Mr. Cardiff rendered its scenes of everyday English life as a Technicolor heaven on earth, and he created a compellingly celestial hereafter in cool, luminous tones of black and white.
The branding of Novak Djokovic takes on a more solemn air upstairs in Srdjan's office, where a religious painting shows the late Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox church, with Novak's face painted in luminous tones below him.
Now in his late 40s, Andreas Scholl retains the gentle but luminous quality of tone that has always marked his singing, and his voice blended perfectly with the slightly warmer and rounder timbre offered by the 12 years younger Iestyn Davies.
Although the vast choral and orchestral forces employed suggest a work of monumental sound, according to critic Michael Kennedy "the predominant expression is not of torrents of sound but of the contrasts of subtle tone-colours and the luminous quality of the scoring".
Murray Perahia's trademarks – the luminous pearly tone, the enviable control in quiet passages, the clear shape and balance of his interpretations – were all there in the D major Sonata by Haydn with which he began this Barbican recital, and in much of his playing throughout the evening.
