Classical
Why the Goldberg Variations fill me with dread
Is Sir Andras Schiff becoming the Ken Dodd of the piano? In his later years, you’ll recall, the Yorick of…
Recordings have stunted us
Bring me my bow of burning gold; or failing that, the opening notes of Elgar’s Second Symphony. That’s how I’ve…
A playful, big-hearted, intelligent new opera
Some people like art to have a message. So here’s one, delivered by Katsushika Hokusai near the end of Dai…
What a masterpiece. What a man: Borodin at the Barbican reviewed
Gianandrea Noseda conducted the London Symphony Orchestra last week in a programme of Stravinsky, Chopin and Borodin. The Stravinsky was…
The early-music movement is ageing well
The early music movement: it’s grown up so quickly, hasn’t it? The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is 40…
Richard Jones’s Boris Godunov feels like a parody
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov is back at Covent Garden, and there are ninjas. This isn’t a spoiler. There hasn’t been a…
The Neapolitan Horowitz
‘You play Bach your way, and I’ll play it his way.’ That remark by the Polish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska is…
Rattle’s glorious Janacek
The Czech author Karel Capek is probably best known for his plays: high-concept speculative dramas such as R.U.R. and The…
This Royal Opera Traviata is no ordinary revival
First opera of the year, first night back in London, and the jolly old metrop was already springing surprises. A…
The magnificence of Beare’s Chamber Music Festival
The quartet is the basic unit of string chamber music. Two violins, a viola and a cello: subtract any one…
The joy of composers’ graves
I called on Hugo Wolf the other week, and he didn’t look too great. He wouldn’t, of course; he died…
Intoxicating Elgar from the London Phil
By all accounts, the world première of Elgar’s Sea Pictures at the October 1899 Norwich Festival made quite a splash.…
Bruckner on Ozempic – and the première of the year
Bruckner at the Wigmore Hall. Yes, you heard right: a Bruckner symphony – his second: usually performed by 80-odd musicians…
Evgeny Kissin’s stand-in brings the house down
It was such an enticing programme, too. The Philharmonia had booked Evgeny Kissin, the last great piano prodigy of the…
The orchestra that makes pros go weak at the knees
Stravinsky’s The Firebird begins in darkness, and it might be the softest, deepest darkness in all music. Basses and cellos…
My unofficial music teacher
In the early 1970s my father moved offices and I was plucked out of my cosy prep school in Surrey…
The mind-bendingly creative works of Louis Couperin
The French lutenist Charles Fleury, Sieur de Blancrocher, is one of those unfortunate historical figures who are chiefly remembered because…
Pure feelgood: ENO’s Cinderella reviewed
‘Goodness Triumphant’ is the alternative title of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and you’d better believe he meant it. Possibly my reaction…
Huge Fun: Le Carnaval de Venise reviewed
Summer’s lease hath all too short a date, but there’s still time for one last opera festival. Vache Baroque popped…
A revelation: Delius’s Mass of Life at the Proms reviewed
Regarding Frederick Delius, how do we stand? In the 1930s, Sir Henry Wood believed that Proms audiences much preferred Delius…
The rise of cringe
No one wrote programme notes quite like the English experimentalist John White. ‘This music is top-quality trash,’ proclaims his 1993…
The excruciating tedium of John Tavener
The Edinburgh International Festival opened with John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, and I wish it hadn’t. Not that…
Three cheers for the Three Choirs Festival
The Welsh composer William Mathias died in 1992, aged 57. I was a teenager at the time, and the loss…
Alfred Brendel was peerless – but he wasn’t universally loved
In middle age Alfred Brendel looked disconcertingly like Eric Morecambe – but, unlike the comedian in his legendary encounter with…
Astonishing ‘lost tapes’ from a piano great
These days the heart sinks when Deutsche Grammophon announces its new releases. I still shudder at the memory of Lang…
