Last words
This, my 479th, is to be my last contribution as a regular columnist to The Spectator. I have written here…
Last words
This, my 479th, is to be my last contribution as a regular columnist to The Spectator. I have written here…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
Modernist cul-de-sac
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
ENO must go…
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
ENO must go…
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
Sound and fury
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
Sound and fury
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
Murder, he wrote
The allure of Carlo Gesualdo, eighth Count of Conza and third Prince of Venosa, has been felt by music-lovers from…
Murder, he wrote
The allure of Carlo Gesualdo, eighth Count of Conza and third Prince of Venosa, has been felt by music-lovers from…
Fantasy on ice
In this exciting new era of Spectator cruises I have been put in mind of a dream event long in…
Fantasy on ice
In this exciting new era of Spectator cruises I have been put in mind of a dream event long in…
Bad conduct
To be honest, my friendship with Michael Tilson Thomas hasn’t gone quite as I had hoped. It started in February…
Bad conduct
To be honest, my friendship with Michael Tilson Thomas hasn’t gone quite as I had hoped. It started in February…
Orchestral infallibility
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
Orchestral infallibility
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
Première league
This year the Proms are to stage 21 world premières and 11 European, UK or London premières. It is good…
Première league
This year the Proms are to stage 21 world premières and 11 European, UK or London premières. It is good…
Evolutionary road
As Sepp Blatter has so affectingly remarked, the organisation he formerly headed needs evolution, not revolution. There is a consensus…
Evolutionary road
As Sepp Blatter has so affectingly remarked, the organisation he formerly headed needs evolution, not revolution. There is a consensus…
Mexican wave
Tours that start in Mexico have a nasty habit of repeating on one. Of all the British groups touring in…
Mexican wave
Tours that start in Mexico have a nasty habit of repeating on one. Of all the British groups touring in…
Wife swap
My impression that Bach has come to rival Shakespeare as a flawless reference point in the cultural life of the…
Wife swap
My impression that Bach has come to rival Shakespeare as a flawless reference point in the cultural life of the…
Glad to be Grey
Great works of art may have a strange afterlife. Deracinated from the world that created them they are at the…
