If you decide to visit the Vatican Museum before you tour the Borghese Gallery, you might have become a little unfamiliar with the ability to breathe and generally hold a comfortable circumference of personal space. While the two noted museums share a location and many of the same prominent artists\’ works, the general experience of visiting each vastly differs. The Borghese\’s strict two-hour limit for a restricted number of people can be irritating (especially if you miss a room, like I did), but it does ensure that the hours you spend in that magnificent gallery are not interrupted by the greater annoyance of overcrowding.

Like many buildings built to accommodate beauty, the Borghese is an array of decadence. In the first room, gold ornaments the walls and intricate mosaics form the floor, all to provide the setting for a spectacular collection of sculptures and paintings. It\’s a pleasurable visual assault, with the most arresting pieces coming from the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. After the Caravaggio exhibition at the Quirinale last year, many people will arrive at the Borghese to cast an eye at the three Caravaggios the upper picture gallery holds, but to speed through the lower rooms and their focus upon sculpture will mean missing what Bernini has to offer. In the lower rooms, you will find Bernini\’s David, Apollo and Daphne, Pluto and Proserpine, and Truth Unveiled by Time, each white marble sculpture standing out from the visual spectacle of color in every other direction. Apollo and Daphne, particularly, is a testament to Bernini\’s mastery as a sculptor. Originally placed in such a way that only Apollo was first visible, the viewer had to circle the statue to discover Daphne fleeing the god\’s grasp as she becomes a laurel tree in her escape. Daphne\’s transformation into a tree is coupled with the transformation of the statue in the viewer\’s eye as the whole picture comes into focus. Upstairs, visitors also find Titian, Raphael, Corregio, and of course, Caravaggio. Titian\’s Sacred and Profane Love is not to be missed, a painting noted for the various interpretations of a moral unintended by its artist.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese began plans for the Gallery in the early 1600s, procuring a myriad of art with a maven-like nature that did not always ring of the most lawful or moral methods. But when you\’re the Pope\’s nephew, there isn\’t much anyone can do. The Borghese is one of those museums where it\’s worth spending the extra money for the audio guide in order to discover some of Cardinal Scipione\’s methods. The history of the collection and the notorious family that put it together just happens to make the art all the richer.

A horn player by trade, Colin Stetson has worked with a diverse range of artists such as Bon Iver, David Byrne, Arcade Fire, Tom Waits, and The National. His solo work consists solely of single-take recordings of him and his saxophone. Over twenty microphones strategically placed in the studio capture the sound he creates, and from these sounds – the clattering of keys, the opening and closing of valves, the air rushing through the brass chamber, his voice as he sings through the reed, the reverberating, overlapping, fluttering, swirling tones – he creates compositions of staggering intensity and striking originality. With circular breathing, Stetson can prolong his ‘songs’ for minutes on end without pause, an impressive technical feat, especially considering that the whole album makes use of no loops or overdubs. Although not ‘songs’ in the traditional sense, these tracks are worlds within themselves, and invite devoted listening.

The relentless Red Horses uses short percussive breaths for syncopated effect, while Awake on Foreign Shores features the low register of a baritone sax with earth-shattering results. Experimentation aside, Stetson retains a clear pop sensibility, and longer tracks like The Stars in His Head and The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man are triumphantly melodic, albeit in his idiosyncratic arpeggiated style.

Minimalist composer Ben Frost’s production skilfully weaves the mic levels to bring out the subtleties of Stetson’s performance: at times the keys are soft clicks in the mix, at others they are deafening thuds. Stetson is accompanied by the vocals of My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden and the spoken word of Laurie Anderson (of Big Science fame) on three tracks respectively, but if anything these contributions distract from Stetson’s power. The ‘avant-garde’ and ‘experimental’ labels that will be thrown at this record may well detract potential listeners, but its appeal is surely universal. Without a doubt, Judges is unlike anything you have ever heard before.

Not many plays start with a sung invocation of a muse and although the singing itself wasn\’t perfect by any means the thought that went into its inclusion is representative of the blend of traditional storytelling elements and modern translation which the Hecate Theatre Company has achieved. Metamorphoses is set in a Victorian boarding school after lights out. A group of girls about to be received in society as women for the first time are too excited to sleep and so relive their childhood by acting out stories. Each tale chosen by one of the girls is about abortive love, such as those of Myrrha who found every suitor a disappointment compared to her father, Echo rejected by Narcissus, and of Tereus who by raping his sister-in-law destroyed an entire family. However, a contrast is made by the tale of Arachne narrated by the matron as a morality tale to teach her charges modesty.

You might expect a play based on stories which involve magical transformations to be a lavish spectacle. However, in Metamorphoses the focus throughout was on characterisation and connecting with the audience through the power of the drama alone. That said, there were some simple and effective moments where with only shadows cast on a backlit sheet Arachne grew four extra limbs and Tereus cut out Philamela\’s tongue. The totality of the set comprised of one chair, four pillowcases and five sheets including that used for shadow-casting; remarkably, this was not only sufficient but a perfect way in which the production brought to life the atmosphere of a children\’s game by requiring the audience to imagine that the sheet was a cloak or a snake and therefore insuring the emotional investment of those watching.

Much of the frisson generated by the production was through the combination of evoking childhood games alongside the mature content of the stories and occasionally vulgar language. Occasionally the dialogue seemed as though it was trying too hard to shock and modernise these ancient fables, but this again evoked the uneasiness and desire to impress experienced by teenagers desperate to prove that they\’ve left childhood behind.  The presence of the matron\’s character throughout as an often silent observer was a useful way of generating leniency among audience members at crucial moments.

My friends who were previously unaware of a few of the fables narrated in the play thought that perhaps some rather sensationalist stories had been included, with particular surprise generated by that of Myrrha with its incest and eerie chanted refrain of ‘Father, Father none of them do. None of them in quick black shoe.\’ However I found the spread of tales and transformations representative of the widest possible range of relationships and representative of Ovid\’s ‘epic\’ in general. It was a sympathetic and selective re-imagining of the work which allowed for the development of the characters of the storytellers above all else.

 

 

I have spent an inordinate amount of time in queues and churches these past few weeks. I wouldn\’t say I\’m proud of it but for some reason I\’m drawn to them. This time I found myself outside St Giles in The Fields church queuing to see the talented Marques Toliver, a singing violinist from Daytona Florida. There was only a small gaggle of people outside the church and, having convinced myself that I\’d secured a guestlist review ticket, I felt cool as a cucumber. After having my ego deflated just a little – the woman at the desk could find my name nowhere on the list despite checking several times – I forked out the cash and proceeded into the church. Still the bruised ego and vacant pocket were certainly worth this fantastic gig.

First up was a charming guitarist/singer who goes by the name of Mounument Valley. A great story teller, he buoys up his tales of love and life with a stripped down melody consisting of a few simple chords. Singing in the estuary voice that has become second nature to many British artists today, he sounds a little like a male version of Remi Nicole. Laughing in between songs and starting the same song three times until he gets it right, this lovely songster provided a soothing start to the gig, I only wish we could have seen him with his the rest of his band who could would have plumped up his sound.

The main act Marques Toliver made his way to the stage followed by a trail of violinists, two backing singers and a trendily bespectacled guy brandishing an electronic harp (I think). His voice is great, full of power and subtlety, he inhabits a tone similar to John Legend\’s, whilst offering the audience a fresh acoustic taste of R&B which, let\’s face it, is in desperate needs of resuscitation. As well as being a faithful saviour of a tired genre, Marques takes his performance to an almost theatrical level: making extravagant gestures and chatting for a little too long in between songs, and crying at the end of one of them, he is most definitely a performer. The presence of three violins was perhaps a little overwhelming and at times it felt like his songs were pulsating but advancing towards no where in particular.

As though he were a mindreader, Marques strips down the second half of his set playing alone and swapping his violin for the electric harp machine thing. Leaving space for his voice to bloom, Marques is at his best freed from the constraints of making sure all the other instrumentalists are in sync – and it\’s a treat. He finished with the much anticipated White Sails which he performed less than a year ago on Later with Jools Holland. It\’s obvious that Mr Toliver is a skilled violinist and some of the best moments during his set are those when the church is silent apart form the riveting sound of his bow coaxing sound out of the strings of his violin. Nonetheless, part of me feels that Marques should heed his own advice and swim this on his own, I guess we\’ll just have to see what the rest of the world thinks when his EP Butterflies Are Not Free lands on 25th April and he plays live at Rough Trade East.

However, despite not being the headline act, the wonderful Lianne La Havas\’ songs still played in my head at the end of the gig. I\’ll try to keep the cheesy adoring tone down to a minimum but suffice to say that I (and probably everyone else at the gig) have been turned into Lianne\’s biggest fan over night. I\’m also going to have to omit comparisons with Corinne Bailey Rae and Andreya Triana on after reading, \’Nothing like Corinne Bailey Rae or Andreya Triana – but we all have similar hair\’ on her Facebook page – which I urge you to \’like\’ right now. 

This girl\’s voice sounds like pure organic, free range honey at it\’s smoothest but she can also belt it when she wants. Lucky for us, she\’s also got the charisma to back her beautiful voice, taking time after her first song to assure us that she likes us already -so do we Lianne, so do we. Her fifth song Age, tells the tale of a current predicament involving her and an older man. Suffice to say she has the whole crowd laughing with her teasing lyrics and her musicianship is as satisfying as her lyricism as she moves around her guitar with enviable ease, dishing up some infectiously soulful tunes.

The icing on the cake, however, was not spotting Jaime Winstone in the pew in front of me. No, it was hearing Lianne\’s amazing cover of Everything Everything\’s latest single Final Form which is available to download here– thank God. I need not specify that it is free because trust me once you hear it you\’ll be willing to hand over pretty much anything to get your mits on her addictive rendition of this fantastic track. She trades in Jonathan Higgs\’ idiosyncratic falsetto for a gritty but simple sound, and judging from EE\’s view that it\’s \’gorgeous\’ she\’s hit the spot. I really can\’t think of a bad thing to say about this singer songwriter, who I hope will be in a record store or music magazine near you some time soon.

Nicholas Ostler\’s book is not about English, at least it\’s not a congratulatory exploration of the current global dominance English seems to enjoy. In fact the book reveals that this preeminence is as ephemeral as that previously enjoyed by Latin, Persian, Sanskrit and every other language which has been spread beyond its native borders by trade, conquest or religion.

In his talk, Ostler revealed that the emphasis placed on English in the title was in fact insisted on by agents and publishers worried about the reception a world history based on language would have without a firm emphasis on its relevance to contemporary society, along with whether people would even understand the term \’lingua franca\’. Meanwhile, Ostler himself feels it is almost impossible for native speakers to judge the value of their own language objectively and that anything concerning the immediate future of English as a language used for science, business, computing and popular culture must be speculation.

That said, he has some interesting and firm beliefs which support his wish to call English the last language to be chosen as a global means of communication, based on the rapid technological advances being made in the field of translation. It is his belief that in a few generations the need to learn a second language for business will be replaced with technology providing a

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curate machine translations sufficient for commerce. It may be hard to see how these will replace professional translators especially in the field of literature, but they may provide people with the confidence to publish in their mother tongue knowing that they will be able to reach a global audience.

What most amazed me were the statistics collected concerning English\’s status as a global language. In the last few years a survey in China found that the percentage of people who thought that English was essential had dropped 15% in the 2000s. There was little likelihood that the trend would be reversed: the language used on the internet had changed from being almost entirely in English, to 23% in Chinese with the percentage in Russian, Spanish, and Arabic increasing at a far faster rate than that in the professed language of global communication.

Therefore, from this esteemed linguist and Oxford alumnus, I have learnt that whilst historically prosperity has always promoted culture, decline in that prosperity has generally ensured a fall from grace for the language of the previously ruling power. Since the British Empire which forced English as a lingua franca upon the world ended its utter dominance after the Second World War, it is surprising that there has been less of a backlash with former colonies refusing to accept further the language of their former masters – though I suppose that the search for profit has always overmastered nationalist tendencies. Eventually, however, we shall be forced to acceed that English cannot be held as a great and lasting boon compensating for our former imperialist tendencies and, with only 2% of the output of the current British publishing industry accounting for translations from foreign languages, eventually realise quite how insular we really are.