The Gotan Project Live at the Barbican, London

On the tail-end of their Lunático tour, The Gotan Project performed at the Barbican a day after winning at the Radio 3 World Music Awards in the Club Global category, which sounds more like something you might want your airline to upgrade you to. The set was a slightly toned down version of their Paris gig and suffered from being in a seating venue and an audience that had probably never heard the band live before. Row K was particularly boring. Despite this, the performance was a typically cool Gotan Project affair, with the white suits and silk gowns, slightly bizarre visuals and irrepressible mix of crazy DJing, virtuosic playing and tango.

The band finished with an encore of Libertango played over the backtrack of Diferente, which was, well, different. The extended Lunático album with three bonus tracks and two videos is now available. Everyone go out and grab a copy!

Coriolanus

Coriolanus by William Shakespeare, The Ninagawa Theatre Company, Japan
Barbican Theatre, London, 26 April 2007

OK, so it's a three-hour play about revenge. In Japanese. And if you sit near the front you have to crane your neck left or right to catch the surtitles as they flash by, while trying to keep an eye on what's happening on stage.

Also, it's a play about revenge. Everyone's very angry. They speak very fast. In Japanese. There's lots of yelling and arguing. And fighting. And crying.

But it's impressive. The set is sloped, thanks to a set of faux-stone steps leading up to backdrops that slide away to take you between scenes outside Rome's Capitol and Corioli. The whole thing is like something out of a Kurosawa movie, with elaborate costumes, choreographed swordfights, an epic score, and even some climactic blood-spurting that Tarantino would be proud of. Coriolanus, despite speaking very fast, puts in an excellent performance, as does his mother, a guilt-tripping, manipulative wench that is nevertheless the heroine of the story. It's an exhaustive evening, but well worth the effort.

Murray Perahia

Murray Perahia in recital, Barbican Hall, London, 23 April 2007

Right, so need I say that Murray Perahia is awesome..... Monday saw his return to the Barbican, following last year's cancelled recital due to recurrent problems with a hand injury. An inflammation in the hand during the 1990s forced him away from the piano for a number of years, during which he supposedly drew great inspiration from listening to Bach. True or not, he has subsequently given us some of the most sublime recordings of Bach's keyboard works.

It was thus unsurprising that he should choose to start the evening with Bach's C minor Partita which, although marred by a few mistakes, was remarkable for its clarity. Watching someone play Bach is always nerve-racking, because it requires mathematical precision and there's simply no room for error. Under Perahia's hands, you can hear every single note of every single voice, no matter what finger, what tempo or what dynamic.

He was nevertheless far more comfortable with Beethoven's Pastoral Sonata, his best piece of the evening. This was followed by Schumann's Fantasiestück, a piece I'm not so keen on. But Chopin's Ballade No. 2 was amazing, and followed by a breathtaking Chopin as an encore.

On a completely random note (no pun intended), Murray Perahia kinda reminds me of Jacques Pepin. I can imagine he might make a good chef, although he seems a bit too mild-mannered. I wonder how Jacques Pepin would do at the piano......