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VINCE GILL:
Okie (Snakefarm)
THIS week’s country triple-
header is rounded off by the
easy-going Vince Gill, who
celebrates his home state of
Oklahoma on Okie.
Gill has been the Eagles’ touring guitarist
since 2017, but revels in even more leisurely
styles here. He can be mawkish, but is also
prepared to tackle difficult topics, address-
ing child sexual abuse on Forever Changed.
Separate tracks pay homage to Guy Clark
and Merle Haggard, who died within weeks
of one another in 2016. ★★★✩✩
ATit’s friday! music
A
riana Grande’s
return to British arenas
was always going to be
poignant, but the petite
american did not disap-point as she opened the UK leg
of her sweetener World Tour
before an audience dominated
by young women, singing along
to virtually every word.
This wasn’t a typical pop pageant.
Grande’s career will for ever be framed
by the Manchester arena bombing which
killed 22 of her fans and injured hundreds
of others in 2017, and her empathetic
response has carried over into her music,
which embraces sensitivity and resilience
where it was once shamelessly showy.
There were no direct references to the
atrocity — or last year’s death of her
former boyfriend Mac Miller.
in fact, the singer from Florida said
very little onstage, pausing only before
the penultimate song no Tears Left To
Cry to thank her fans for coming while
adding that: ‘London has a very special
place in my heart.’
This was in keeping with a spectacle in
which the visuals were well-judged
and modest. Grande, 26, was backed by
a four-piece band and a dance troupe.
But, with the stage bathed in soft
lighting rather than the garish displays
associated with most arena shows,
the emphasis was on her skyrocketing
voice rather than brash pyrotechnics.
Picture: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTYNEW RELEASES — ROCK & POP
LESLIE STEVENS:
Sinner (Thirty Tigers)
RAISED in Missouri and
based in LA, country-
rocker Stevens has sung
with Joe Walsh, Jackson
Brown and John Fogerty
— and maybe even some singers whose
names don’t begin with the letter J.
She enlists hipster producer and
guitarist Jonathan Wilson to give this
solo effort an ambitious, singer-
songwriter glow. Her voice soars from a
snarl to a soprano on Twelve Feet High,
while the title track has the aura of a
Stevie Nicks ballad. ★★★★✩
by Adrian
Thrills
LIVE: ARIANA GRANDE
(O2 Arena London)
Verdict: Hits the sweet spot ★★★★✩anticipation had been building
before she arrived. a Mexican
wave rolled around a packed
arena as 20,000 arianators
screamed ‘ari! ari!’ in unison.
T
he opening number, an
a capella cover of The
Four seasons song an
angel Cried, was sung
with Grande hidden from view,
further heightening expectation.
Like most pop shows since
Madonna’s Blonde ambition tour
in 1990, the night was broken into
different acts.
The early focus fell on the two
albums ariana has released in
the past 12 months, with tracks
from sweetener and Thank U,
next greeted like old friends.
With the singer flanked by
dancers as she moved onto an
oval walkway, her trademark
ponytail swishing, it was often
hard to pick out the star of
the show — a spotlight would
have been handy. But her
jawdropping voice was soon
taking centre stage; its multi-
octave agility allowing her to
tackle reggae on r.e.M. and
dreamy pop on sweetener.
her five studio albums have
given her a substantial repertoire,
and she ended the first two seg-
ments of the night by drawing on
chart-topping singles in Break Up
With Your Girlfriend, i’m Bored
(accompanied with a bizarre
routine involving wooden chairs)
and 7 rings, built around
rodgers & hammerstein’s My
Favourite Things.
With no backing vocalists, pre-
recorded samples were used to
flesh out the sound: Fake smile
contained an excerpt from
Wendy rene’s sixties soul hit
after Laughter (Comes Tears);
Break Your heart right Back
featured snippets from diana
ross’s i’m Coming Out, including
nile rodgers’ funky guitar; and
rapper nicki Minaj cropped upvia an audio link on The Light
is Coming.
For current single Boyfriend,
Grande was joined on stage by
energetic pop-r&B duo social
house. in the main, though, any
backing vocals came from
thousands of enthusiastic fans.G
rande’s sweetener
tour also owes some-
thing to Broadway,
where a teenage Grande
cut her teeth in the musical 13
before starring in the nickelo-
deon TV sitcom Victorious.
Certainly, there was something
very theatrical in the way she
knelt down on her walkway,
surrounded by dancers,
during n.a.s.a.
dangerous Woman was prefaced
by a clip of her singing Cole
Porter’s My heart Belongs To
daddy and then belted out with
all the controlled gusto of aclassic show tune. she surged to
full power elsewhere, too, singing
to the rafters on the disco-
orientated Love Me harder and
soulful ballad Only 1, both from
2014’s My everything, and hitting
the soprano notes on a version
of Breathin’ which developed
into one of many joyful
audience singalongs.
With another chart-topper —
Thank U, next — adding a cele-
bratory coda, the night ended in
a shower of confetti.
it was a high-octane finale to a
show that hit the sweet spot by
reiterating ariana’s strength of
character without relying on
whistles and bells.
as pop’s biggest female singer
— she was the most streamed
woman on spotify in 2018 —
ariana Grande has become a
superstar to cherish.
n THE Sweetener tour continues
at Manchester Pride Live on
Sunday (arianagrande.com).CLASSICAL
RACHMANINOV:
24 Preludes
(Naxos
8.574025)
THE famous
C sharp minor
Prelude, one of his earliest
works, almost became a
burden to composer Sergei
Rachmaninov. He had to play it
as an encore at every recital:
no wonder he wrote 23 others,
covering all the remaining keys
— and Boris Giltburg plays all
two dozen magnificently.
The ten Preludes, Op. 23, were
written in 1901-03, a decade
after the C sharp minor, and the
13 Preludes, Op. 32, followed in- They were all composed
to a high standard.
The G minor is a wonderful Alla
marcia and many of the pieces
invoke the sound of bells.
The second last Prelude, in G
sharp minor, is a particularly
lovely piece, but there is not
one Prelude here you would
want to do without. The piano
sound is very lifelike.
★★★★★
BEETHOVEN:
Cello Sonatas
(Onyx ONYX
4196, two CDs)
A LOVELY set of
the six Sonatas
for cello and
piano that Beethoven wrote
between 1796 and 1815.
Two artists of the younger
generation, the German cellist
Leonard Elschenbroich and
the Ukrainian pianist Alexei
Grynyuk, combine well and are
nicely recorded.
Besides the five Sonatas he
intended for the cello, they
include the Horn Sonata in
Beethoven’s cello arrangement
— playing the first movement
faster than a horn can.
They do not provide the three
sets of variations, but they shine,
particularly in the two early
Sonatas and the two late ones.
Any reservations relate to
everyone’s favourite A major
Sonata, Op. 69, where there are
little telltale signs they may
have been trying too hard to
be expressive. ★★★★★HOLST: The
Planets, etc.
(BIS BIS-2068)
AN AMERICAN
conductor and
his Norwegian
orchestra give spectacular
accounts of two British classics.
Andrew Litton has long been a
friend of our composers and
audiences, and — having moved
to the Bergen Philharmonic —
he has programmed Holst’s
Planets and Elgar’s ‘Enigma’.
The Elgar variations, recorded
at the Grieg Hall in 2013, are
highly successful and will delight
anyone who wants an up-to-
date version in SACD sound.
Holst’s suite goes very well for
the most part and is even more
brilliantly recorded, dating
from early 2017. My sole tiny
reservation concerns ‘Jupiter,
the Bringer of Jollity’. No one
has equalled Sir Adrian Boult in
the big tune, which Holst
reluctantly arranged as a hymn;
and Litton slows down
unconvincingly at one point.
★★★★✩
TULLY POTTERTANYA TUCKER: While
I’m Livin’ (Fantasy)
‘I CAN always say I lived
my life my way,’ sings the
unrepentant country
veteran on her first batch
of new songs in 17 years —
an album of hard-won wisdom.
Tucker had her first hit, Delta Dawn, as a
teenager back in 1972, and her voice
retains its heart-wrenching edge. High
Ridin’ Heroes reiterates her outlaw spirit
and Bring My Flowers Now glorifies living
for the moment. Recognising a kindred
soul, she covers Miranda Lambert’s The
House That Built Me. ★★★✩✩Stellar
Ariana
shows
she’s a
star to
cherish
On full
power:
Ariana
lets her
music
do the
talking(^) Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019