Britten works worthy of a wide hearing
AFASCINATION with zombies has been sweeping through pop culture like a horrific virus lately, infecting the minds of every developer, director and their mothers. Naughty Dog decided that it wanted a slice of that sweet, undead pie and came out with its spin on the zombie apocalypse.
Unlike most stories that start with the outbreak and follow the initial survival period, The Last of Us skips the first 20 years. That means there’s more to shoot than just the game’s fungal-headed zombies. If you leave the survivors’ ‘‘safe zone’’, there are also blood-thirsty bandits and soldiers to deal with.
Players take the role of Joel, a grizzled 40-something with the task of escorting a smartmouthed 14-year-old girl called Ellie halfway across the city. Unfortunately for him, the insurgents he’s dropping her off to couldn’t organise drinks at a brewery so he ends up having to haul her halfway across the country instead.
Thankfully, it’s not one big useless escort mission. Ellie can more than take care of herself, finding supplies for you, stunning enemies with bottles and bricks and, once Joel stops oppressing her, she’s pretty handy with a gun too. She’s brimming with more personality than the doom-andgloom attitude of Joel.
The gameplay is a lot like the Uncharted series, except for the addition of crafting. The gist of it is that throughout the game you pick up materials and craft them into things like molotovs, smoke bombs and makeshift grenades. This nails the survival aspect.
However, to upgrade your character’s stats and guns, you need to scavenge for parts and supplements as well. It means what should have been a fastpaced, ‘‘shoot everyone until they stop moving and press on’’ experience is a tedious, ‘‘search every nook and cranny twice in case I missed something valuable’’ experience.
Although the vivid storytelling, character development and combat are all nicely interwoven, the necessity of scavenging takes out a lot of forward momentum.
If I could get past that one raisin in the metaphorical chocolate chip cookie, The Last of Us is pretty close to a perfect experience. Britten: Tasmin Little (violin), Howard Shelley (piano), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner. Chandos CHAN 10764 (CD 77min). Ferguson: Violin Sonata No 2. Suite for Violin and Piano Op 6. Violin Sonata, Two Pieces for Violin and Piano. Tasmin Little (violin), Piers Lane (piano). Chandos CHAN 10770 (CD 62min).
THIS is the 100th anniversary of Britten’s birth, so we can expect many releases but I may not enjoy many as much as this new coupling of his two concertos. They make a logical pairing, but this is the first since the 1970s when the soloists were Mark Lubotsky and, formidably, Sviatoslav Richter, with the composer conducting. But that recording did not include both slow movements that Britten composed – the newcomer does – and both concertos feature a much spikier approach. While that is authoritative, the more lyrical approach of Little and Shelley adds a dimension that gives extra stature to both works. There is recent competition for both concertos – Janine Jansen, among others, in the Violin Concerto and Steven Osborne in the Piano Concerto – but this is comparably fine and the orchestral backing and recording quality are superb.
The disc of British violin works is a fascinating gap filler. The Britten Suite dates from his early 20s and is another example of the exciting quality to be heard in his youthful works. Full of character and wonderfully assured, these pieces show the full-blown Britten personality. Yet, later in life Britten could not resist fiddling with the suite, releasing a version of three of the movements. Thankfully, this gives us the original suite.
The Walton Sonata was composed as thanks to Yehudi Menuhin, who had lent him some money, and has the bittersweetness that features in much of his music.
The Violin Sonata by Howard Ferguson proves to be strong, conservative, but ultimately grateful work that should interest many violinists.