‘Where I grew up, classical music was diversity’
Richard Bratby talks to Birmingham Opera Company’s new music director Alpesh Chauhan about his Brummie roots, Bruckner and how his BAME heritage is a non-story
Method in the madness
First there were the home recitals: musicians playing solo Bach in front of their bookshelves, wonkily captured on iPhones. Next…
The miniaturists
Model villages deliver a cheerful jolt to unexamined notions about our own place – and size – in the world, says Richard Bratby
Scouse style
Richard Bratby on Britain’s oldest and ballsiest orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which has taken on everyone from gang leaders to Derek Hatton
Live and let die
Remember when 2020 was going to be Beethoven year? There were going to be cycles and festivals, recordings and reappraisals;…
From joy to dissolution
At the start of Elgar’s Second Symphony the full orchestra hovers, poised. It pulls back; and then, like a dam…
Surfer’s paradise
The full addictive potential of classical YouTube needs to be experienced to be understood. And let’s be honest, there are…
The Met goes Eurovision
Desperate times call for desperate measures. With the world’s opera houses currently dark, the New York Metropolitan Opera tackled the…
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
Meet the Mozarts
It’s 1771, you’re in Milan, and your 14-year-old genius son has just premièred his new opera. How do you reward…
Haydn seek
As Joseph Haydn was getting out of bed on the morning of 10 May 1809, a cannonball landed in his…
Raiding the sonic store cupboard
There’s a certain merit in bluntness. ‘Quarantine Soirées’ was what the Budapest Festival Orchestra called its response to the crisis,…
Bigamists, lunatics and adventurers
The world of 19th-century British music was raucous, but are there any masterpieces waiting to be rediscovered? wonders Richard Bratby
The alienation effect
‘People may say I can’t sing,’ said the soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, ‘but no one can ever say I didn’t…
Eurotrash Verdi
Verdi’s Luisa Miller is set in the Tyrol in the early 17th century, and for some opera directors that’s a…
Made for telly
It’s a sweltering night in Manhattan, circa 1947, and on the doorstep of a brownstone tenement three women are waiting…
Fellatio-free
Calixto Bieito’s Carmen: three words to make an opera critic’s heart leap. Until quite recently, Bieito was the operatic provocateur…
Apex carnivore
Beethoven wears a feather boa and pink shades. He wrangles an electric guitar. A red lightning flash streaks across that…
Top bantz
So, you’ve fallen in love with a piece of classical music and you want to buy a recording. The problems…
Follow the lieder
‘Popular’ classical music is a relative term. Show me someone who thinks Beethoven is surefire box office, and I’ll show……
Warmth, energy and gripping momentum: Stephen Hough’s Wigmore Hall residency reviewed
In the summer of 1878 Johannes Brahms finally succeeded in growing a beard. It was his third attempt. ‘Prepare your…
Beer, sweat and jockstraps: the real history of the CBSO
In childhood, the theme tune to The Box of Delights was the sound of Christmas. The melody was ‘The First…
Don’t tell me model railways aren’t art. My little engine is a thing of spirit and beauty
It’s a summer day at Llangenydd station, and the afternoon train is already late, not that anyone seems to mind.…
Sadistic and repellent and thrilling: Mascagni’s Iris reviewed
If you’ve ever felt that poor Madama Butterfly had a bit of a raw deal, then you really, really don’t…
Meet the unrivalled Sun King of early music, William Christie
It’s morning in the garden of William Christie, and he’s talking about home improvements. ‘I planted three pines up there…
