Rendering 16 (Music)

The article under study is taken from “The Guardian,” where it’s published under the title “Leona Lewis, Royal Albert Hall, London, review.” It was contributed by Neil McCormick on 9 May 2013 and takes a critical view of the pop singer Leona Lewis’s concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

In the author’s words, it is one of the worst designed pop productions he has ever seen. At the same beginning Neil McCormick points out ironically that Lewis can sing, and that’s what she does all night, so that the glass shattering note at the end of ‘Moment Like This’ has the Royal Albert Hall on its feet, applauding wildly. In this connection it’s necessary to note that, while other pop divas have fireworks, hi-tech video screens and troupes of dancers, get shot out of canons and soar over crowds, Leona, for the most part, sings. It’s not bad at all, in McCormick’s opinion, but the singer’s choreography really leaves much to be desired: whenever Lewis does any attempt even just to dance with her two backing vocalists, it looks as if they were all school girls down the local disco. In addition, there is a strange lack of urgency. This can be proved by the following: instead of disappearing in a blast of light in order to reappear moments later in completely different costume, Leona ambles off stage, leaving her band playing new age filler music, and strolls back only several minutes later. 

As one can see from above, there is a general feeling to believe that Lewis is one of those modern pop singers who insist on contributing to the efforts of her songwriters, but the results suggest she might be better letting the professionals do the work. At the concert, the author notes, wherever she thought she was taking us, the route was littered with forgettable songs. Her vocal glided over the surface of a succession of pleasant melodies with clichéd lyrics; the strongest material, including the fantastic final song, was written by others.

The author concludes by saying that, while Lewis’s voice by no means strong, deep and gliding, it’s evident that in the greatest pop music, it’s the song, not the singer that counts. I may partly agree with this statement, especially in connection with the latest Eurovision where the first places were given to the singers that, from my point of view at least, can’t boast of any impressive vocal gifts.

Film Review: "Amadeus"

Amadeus (1984)

Director: Miloš Forman

Writer: Peter Shaffer

Stars:  F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge

Music by: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri

Distributed by: Orion Pictures (Original)/Warner Bros. (Current)

Release date: September 19, 1984

Running time: 161 minutes

Country: United States

Synopsis: Antonio Salieri, a prosperous composer, one of the most influential of his time, seems to have everything he could ever dream of – glory, wealth, respect. He believes himself to be a genius, until one day fate brought him together with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a young scapegrace and lady’s man, who nevertheless writes divine music, incomparable in its brilliance with the one composed by Salieri. Driven by malignant envy, Antonio devises and carries out a plan of revenge: still pretending to be a friend of Mozart, he deceives him in order to make the genius write a requiem mass and then claim to be the music’s composer. The intention is nearly put into practice due to Mozart’s bad health, but the young man dies without having finished the requiem, while Salieri, now fully persuaded that he is a mediocrity as compared to his rival, loses his mind and spends the rest of his days in a mental asylum.

Review:

The story we’re told in this film has been known to most of us since our school days – the plot is evidently based on Alexander Pushkin’s “Mozart and Salieri,” from the short-story collection “Little Tragedies.” According to the text, an evil man Antonio Salieri, driven by envy, poisoned his friend, or rival actually, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who wrote marvelous in its beauty music. The authors of “Amadeus” were evidently of the same opinion, as the legend is preserved in the film in its primordial appearance.

In this connection it’d be worth saying that the movie is one of the most successful works by Jan Miloš Forman, a Czech-American director, screenwriter, and professor. By the way, it wasn’t a great surprise for the film to win 8 Oscars – Forman’s previous creations were also nominees at various film festivals. Thus, his “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” received 5 Oscars as well.

If we return to “Amadeus” again, we’ll see that there’re not so much special effects used in it, or any evident anachronisms that would strike one’s eyes – the whole movie is sustained in the late 18^th century style, one scene melts into another without abrupt jolts of transition (maybe, except from some scenes at the ball, but here, I believe, picture flickering is inevitable), and this is a success of the film. The same refers to the costume design and the whole atmosphere – everything looked very authentic.

And now some words about the actors’ performance. I don’t think it’d sound strange if I said I liked Murray Abraham as Salieri best of all. He was really impressive as a villain! Well, not quite a villain, but a very complicated figure, possessing a false idea of his own importance. He tormented himself and tortured others, but looked very trustworthy. As for his partner Tom Hulce, he was also vivid; the only thing is that I had imagined Mozart and still do in some other way – Hulce seemed to be more of a person of our time, just an ordinary fellow next-to-door, not a great composer of all times.

To sum it up, I’d like to say that I’m not sorry at all for having watched the film and the time spent. There’re films that make up the world gold movie collection, and this is one of them. I don’t think it’ll ever be out-of-date, for the problems of human envy and jealousy, gift of God and the lack of one, a talented person’s loneliness and isolation from the society are still of the same topicality. So I’d recommend this film to everyone, if not for pleasure, then for self-educational purposes.

Rendering 15 (Music)

The article I’m going to analyze is taken from The Guardian and is entitled “Valery Gergiev 60th birthday gala – review.” It was published by Tim Ashley on 24 May 2013 and discusses the concert dedicated to the famous Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, at the Barbican, London, UK.

The author starts by saying that Valery Gergiev turned 60 earlier this month, an event formally celebrated at the Barbican with a London Symphony Orchestra concert billed as a gala, but which was actually more modest than that. Apart from a chorus of Happy Birthday at the end, there were few frills. Thus< according to Ashley, the programme, for the most part serious, consisted mostly of concertos and opera, avoiding any of the familiar Gergiev orchestral showstoppers that might have placed him centre stage.

Giving appraisal to the situation, it’s necessary to point out that the first half, in which he was joined by Alexander Toradze and Leonidas Kavakos as soloists, was the better of the two. For instance, Toradze gave the listeners Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto, which, in the author’s words, suits him rather well, since it allows him to show off his dexterity without indulging his habit of seeming to batter the piano rather than play it. Kavakos, meanwhile, offered three bravura pieces on Gypsy themes – the Rondo from Paganini's B Minor Concerto, Ravel's Tzigane and Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen – all done with exquisite tone and staggering virtuosity.

A for the second half of the concert, we learn from the article that after the interval came act five of Berlioz's Les Troyens, a work that Gergiev has conducted at the Mariinsky, though not, as yet, here. Ashley is evidently not in favour of the conductor’s work, as, in his words, he hasn't quite got the measure of it on this showing: there were some wayward speeds and evidence of that lack of surety in pacing that can sometimes affect him away from the Russian operatic repertoire. The Russian/British cast, meanwhile, proved inconsistent in style and quality. Especially Ed Lyon and Lukas Jakobski are praised for performing their vocal parts of Hylas and Pantheus respectively.

So, the gala concert is evaluated as satisfactory by the author, for Tim Ashley wasn’t evidently much impressed. As for me, I can’t say I’m a connoisseur of the classical music, though I am very much respectful to those performing it, but I believe that it’s much better to visit such a concert than, for example, the one of some unknown pop group, members of which hardly know notes.

Rendering 14 (Music)

The article under analysis is published in The Telegraph under the title “Laura Marling, Once I Was An Eagle, review.” It was contributed by Neil McCormick on 23 May 2013 and takes a critical view of the modern singer Laura Marling’s new album.

The author of the article is evidently in favour of Laura and her works. In his words, there is something rare and special about her, as the singer has a poetic elegance and fluid, roots musicality and a uniqueness that makes comparison gauche, a coolly cerebral quality that maintains tension between her poised singing and playing and the deep, dark depths of her fierce and sensual songs. So, the album ‘Once I Was An Eagle’ touches places other records don’t even get close to.

Then some comment on the album itself is carried. According to McCormick, the opening is quietly audacious, seven tracks morphing one into the other so that it is almost impossible to pick them apart, riding on the thrum of Marling’s open tuned guitar and slinky finger-picked motifs, subtly shaded by Ruth De Turbeville’s cello and bursts of producer Ethan John’s percussion. In view of the aforesaid, it’s also worth mentioning that Marling has a way of speak-singing that suggests preternatural wisdom, shifting with an audacious assurance from low register conversational tones to sweetly melodious high notes, weaving vocal melodies tightly around her delicate and precise guitar. This can be proved by the fact that, broken into two sections by a distorting cello interlude, the second half of the album features eight distinct songs, on which more instruments are subtly introduced. The mood gradually lightens, suggesting a journey towards self-acceptance and romantic hope, although that makes it sound twee, and there’s nothing twee about Marling. On the contrary, there is something predatory about her, a kind of exultance in female strength, so that Marling is both beast and master hunter.

Neil McCormick concludes by saying that he can’t quite pin down this album and that is one of the most appealing things about it; moreover, it is a masterpiece, despite the fact that the singer is only 23. I should say I haven’t heard anything about Laura Marling before and, despite having read such a positive review of her album, don’t feel like listening to her songs; but it’s only my conservative opinion.

Pleasure Reading: "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Summary 6

1. Nothing special had happened in Maycomb by the middle of October except a few cases, when Bob Ewell tried to burgle Judge Taylor’s house and when a group of children made fun of two old ladies by hiding the women’s furniture. 2. However, a few days later Scout was invited to take part in a kind of performance about agriculture, where she had to wear a costume of pork. 3. Late in the evening, after everything was over, she went home together with her brother Jem and, somewhere in the middle of the way when there was nobody around, they heard some steps, evidently a man’s, beside them. 4. They ran, but it was too dark and Scout’s costume prevented her from moving fast, so she fell on the ground. 5. The girl felt someone trying to catch her, then heard some people fighting, one coughing badly, and saw a man running to their house with Jem on his hands. 6. After she arrived home, she learned that her brother was hurt a bit, as his hand was broken, that the man who had done an attempt to kill them was Bob Ewell, and that it was Boo, or Arthur Radley, who had saved the children. 7. Scout saw Mr. Radley to his house, and from that time she never met him again, though later she always felt grateful to him for everything he had done for their family.

Rendering 13 (Music)

The article I’m going to discuss is taken from The Guardian and is entitled “The Knife – review.” It was contributed by Dorian Lynskey on 10 May 2013 and considers the Swedish duo's new album Shaking the Habitual.

The author begins by saying that if The Knife’s current mission is to disrupt assumptions, then they’ve managed to do that, for the audience’s reactions are diverse: the people probably expected something like the new album: dense, challenging, more art than pop. However, they were mistaken, as, for example, for one of the songs, Raging Nun, a brightly clad dance troupe is revealed, banging out a chaotic rhythm on glow-in-the-dark percussion, midway between a tribal rite and the communal dance to Abba in Lukas Moodysson's movie Together; and so it proceeds. It’s evident that it isn’t the music that is confrontational, but the concept: the songs force you to question your prejudices about authenticity and live performance. It’s also necessary to note that the vocals are either mimed by different dancers or entirely disembodied, while ample spontaneity in the anarchic choreography, which often resembles a stage invasion, doesn’t present in the music.

To sum it up, the author is obviously in favour of this new group and their new album. From his point of view, The Knife are admired for warping sounds beyond identification and pitchshifting vocals to blur their gender, but one has to get used to their music, for it either leaves people buzzing with the invaluably rare delight, or in some cases provokes outraged disappointment. As for me, I’m a fan of quite another kind of music and wouldn’t be glad to visit such a concert. Yet, it’s clear that there is usually a listener for every song, and the ones of this group are certainly not an exception.

Pleasure Reading: "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Summary 5

1. The judicial sitting was over and not in Tim Robinson’s favour. 2. At the same time, when the Finches got up the next morning, they found a lot of food on the table: some of the black population of Maycomb brought it to show their gratitude to Atticus for diligence. 3. However, not everything was so smooth with that case, for later Mr. Ewell met the lawyer to threaten to kill him one day, though the majority didn’t believe he would really keep his promise. 4. As for Robinson, he was sent to jail, but there was still some hope his case would be reconsidered, until several days later he made an attempt to escape from prison ad was shot to death. 5. Atticus went to visit his abandoned wife and children, but there was nothing he could do for them. 6. Meanwhile, Jem and Scout had to listen to what others thought about the events and only strengthened in their thought that most adults were completely unfair.