Two things occur to me, writing this blog. One is the need to explain why I am writing it, and the other is to put on record how much I love British arts and culture too. I am truly fortunate to live in the arty English town of Lewes, an hour away from London by train. I want to give you an idea of why I go to London and why I think it is still one of the great cities of the world. For me, it’s the place where I go most often to satisfy my life-long passion for music and art. In the one year I document here, I have been truly inspired by what I’ve seen and heard in good ol’ London Town.

Of course, also for the record, and for all this stuff about the wonders of Europe and, the UK’s foolishly severed relationship with it. I love London – scroll on to see some of my reasons for so doing.

One last thing – if I give the impression of being a bit of a globe-trotter, the truth is that mostly, as all writers, I spend most of my time in a small room here in the lovely town of Lewes in Sussex. In fact, friends tell me that I don’t. go out enough.

27th March 2025

Marie Lys, soprano, Elina Garanča, mezzo-soprano, Piotr Beczala, tenor, William Thomas, bass, Philharmonia Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Muti.

“Neil Fisher, chief music critic of The Times recently interviewed Riccardo Muti and aptly described him as the last of the ‘Big Beasts’. Tickets for this concert were like gold-dust, the hall was packed to the gunwales; there were people standing (with paid tickets) at the rear of the stalls. This was not simply another concert – it was a major musical event…It was not only a huge pleasure to attend this concert, but it was also a privilege and certainly one for the record books.” John Rhodes, Seen and Heard International.

27th March 2025

Petrarch’s rave review has it right. Conquering the heart is what Martini and other 14th-century painters from Siena do in the National Gallery’s devastatingly exact, epochal exhibition about the moment western art came alive. Simone’s painting of Laura is lost but you see why he was the artist for the job. He is so expressive, so tender, exploding any idea of medieval art as remote. Jonathan Jones, The Guardian.

29th April 2025

29TH APRIL 2025

Legions of keyboard fans know that Víkingur Ólafsson  does reflective like few others. Calmness, softness of touch and introspection are among the Icelandic pianist’s widely admired trademarks. It helps make him a perfect performer for the AirPod age……but how does Ólafsson respond to a full orchestra in a large-scale work such as Beethoven’s third piano concerto? The answer, in this opening concert of the Philharmonic Orchestra’s celebrationary 80th season, is that he does it with enviable ease. 

Before the concerto, Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducted the UK premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s Si el Oxígeno Fuera Verde, which the orchestra had premiered in Amsterdam the previous day. Described by the composer as a fragile green murmur of life, the environmentally inspired work is delicately scored as a bubbling forest of gentle arpeggios and trills, which eventually coheres into an insistent dance with echoes of John Adams and the Stravinsky of The Rite of Spring.

Alongside Ólafsson, who stayed to listen to the second half of the concert, the evening’s star attraction was the Royal Festival Hall organ being played at full throttle. With Notre Dame cathedral’s Olivier Latry at the organ controls, and Rouvali neatly alive to the work’s overall architecture and colours, Saint-Saëns’s third symphony is a guaranteed crowd pleaser for a special occasion – and so it proved.  Martin Kettle, The Guardian

The result is a show that feels adventurous and fresh. Reconsidered by Tsang and Fuenteblanca, his art springs to life. And to top it all, in the show’s climax, we get The Three Dancers displayed on a pretend stage, lifted up in lights for us to examine properly and dramatically. The “dancers” are two women and a man, their figures twisted spikily into an edgy tango. The woman on the left is grimacing grotesquely. The man on the right is silhouetted mysteriously. The dancing nude at their centre seems to be the focus of their tension.

We’re watching a tug of love. I was reminded immediately of Princess Diana’s lament about three in a marriage being a bit crowded. Picasso has cast the central figure in the Camilla Parker Bowles role.The man is clearly Picasso, reduced, typically, to a silhouette. The screaming woman on the left is, surely, his Russian wife Olga, whom he had begun to caricature nastily in his art. The dancing nude is a lover who has come between them.The Tate has other theories and we’ll never know for sure. But what’s excellent here is how excitingly the show has framed the possibilities. It’s been a long time — several years — since an event as stimulating as this opened at Tate Modern. If it were up to me I would leave these rooms exactly as they are for ever, as a thrilling tribute to Picasso. Waldemar Januszczak, Waldemar.tv

2nd November 2025

Is home a place, a feeling, or an idea? Suh asks timely questions about the enigma of home, identity and how we move through and inhabit the world around us. Tate Modern.

2nd November 2025

Kngwarray’s paintings might well remind you of a kind of gestural abstraction they have nothing to do with, and which the artist would never in any case have seen. The things we look at in Kngwarray’s art are about an entirely different order of experience to the similar kinds of brushstrokes driven this way and that around other, more familiar canvases we might also find in Tate Modern, where her retrospective has arrived from the National Gallery of Australia. But this similarity is also one of the reasons Kngwarray became famous in the first place. Adrian Searle, The Guardian.

2nd November 2025

Installation by Carlos Cruz-Diez, 2019.

‘When light comes into contact with an artwork, it changes it completely. My challenge is to reveal to the viewer a reality without a past or a future: my works exist in a perpetual present.’

2nd November 2025

‘Rather unusual for ‘contemporary’ composers, Christian Lindberg actually has his ‘own identity’ – a voice of his own – and not at all derivative of other composers, as tediously customary in ‘contemporary’ music. Lindberg’s Trombone Concert No.4, is a mesmerising masterpiece and was warmly received by an enthused audience.

The elegantly elfistical Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducted a completely flawless performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony (subtitled ‘A Soviet artist’s practical, creative reply to just criticism’) with all tempos correctly judged from beginning to end: accents, clarity, phrasing, and dynamic range were exceptionally well-judged eliciting a highly charged emotional intensity from his immaculately tuned world-class orchestra.’ Alexander Verney-Elliott, Seen and Heard International.

16th January 2025

Indeed, anyone not au fait with the story of Gesualdo’s colourful life would be perplexed by much they saw here, especially as his two wives appear to be played by the same actress. No help is given in terms of texts (they’re printed in the programme but there are no surtitles) or other factual information.

The show is better seen… as a theatrical representation of Gesualdo’s tortured psyche as reflected in his shockingly chromatic harmonies, rather than a representational biopic. On that level it’s powerful and engrossing, the music extending far beyond contemporary Mannerism to something more like 20th-century Expressionism, expressing deep psychological trauma. Barry Millingon, The Standard.

19th February 2025

The distinctions are so often invoked that some find it hard to believe these artists could have anything in common. Which is precisely the twist of this show. It wants us to look far more closely at these minds and hands at work, and to discover fundamental similarities when the two are brought together. In its originality and insight, its brilliant selection and compelling texts, this is one of the most exhilarating shows I’ve ever seen. Laura Cumming, the Observer.

19th February 2025

Bruckner Symphony No. 8, Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Renes 

A rare appearance in the UK by Sir Donald Runnicles, a longtime fixture of the German classical music scene, had prompted excitement among audiences in London. The proposition of hearing him conduct the Philharmonia in Bruckner’s Symphony no. 8 in C minor stirred the musical loins of Bruckner-lovers, and there was a palpable buzz at the Royal Festival Hall on the evening. Alas, Sir Donald was indisposed, but Lawrence Renes gamely stepped in at short notice to lead the orchestra in the Haas edition of the score.

‘The performance of the symphony (Bruckner’s 8th Symphony) was nothing short of glorious and much of that must be due to Renes’s muscular conducting. His grasp of the structure of the work was palpable, and he revelled in the frequent volcanic eruptions in the work. The Scherzo oozed rhythmic energy, the three harps glistened. The long Adagio started very slowly and I feared the conductor was going to ignore the composer’s express direction Feierlich langsam, aber nicht schleppend (Ceremonially slow but don’t drag); thankfully, Renes soon imposed a slightly faster tempo. He built up the many climaxes with great skill, and the Wagner tubas shone. Indeed, the orchestra played magnificently across all sections, blended woodwind, firm strident brass, thundering timpani (Simon Carrington), mellow horns (led by Lasse Mauritzen) and the percussionist enjoying his two cymbal clashes: and all held together by the lithe and energetic Leader, Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay.

I am now thinking of starting a new blog entitled ‘Bring back Renes’ – or even, ‘Where’s Renes? Perhaps the Philharmonia will invite him back in a coming season with, say, Bruckner’s Fourth? I live in hope; but also hope Sir Donald, restored to full health, will return to a London podium very soon.’ John Rhodes, Seen and Heard International

19th March 2026

What stands out from the outset is the shift in perspective. Rather than presenting modernism as a story that begins in Europe and spreads outward, the exhibition recognises Lagos, Zaria, Ibadan and Enugu as major centres of artistic innovation in their own right. This reframing will resonate strongly with Black British visitors familiar with how cultural histories can be sidelined in mainstream institutions. Here, Nigeria is not the supporting act — it is the focus.

Written by Black History Month UK. 18/11/2025

19th March 2026

There was a time when London’s walls were papered with Mahler 2s; certainly, in the 1980s, performances were regular occurrences with nary a month going by without one or other of the capital’s concert halls having its roof blown off by massed choirs belting out Klopstock.

The Mahler craze has quieted, but there is always space for the mighty sonic edifice of the Second. Fittingly, given the prominence of the brass in Mahler, this performance was dedicated to the memory of trumpeter John Wallace, former Principal Trumpet of the Philharmonia Orchestra….

…Kent Nagano’s Mahler is a known entity, and shares with his Wagner (his ongoing historically-informed Ring cycle in particular, closing with Götterdämmerung in Dresden in May) an x-ray awareness of detail. This was an individual interpretation of the highest rank, as Nagano manages to pair that sense of detail with an awareness of the big picture, allowing climaxes to really register (another commonality with his Wagner).

Nagano also has the ability to create just the right momentum, a trait important everywhere but maybe especially so in the symphony’s opening paragraphs. His conducting technique is near-infallible, too: of all the many Mahler 2’s I have heard, none contained such perfectly controlled Luftpausen as this. Nagano gave space for the contrasting themes; again, just the right amount. It is worth mentioning some individual contributions from the orchestra that stood out: first horn Laurence Davies, and cor anglais player Maxwell Spiers…

…A simply superb trombone solo from Matthew Lewis was another highlight of the evening, as was the velvety sound of trombones and tuba at the ‘Dies irae’ theme. The finale is a movement of extremes, and Mahler piles on the scoring in true late-Romantic fashion. Somehow, Nagano made sense of the thorniest passages like few before him, while honouring the Modernism of the score, more notably in those proto-Ivesian moments of thematic juxtaposition…

…The placing of the off-stage contributions was carefully and effectively thought-through. Jane Archibald was just as special a soloist as Bock, her soprano the perfect complement to Bock’s mezzo. But it was Nagano that choreographed the great choral climax so perfectly, the Philharmonia Chorus beautifully soft on entry, the male voices later creating an imposing wall of sound, Nagano extending the silent pause after ‘Bereite dich’ daringly, as if himself asking, ‘Prepare yourself for what?’. ‘To live,’ came the answer, and how beautifully Archibald crowned the chorus. The Philharmonia Chorus could only be described as fearsomely present in the work’s final stretch; and yet the brass crowned it all, perfectly. Good to hear the RFH organ at full tilt, too. Colin Clarke, Opera Today.

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Last week I went to the new exhibition at London’s National Gallery. It is the first major exhibition in Britain of the magnificent Baroque paintings by the Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1654), who, still relatively unknown in this country, is increasingly regarded as one of the great 17th century Italian Baroque painters who is now mentioned in the same awed breath as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610), known simply as Caravaggio as she is remembered as Artemisia. The show is to use a vulgar term, a wow.

I was wearing my surgical mask, of course, because of the gallery’s pandemic precautions, but it might have been essential if some of Artemisia’s goriest pictures had been enacted there in reality. One of Artemisia’s specialities was showing heroic women killing bad guys. Maybe her most famous and most sensational painting is the Uffizi version of her biblical-themed, Judith beheading Holofernes, which allows us to reimagine, if we have to, what it would be like, quite literally, cut off the head of a struggling man. Holofernes is the Assyrian general whose army is besieging the Jewish city of Bethulia and, Judith, a rich Bethulia widow, with her equally heroic maidservant, saves the day and, of course the city.

Artemisia’s painting challenged her great predecessor, Caravaggio, at his own game with her version of the same moment of horror. For Caravaggio the focus is on the agony and terror of the dying general, but Artemisia, no shirker of gore, puts the emphasis on the two women and the brutal reality of the assassination. In both pictures we are on the dramatic, even operatically bloody high ground of Italian Baroque. The Artemisia, in another difference from the Caravaggio, promotes the maidservant from a worried elderly observer into a co-conspirator and we realise that killing enemy generals is hard work if you are Caravaggio’s frail Judith instead of Artemisia’s muscular widow who looks like she knows how to wring out a wet blanket or two.

Artemisia, and her audience of admirers, couldn’t get enough of Judith – there are more than a few versions of this story, including the no less dramatic painting of Judith and her maidservant, Abra, about to escape from Holofernes’ tent and out through the enemy army’s camp. The dead general’s head is now turning a ghastly, and very dead, green and. the basket is dripping blood as the two women face the next set of dangers in their mission. Judith, her body still flexed for action, rests the sword on her shoulder, prepared to fight herself out of danger.

I don’t think I am being insensitive to the dilemma portrayed in these wonderful paintings if I stand back from the blood and admire the art in both works that show Artemisia’s mastery of colour, lighting and the human form. She allows her artistry to engage. fully rather than run away from these scenes of horror.

She’s at it again with another of her biblical heroines, in Jael and Sisera, a strangely gentle picture considering its subject. Sisera was a commander in the Canaanite army and Jael was a woman from the rival Kenite tribe in another of those Old Testament battle stories that I was taught at school. It’s another scene inside a tent, this time it is Jael’s, she has invited Sisera in with the promise of drinks, dinner and other more intimate refreshments. When he falls asleep, after the fun, I assume, she gets a tent peg and hammers it into his temple with obvious results. As a small schoolboy, I was given nightmares by this story – even to the point of thinking campsites were extremely dangerous places to sleep in. Artemisia’s painting almost lulls us into the calm state that Jael manages with Sisera. For a moment, before the hammer finds it mark, there is a sense of tranquil meditation that is particularly reflected in Jael’s expression. Could she have enjoyed their liaison too, I wonder. Sisera, I hope, died peacefully in his sleep, as they say in local newspapers’ ‘births, marriages and deaths’ columns. Maybe Artemisia was contemplating her relationships, good and bad, with the men in her life. There is almost a mood of forgiveness and tenderness, perhaps, in this painting – but that hammer did descend to do its work.

So, why are we drawn to these pictures of heroic women killing men? Murder is murder, after-all. I have tried not to mention Artemisia’s biography on this as it is so often quoted as an explanation. Maybe it is enough to acknowledge that there was a market, mostly male, for these kinds of paintings and Artemisia knew what would sell. It has to be told though that in her late teens she was raped by a painter friend of her artist father Orazio Gentileschi, and as part of the rape trial she was in interrogated by torture. It is important, of course, to recognise this horrible event but not to see it as the basis of Artemisia’s genius. She was, first and foremost, a great artist who could use her own experiences, even the most traumatic, to inform her art.

Her rape has often been quoted in reference to her earliest masterpiece, Susannah and the Elders, painted when she was still only seventeen or eighteen years old. She was taught by her father, who may have advised her, but no one knows for sure. The story of Susannah and the Elders is from the Apocrypha. Susannah, a young wife, is bathing in the garden when two old men see her and try to seduce her. She refuses their advances and they threaten to accuse her of adultery if she doesn’t submit to them. She still refuses and it is only in court that she is vindicated. It doesn’t take a Miss Marple to see the significance of the story to the young Artemisia.

Susannah is the heroine, along with Judith, most associated with the artist who painted both subjects repeatedly throughout her life. We are left in no doubt about the unpleasant character of the two elders as they insinuate themselves on Susannah and whisper between themselves like clients in a seedy stripclub. Susannah is naked and vulnerable. Why do so many women in Baroque art insist on bathing in semi-public places? It is like the women in vampire films who tend to undress in front of open windows. Artemisia’s Susannah though isn’t as vulnerable as we might think. She will defend herself in court, as Artemisia did, and she shows with her hand gestures that she is not going to be dominated by these men. Her gesture, sometimes criticised as awkward, shows her twisting her body one way and her arms the other. To me, this looks like an example of self-defence performed by a woman who knows the meaning of such movement..

As it happened, the evening before my trip to London, I had been at my weekly tai-chi class where I had asked the instructor, Neil Johnson, about a soreness in my knees which seemed to be caused when I practised certain tai-chi moves. We did the whole lesson on how these defensive moves should be performed in a way that protects the knees from twisting. The upper body turns but the lower body remains static and solid. I think this is what Susannah is doing when the old men come on the attack.

I have been practicing this movement in my garden, and my knees are already thanking me. Tai-chi might look graceful but it is, in fact, a martial art, the companion of my White Crane Kungfu style. A gentle friend of mine from that club was once attacked when he was teaching one-to-one in a prison. He used that move in self-defence and the attacker fell to the floor with a broken arm. So, well done Susannah, you and Artemisia, I believe, knew how to defend yourself. Maybe they too had to learn the hard way.

Her later Susannah paintings, the last one painted over forty years later, may display her growing technique and maturity but, for me, that early painting catches something unique. It remains one of my favourites and stays in the memory after seeing so many of her great works at the wonderful National Gallery exhibition.

I was careful not to read too much biography into the pictures but, I was also fascinated by the powerful personality that most obviously lies behind her works. I don’t think we can ever ‘know’ Artemisia as a person but, maybe we can get some idea of her forceful character from the portrait by her friend and colleague, the French Baroque painter, Simon Vouet (1590 – 1649).

Simon Vouet also painted a portrait of Francesco Maria Maringhi (1593 – after 1653), a Florentine gentleman, the man that Artemisia loved with true passion and who became her life-long lover and financial supporter.

I am pleased that Artemisia’s biography isn’t just about the bad things – love and friendship were there too as was revealed when her letters to Maringhi were discovered as recently as 2011 – they are displayed at the London exhibition. Her rapid handwriting says it all, emotion, spelling mistakes and all. ‘Mio carisimo core” my dearest heart, “Io vorrei che Vostra Signoria venisse qui quanto prima” I would like your lordship to come here as soon as possible “Perché io non volio aspettare piu male che io mi abbia” Because I don’t want to wait more badly that I have.’ “afizionata” affectionately Artemisia.

In Artemisia we have a passionate and intelligent artist who also happened to be a passionate and intelligent woman who managed to live as a respected and successful painter in a country that had no shortage of great artists. She had that terrible rape, she was tortured, she had an arranged marriage, all but one of her children died before adulthood, and money problems were never ever very far away., but she persevered with her work as an artist and her difficulties insured that she would become a truly great artist.

Her early painting of the Madonna and Child shows a real mother and a real child – the tender focus on those baby feet is just one of the features that mark this painting out from the many similar works by her great male colleagues.

Her Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy came to light in 2014 and, unfortunately, even though now lies hidden in a private collection, but it has become an instant hit with anyone who is lucky enough to see it. Her Magdalene is not a repentant sexual sinner but a woman transformed and inspired. I like to think Artemisia was painting a mental state that she knew well from experience. Artemisia, the woman of passionate sensitivity is there in her Self-Portrait as a Lute Player.

She was, apparently, a good musician who had musician and as well as painter colleagues and who respected her as one of them – which, I am sure, she was.

I feel closer to her now after my encounter with her at this outstanding exhibition which had been postponed by the pandemic but is now fully open and will run until January 2021. I will end with the painting that I knew before coming to this show, her self-portrait as an artist – part allegory, part manifesto for a woman who knew that she was as good as if not better than the male artists around her.  She wrote to one of her many patrons “a woman’s name raises doubts until her work is seen…I will show Your Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do.” It is still my favourite among all her works. It speaks to us all and states again as it keeps needing to be said, that art is not a luxury, it is a fundamental human need. It, like that tai-chi gesture, can also be our best self-defence.

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