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MUSICThe WaterboysRoundhouse, London★★★★★

TIM DE LISLEGIG OF

THE WEEK

Mike S(left), aWaterfiddlerWickh(above

I

f Aesop had lived long enough toturn his attention to rock stars,he wouldn’t have found manyexamples of the hare and thetortoise, but he would have beendelighted by Mike Scott of The

Waterboys. Scott didn’t have a big hit till hewas 32, when The Whole Of The Moon,which had been out for five years,finally reached the top ten. Now,at 56, he is in the form of his life.

While many who onceoutsold them now tour onlyin packages, the Waterboysare big enough to book theRoundhouse, withHammersmith Apollo, and afull British tour, to come inthe year. New album Modern

 Blues went into the chart at 14,their highest position since 1993.

 All nine tracks figure in this show. Ittakes a brave middle-aged rock star totrade on new glories, and the fans remainsubdued. But it’s not because they aretalking, or playing with their phones: it’s

 because they are listening closely.The Waterboys started out making

Graceland, from PaulSimon to George Michael

to Marc Cohn. But onlyScott pictures the King in the

afterlife, talking to Plato, who isrhymed with the Mashed Potato.

The album closer, Long Strange Golden Road , is a ten-minute epic, which could be adrag in concert, but it has enough flair in itsthoughts and drama in its chorus to holdthe attention His singing voice crisp and

IT’S AFACT

Mike Scott’s band musthold the record for the

most members over the years: whereas The Fallhave had , there have

 been more than

 Waterboys!

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MUSICDAVIDMELLOR

ALBUMOF THE WEEKNew Year’s Concert 2015– Vienna Philharmonic,conducted by

Zubin MehtaSony (two CDs), out now★★★★★

The New Year’s Day con-cert from Vienna’s goldentemple, the Musikverein,was shown live in morethan 100 countries. A fewweeks later, this rush-

released album appears, and I half wishit hadn’t. The supposedly live photos arefrom earlier concerts and there are notrack times. It would surely have been better if Sony had taken a little longer.

But let’s not carp about an engagingconcert from the presiding maestro,Zubin Mehta, who was born in India butis Viennese by adoption.

Now pushing 80, he’s still in fine fettle;a treasurable man, as charming off thepodium as he is on it. And he’s ideallyavuncular here.

Zubin conducted the Philharmonic

first in 1961, and knows how to get the best out of a bunch of men – there was barely a woman on the players’ platformfor this concert.

The New Year’s Concert  has to bekept fresh, and in his five appearancesat this event, Zubin has programmed 58different pieces.

There are five new ones here, andeven though Johann Strauss II’s  FairyTales From The Orient  outstays itswelcome, some of the other novelties,like Johann’s less-talented kid brotherEduard’s fast polka, Where One Laughs And Lives, are good fun.

With an overture by Franz von Suppé to

them to heel with a rousingWholeOf The Moon. And as Prince has beencovering that song in concert, he returnsthe compliment with Purple Rain. It’sa brave man who covers Prince –especially a white man. But Purple Rain is probably Prince’s whitest hit, fromthe time when he could do anything hefelt like doing. Scott gives it a nudgetowards the Stones, circa Exile On Main Street, and it works a treat.

Then ‘We’re going to sing an old EllieGoulding number’, which is a joke.Goulding had a Top 3 hit a year or so back with a Waterboys song, How LongWill I Love You . It may be the sweetestthing Scott ever wrote, and he keeps itsimple, singing softly and strumming anacoustic guitar. The band come back fora big-hearted version of Fisherman’s Blues. Scott mentions they’ll be playingfestivals in the summer. In this mood,they’ll wow them.

THREE GIGS TO SEEBy Tim de Lisle CLASSICA

this two-CD set, as inter-esting for what it doesn’ttell you as for what it does.

For instance, the Philhar-

monic would never touchthe Strauss family whenthey were alive, because Strauss’s musicwas that of the beer garden, later becom-ing the music of court balls, and it wasn’tfor them.

 And, would you believe, the New Year’s Day concert is a gift from AdolfHitler. It began during the war, whenthe Nazis were casting around for Aryanheroes, and the Strauss family becameirresistible. But then, the Austrians aregood at rewriting history. Perhaps theirgreatest triumph is to make the worldthink Hitler was German, when he wasactually born in Austria.

ZubiwithPhilhInsetheN

GOODNIGHT,VIENN 

 A?

Historical ReissuesMinuet (all about £8 each, out now)

★★★★★

 begin with, and the ‘Strauss of the North’Hans Christian Lumbye’s ChampagneGalop  in the second half, Zubin suc-cessfully avoids getting stuck in a rut.Though, of course, all the regulars, suchas The Blue Danube  and The Radetzky March, are brilliantly dispatched.

The former Chairman of the ViennaPhilharmonic, endearingly (or pomp-ously) entitled Professor Doctor ClemensHellsberg, has written a learned note for

The thing about collecting CDs, ordownloading the great classics, is thatyou can roam freely over more than a

century of recorded music. And thosewho don’t do so miss a treat, especiallynow that digital remastering offers suchexcellent sound.

As I write this I am listening to ArturRubinstein’s playing of the Grieg PianoConcerto, recorded in Carnegie Hall,New York, in 1962. The piano sound isfirm and forward, the orchestral detailfully captured. No allowances need tobe made to enjoy a pianist who had oneof the greatest careers.

For me, historical recordingsare a magical world of totalenchantment. Which is why Iwelcome a new label, Minuet,

which has taken advantage of the50-year rule on copyright toremaster celebrated recordings

and reissue them on well-filleddiscs – two of these are more than

78 minutes – with 12 pages ofliner notes in English.

Sergei Rachmaninov was oneof the leading pianists of hisgeneration. His own recordings

of hisSecond  andThird Concertos are unmissable.

On his first visit to America in1960, this year’s centenarian,

Sviatoslav Richter, made a

recording of Brahms’s Second PianoConcerto in Chicago, which mostcollectors know, and two Beethovenpiano sonatas, the Appassionata andtheFuneral March, in New York, whichmost don’t. Here they are coupled witha 1959 recording of Prokofiev’sFifth.

The pianist Glenn Gould’s 1955 debutrecording of Bach’sGoldberg Variationsis a connoisseur’s choice. Afterwatching him dip his hands in boilingwater, and then playing beautifully,the celebrated conductor George Szelltold his orchestra: ‘This nut’s a genius!’And that’s the truth. This recording,complete with grunts and groans,proves why Gould was so special.

These exceptional albums retail forabout £8 each and are all out now.

James BayKoko, LondonTHURSDAY; TOURING APR 7-20The Critics’ Choice winner at the Brit Awardsand a man in touch with his feminine side, withshoulder-length hair and a gentle croon.

ElbowApollo, ManchesterTONIGHTHammersmith Apollo, LondonTUESDAY TO THURSDAYGuy Garvey and his band of merry folk-soul-prog-indie-rockers go back to theatres for aseries of shows that should overflow with warmth.

Barb JungrMarlowe Theatre, Canterbury THURSDAYPurcell Room, LondonSATURDAYProbably the world’s only Scouse-German-Czech chanteuse, Jungr has a voice all her own.In Canterbury she sings Dylan and LeonardCohen; London gets a Valentine variety pack.

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