Leo XIV’s papacy is off to a surprisingly promising start
Rome In the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from…
The knives are out for the conclave front-runner Parolin
The 133 cardinal electors who will process into the Sistine Chapel tomorrow are feeling battered and confused by the prospect…
The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel…
‘I’ve seen controllers come and go’: Radio 3’s Michael Berkeley interviewed
A few years ago I had a panic-stricken phone call from a female friend. ‘Help!’ she wailed. ‘Remind me what…
Justin Welby has cemented his reputation – for having a tin ear
This is an excerpt from the latest episode of the Holy Smoke podcast with Damian Thompson, which you can find…
Does China have Vatican City in its sights?
Last Sunday the Vatican released the first photograph of Pope Francis since his ordeal began. He was wearing a stole…
The filthy side of Dame Myra Hess
The photograph on the cover of Jessica Duchen’s magnificent new biography of Dame Myra Hess shows a statuesque lady sitting…
Jonathan Bowden: my eccentric school friend who became a far-right hero
When my old school, Presentation College, Reading, was demolished a decade ago, the Labour council desperately searched for famous old…
Are these performances of the Bach cantatas the best on record?
Three projects shedding light on the sacred music of J.S. Bach are nearing completion. The first consists of an epic…
Inside the Unholy See: the infiltration of the Vatican by foreign powers
Yvonnick Denoël reveals how, since the mid-20th century, a scandalous number of priests have acted as communist moles
The Pope’s revenge: why the new Archbishop of Washington is such a controversial choice
For an 88-year-old man who has spent only five days in the United States and doesn’t speak English, Pope Francis…
My YouTube rabbit hole
How do you live with yourself when 179 air passengers are burned alive on a South Korean runway, and you’ve…
Dazzling: Marc-André Hamelin’s Hammerklavier
Grade: A When Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata was published in 1818, pianists were confronted with a mixture of ‘demonic energy and…
Why is Fauré not more celebrated?
It is 100 years since the death of Gabriel Fauré, a composer whose spellbinding romantic tunes emerge from harmonies and…
Schoenberg owes his survival to crime drama
George Gershwin once made a home movie of Arnold Schoenberg grinning in a suit on his tennis court in Beverly…
‘Some pianists make me shake with anger’: Vikingur Olafsson interviewed
At the BBC Proms this year, an Icelandic pianist dressed like a Wall Street broker played a slow movement from…
Man of mystery and friend of the Cambridge spies
Details of Baron Talbot of Malahide’s attempts to clean up the mess left by his one-time mentor Guy Burgess are still conveniently exempted from the Freedom of Information Act
A box set for those on the spectrum: Markus Poschner’s Bruckner Symphonies reviewed
Grade: B+ Anton Bruckner wrote 11 symphonies – Numbers One to Nine plus a student exercise and the formidable rejected…
Manacorda’s thrills and spills at Prom 72
At a Hollywood party in the 1940s, the garrulous socialite Elsa Maxwell spotted Arnold Schoenberg, then teaching music at UCLA,…
The Stockhausen work that is worth braving
Grade: A- One of the best one-liners attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham refers to the stridently avant-garde Karlheinz Stockhausen: ‘I’ve…
The plotting to find the next Pope
The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas…
Thank goodness Busoni’s Piano Concerto is returning to the Proms
On 5 August, Ferruccio Busoni’s Piano Concerto will be performed at the Proms for only the second time. It should…
