Leah Broad
‘Lasse liten’ is one of the creepiest songs Sibelius ever wrote. The piano has a sinuous, threatening chromatic line that opens with the right hand below the left, in the piano’s bass register. The piece is supposedly in G minor but this is disrupted from the right hand’s first note. Not only is it dissonant... Continue Reading →
Last night I was in Scotland, giving a talk for the BBCSSO's fantastic performance of Nielsen's Fifth Symphony (you can hear both the concert and my interval discussion here). So I thought I'd start off my 'Explore a Score' series with this symphony. This is going to be a section of the blog that does... Continue Reading →
One of my favourite composers who I’ve come across in my research is Ture Rangström. He’s very little heard of, but produced a fantastic body of work including four symphonies, three operas, and over two hundred songs. Part of what’s so compelling about his work is just how varied it is. His music ranges from... Continue Reading →
Earlier in the week I was lucky enough to see Sakari Oramo perform Sibelius's Second and Seventh Symphonies, with the incomparable Anu Komsi singing Luonnotar and Ekho by Aarre Merikanto. During the interval I talked to Martin Handley about Luonnotar and Scaramouche, and the role that they play in Sibelius's stylistic experimentation. You can hear the whole concert and our... Continue Reading →
My review of a fantastic adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's short story A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Published in 1955, Gabriel García Márquez’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings imagines a village’s reaction to an old man with wings appearing in a couple’s courtyard — a man assumed to be an angel.... Continue Reading →
My review of Bialystock & Bloom's production of Maurice Maeterlinck's two early plays 'The Intruder' and 'The Seven Princesses'. Bialystock & Bloom Productions took on an ambitious project by deciding to stage a double-bill of Maurice Maeterlinck’s early plays, The Intruder and The Seven Princesses. Penned in 1891, these two plays were formative for the... Continue Reading →
As part of the coverage of the Finnish Independence anniversary this year, I'll be cropping up across the BBC talking about Sibelius. The first couple of instalments are up now - the first is a clip discussing how Sibelius's theatre music relates to his wider output: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05hdg06 If 10 minutes is just too long, then... Continue Reading →
I've just had a short film released by the BBC! I am incomparably excited about this. It's available from BBC Arts - I'm talking about why we should listen to history as well as look at it, exploring Max Reinhardt's 1933 production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
Ahead of the UK general election, I've written an article about how the centre-left talk about each other, and why their language matters. You can read the full article online at the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/leah-broad/election-tv-debates_b_16140218.html
