something is brutalist or not is this: would it look good in a sci-fi movie?' 'To the haters, brutalism reflects the increased intrusion of government and state power. It is no accident that brutalist architectural forms often harboured state departments. Brutalist buildings afford sobering historic reflection – much like the preservation of communist statues in former Soviet states' Photograph: Paul Tulett 'This residence reflects the philosophy that true architectural harmony is achieved not by bending the land to our will, but by listening to its whispers. Amid the rampant uniformity where cities clone themselves, losing their inherent voice, this home seeks to preserve the memory of the terrain, embracing the spirit of the place. The building's form, an organic response to the site, eschews the aggressive imposition of the flat and the straight for convenience's sake' 'Darth Vader's holiday home? This striking complex features affordable housing stacked above a ground-floor elderly day care centre. It models Okinawa's social aspect of planning. The reverse inequality theory, foundational to Nago City's 1973 Comprehensive Plan, challenges development strategies focused solely on income growth, focusing instead on community-centred urban planning. In Okinawa, where communal ties and collective wellbeing are highly valued, such approaches are essential' 'This silhouette, a composition of bold geometric lines and the stark honesty of exposed concrete, channels the brutalist ethos. Its colossal, forthright forms stand in sharp relief to Kyoto's delicate tapestry. Yet, within its robust frame, the structure nurtures the flexible, organic essence of 'metabolism' – a Japanese architectural vanguard of the 1960s. The design, a tessellation of modular units and transformable spaces, breathes the metabolist vision of perpetual evolution' 'It has been argued that concrete is the 'natural choice' of construction material in Japan as it resonates with the half-a-millennium-old practice of sukiya – the considered composition of raw and rough natural materials. The material expression of concrete's rawness is deemed to chime with an almost genetic appreciation for an elemental, unrefined aesthetic. Apparently, the Japanese have a unique long experience with wood, pottery and stone, but for what people are these not traditional materials? I can only think of the Inuit' 'Situated within Komazawa Park, this tower had to support a substantial 33-ton water tank above ground, which was essential for supplying water throughout the park. It also accommodated an antenna for television broadcasts. Below ground, the structure housed a general electric room, machine room, broadcast room and telephone exchange. And it played a pivotal role in controlling traffic within the park while serving as a commemorative landmark' 'This station emerges like a scene from a sci-fi odyssey. An architectural spaceship, launched in 1995, it defies its historical backdrop with a daring leap into futurism. The station is a stargate to the storied city of Uji and greets travellers not with wooden torii gates, but with a concrete vault that arcs like the heavens above a distant planet. The design is audacious, a semicircular cocoon that dares to embrace both the circle's Zen-like simplicity and the boundless possibilities of the cosmos' 'The exclusive suite garden here showcases the gardener's artistry with a Kyoto stone pathway reminiscent of scattered hailstones, encouraging a moment of pause and reflection. By presenting the Japanese experience, I hope to challenge the stereotypical negative attacks levelled at brutalism more broadly. The aim is to provoke thought about examples of brutalism closer to you. With understanding comes appreciation.' You can see more of Tulett's work at @brutal_zen
