Trickster 3.2

Pablo Honey in no way was adequate preparation for its epic, sprawling follow-up, The Bends. Building from the sweeping, three-guitar attackRadiohead that punctuated the best moments of Pablo Honey, Radiohead create a grand and forceful sound that nevertheless resonates with anguish and despair – it's cerebral anthemic rock. Occasionally, the album displays its influences, whether it's U2, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., or the Pixies, but Radiohead turn clichés inside out, making each song sound bracingly fresh. Thom Yorke's tortured lyrics give the album a melancholy undercurrent, as does the surging, textured music. But what makes The Bends so remarkable is that it marries such ambitious, and often challenging, instrumental soundscapes to songs that are at their cores hauntingly melodic and accessible. It makes the record compelling upon first listen, but it reveals new details with each listen, and soon it becomes apparent that with The Bends, Radiohead have reinvented anthemic rock.

Karetnikov’s opera Till Eulenspiegel has been described as “the finest Russian opera since Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth” (Gramophone). The product of almost 20 years’ work, a true fusion of many types of opera, thanks to the buffa elements of Till’s trickster personality, the drama of Klaas’ death, and the opéra engagé nature that introduces the characters of Charles V, Philip II and the Count of Egmont.