Stephen Hough/Juilliard Quartet

Wigmore Hall, London

"This is probably the most extreme piece I've ever played," warned Stephen Hough after sitting down at the piano for his latest concert as the Wigmore Hall's artist-in-residence. Few in the audience would have heard Morton Feldman's 1951 Variations before, and his opening remarks about the work's conspicuous use of silence were welcome, or mostly so; running late, I had sprinted a four-minute mile to the hall, reaching my seat only seconds before Hough reached his. Wheezing like a wrecked steam engine, I nearly seized up altogether when the pianist requested his audience keep their breathing to an absolute minimum.

Initially entitled Variation, the piece was originally choreographed by Merce Cunningham with randomly generated ballet steps. It proved impossible to dance to, but it works wonderfully as music. Set between short articulations, derived from a limited harmonic palette, the silences encourage the listener to string the music together like a series of gleaming, oddly shaped gemstones.

Hough's all-American programme was conceived in honour of his guests for the evening, the New York-based Juilliard Quartet, who performed Elliot Carter's fifth String Quartet with precisely the mixture of seamless precision and depth of tonal character this music requires. Like the Feldman, the work generates itself from the tension between rest and motion, but the flow here is much busier and the moments of communion between the players have a fleeting, almost illicit sense to them.

Lowell Liebermann's Piano Quintet, with which the programme concluded, rarely stops to draw breath either, though in other respects it is far removed from Carter's world. The tussle here is between the semi-pastiche of each movement – Brahms, Ravel, Fauré, Shostakovich – and the tight, mechanistic drive which binds it all together. Though extrovert and occasionally brash, it is a surprisingly intimate work, and was beautifully executed by Hough and his distinguished guests.

Celtic Connections festival, Glasgow

Celtic Connections, long a catalyst for unlikely collaborations, surpassed itself with this union of Cream demi-god Jack Bruce and virtuoso folk trio Lau.

A dapper figure of engaging humility and wry humour ("It's really good to be here – at my age, it's good to be anywhere"), Bruce was initially accompanied on stage by a string quartet offering elegance and grandeur to his affecting balladry and dramatic piano, reminiscent of a semi-operatic Randy Newman. As his rich voice – miraculous in a man of 68 – mesmerised a reverential audience, you marvelled not only at his durability, but his appetite for new challenges.

Things got even more poignant with Lau's entrance, providing brooding intensity as Bruce sang a song for his son Jo – founding member of Afro Celt Sound System – who died of an asthma attack in 1997. Then, abandoning the piano, he strapped on his bass guitar to simmering excitement as the audience recognised the opening chords to Sunshine of Your Love, swiftly escalating into a full-blown eruption as Martin Green's accordion and Aidan O'Rourke's fiddle blazingly joined the fray. When Kris Drever began harmonising, rock legend and traditional folk heroes blended intuitively, exposing the folly of compartmentalising music into specialist ghettoes.

Burns Night was celebrated with a couple of the bard's songs Ca' the Yowes and Aye Waukin O, and a heavier lineup escorted us through a full-on rock and blues segment before the 13-piece ensemble united for a stampeding arrangement of White Room. "We don't know any more tunes," said Bruce as the audience demanded an encore, so they settled for an even wilder reprise of Sunshine of Your Love. He left to a standing ovation … and that was just from Lau and the rest of the band.

Tune in to Beatport Live with Joel Alter

Gothenburg, Sweden's Joel Alter makes the trip to our Berlin offices this evening (Wednesday, January 25th) to tear it up live on the decks. Don't miss the two hours of deepest house starting at 17:00 GMT (12 PM EST / 9 AM PST). Alter recently teamed up with Eric D. Clark for the Rules Of Love EP on Bass Culture Records, featuring two velvety original cuts plus remixes from Franck Roger and DJ Qu; it's Alter's second appearance on the label, following his well received Silence Is Golden EP featuring the sleeper hit "I Feel You." The Swedish producer is also one half of the duo Jonsson/Alter; their late-2011 album Mod was widely acclaimed for its moody midnight hues and laid the groundwork for a phenomenal Move D remix. We can't wait to see what he's got in store for us tonight. See Ustream.tv/beatport for more Beatport Live sessions, including sets from Tiefschwarz, Dirt Crew, Bloody Mary, and more—and don't forget to tune in tomorrow (Thursday, January 26) to catch Steve Aoki playing live from our headquarters in Denver, beginning 2:00PM MST (4:00PM EST / 21:00 GMT).

Singing opera Die Deutschen Theater in Munich

Annette Postel and Klaus Webel are with their program to sing opera Die guest at the Deutsches Theater 01/29/2012 MünchenAm says the Deutsches Theater in Munich for an evening of "Die Sing Opera." That's right, there has crept not a spelling error, and so is also the subtitle of this opera-comedy played with the words: "operetta can be whoever" is the motto when the classically trained (opera) singer Annette Postel and Jazz pianist Klaus Webel on stage. The two try to answer vital questions such as: Opera is actually more modern? What is the difference between tenor and tremolo? Interim directorship and intrigue? Between Puccini and a normal cold? And pianists are mortal?

From Baden Tagblatt Annette Postel is called the "Scheherazade of musical cabaret" described. Together with Klaus Webel dedicated to the lady with a 4-octave voice and sharp tongue of the great art: full of coloratura and comedy, tragedy and comedy and rantings and crossover - including the whole of great music.

Annette Postel moves in "Sing Opera die" between large and small stylish art, between opera aria and song: "I must not choose me, I'm just laying there with the two." She tells of the famous arias Opernnähkästchen and dedicated side-splitting. "Singing opera Die" promises an evening of extreme emotions, ambiguous texts, shrill characters and black humor - tragic and comic, like the opera itself.

Wolf Gang live in Berlin 08.12.

On Thursday last played in the Wolf Gang Magnet Club. After the song "Back to Back" and iPod "Lions in Cages" very much on my airtime received, the bar was set fairly high for her concert. And as is so often the case, great expectations ended in great disappointment. The songs sounded completely so as to drive by, no over-Out bruises, no improvisation.

For this, the band was located on the far outnumber women, idolized angekreischt up so that I fancied myself temporarily on a Robbie Williams concert. To this end, the band members threw in the pose of the young indie boys. Here and there they scattered a few German words (the musicians are from England) in the breaks in order to please the audience. The draft was coming.
Ultimately, it was a solid concert. Only I was kind of disappointed no new MGMT, but rather new Backstreet Boys have found - at least when performing live. Therefore prefer to continue to hear the album.

Foster the People - Helena Beat (Com Truise Remix)

Some time ago we told you already about the Foster the People single "Helena Beat". At that time, at 3.3., To be exact, it was about the original track. Less Sunshine Californian, however, is more spherical and waviest the remix of the New York producers Truise Com. This joins together with one Jichael Mackson and Fink Floyd on the queue of artists who have been to their (more or less?) Also named models. Com Truise his character is New York, working as a DJ and producer, and describes his sound as "mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk".

Now comes after the Lo-Fi-wave around Ariel Pink now Mid-Fi? If you look for example at Hype Machine, the popular blog search engine for indie music, you can find tons of Mucke in the style of the remixes. That does not necessarily mean that that's bad. If "Helena Beat" in the Com Truise remix but has no hit potential, it is nevertheless in good hands in a full mixtape full of good indie-electronica-music, which can be purely put on an afternoon when dreaming in the apartment - and be!