Category Archives: Reviews

Kommunisten: Straub sans Huillet

Posted on March 29, 2017 by barczablog

TIFF have been presenting “Not Reconciled”: which is both the epithet attached to this powerful retrospective and the first film from the uncompromising collaborative team Danièle Huillet and her husband Jean-Marie Straub. Tonight we ventured into a very dark, place, … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Politics, Reviews | 1 Comment

Tallis Scholars & friends: Magnificat

Posted on March 26, 2017 by barczablog

Tonight felt like a kind of affirmation of permanence in the face of change and disorder in the world. The Tallis Scholars, conducted by Peter Phillips, joined forces with two University of Toronto ensembles –Schola Cantorum and Theatre of Early … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews, Spirituality & Religion | 1 Comment

Lintu Finesses TSO

Posted on March 24, 2017 by barczablog

I don’t know if Hannu Lintu is a candidate to succeed Peter Oundjian or not, but I wish he were.  The Finnish conductor enticed some of the finest playing I’ve heard all season out of the Toronto Symphony in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews | 2 Comments

Schönberg and Sicilia: two more from Straub /Huillet

Posted on March 18, 2017 by barczablog

Tonight’s installment of TIFF’s retrospective “Not Reconciled: the films of  Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet” must have seemed like a remarkable opportunity to James Quandt and the team assembling the schedule.  Each film is almost exactly an hour long, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Politics, Reviews | 5 Comments

Too Early/Too Late: you say you want a revolution?

Posted on March 17, 2017 by barczablog

Too Early/Too Late (1980), the latest installment in “Not Reconciled“, TIFF’s Straub-Huillet retrospective, is aptly titled for at least a couple of reasons.  As a study of revolutions co-opted or hijacked by others, the title is about timing.  But the … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Politics, Reviews | 1 Comment

Moses,Aaron, and a few others at TIFF

Posted on March 13, 2017 by barczablog

Today TIFF presented two musically-oriented films from their Straub-Huillet retrospective, introduced with a live performance by Against the Grain Theatre. AtG have boldly gone where opera has not often gone before, taking their productions into bars, TV studios, and now … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Opera, Reviews | 1 Comment

New Creations Festival Finale: Miller, Bjarnason & Lizée

Posted on March 12, 2017 by barczablog

Tonight’s Toronto Symphony New Creations Concert to close the festival was a demonstration of the old maxim “less is more”, an epithet I used to use as a personal motto (at least for its pun-potential).  If I had any objection … Continue reading →

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Straub & Huillet’s History Lesson

Posted on March 10, 2017 by barczablog

I saw History Lesson (or Geschichtsunterricht ) at TIFF tonight, a 1972 film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet that’s my latest instalment in the retrospective “Not Reconciled”. Straub & Huillet adapted an incomplete fragment of a novel by Bertolt … Continue reading →

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Pallett – Ehnes TSO #NCF17

Posted on March 9, 2017 by barczablog

Tonight’s New Creations Festival Concert by the Toronto Symphony gave us a closer look at the co-curator Owen Pallett, who stepped into the spotlight with a premiere of his own, alongside two other world premieres and a recent composition from … Continue reading →

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#NCF17 begins

Posted on March 5, 2017 by barczablog

The Toronto Symphony’s 2017 New Creations Festival aka #NCF17 co-curated by Owen Pallett and Peter Oundjian began tonight. And I couldn’t help feeling, this is what it should feel like when I go to the symphony.  Usually? The place is … Continue reading →

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews | 1 Comment