Arts
Dirty dancing
Vienna’s New Year’s Day concert is still tarnished by its Nazi origins, says Norman Lebrecht
Snow men
In owning a flock of artificial sheep, Joseph Farquharson must have been unusual among Highland lairds a century ago. His…
Le French bashing
The popular sport has spread to France. Are things really that bad, wonders Jonathan Meades
North star
Fortune tellers, pound shops and Orville: it’s easy to take the piss out of Blackpool, but William Cook loves it
A star is born
The Royal Academy of Music’s end-of-term opera can always be looked forward to because it never disappoints: the repertoire is…
Just for laughs
‘What is a panto?’ I asked my companion at the Hackney Empire’s Saturday matinee. ‘It’s basically a really bad play,’…
Norwegian wood
Kon-Tiki is a dramatisation of Thor Heyerdahl’s 4,300-mile, 101-day journey across the Pacific by balsa-wood raft, which took place in…
The power of hate
It’s all gone now, of course. Not just the magazines themselves, but the legendary bile of old-school rock criticism
No brainer
One feels the pang of impending failure whenever the Royal Ballet ventures like a deluded Don Quixote into a periodic…
Winning ways
If ever my near-neighbour William Sitwell is killed in a bizarre shooting accident and I end up taking his place…
All together now
It was a bit of a surprise to hear Jarvis Cocker, the embodiment of cool and former frontman of Pulp,…
Culture buff
The arts are alive and well heading into 2015
No brainer
One feels the pang of impending failure whenever the Royal Ballet ventures like a deluded Don Quixote into a periodic…
The power of hate
With seconds to spare, I think I have chanced upon my music book of the year. Such choices are always…
The power of hate
With seconds to spare, I think I have chanced upon my music book of the year. Such choices are always…
Sistema’s secrets
An explosive new book uncovers abuse at the heart of one of classical music’s most revered institutions. Damian Thompson investigates
Life force
‘Love of the human form’, writes the painter John Lessore, ‘must be the origin of that peculiar concept, the Life…
In from the cold
You won’t have heard of Peder Balke. Yet this long-neglected painter from 19th-century Norway is now the subject of a…
Chorus of approval
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
Dance One last dance
I’m dashing between dance theatres at the moment and there’s just so much to tell you about. I could linger…
Rameau resurrected
The poor French. When we think of classical music, we always think of the Germans. It’s understandable. Instinctive. Ingrained. But…
Sin city
When to launch? For impresarios, this is the eternal dilemma. Autumn is so crowded with press nights that producers are…
Saints and sinners
Is Bill Murray fit for sainthood? Certainly his fans have him figure as some sort of lesser divinity, maybe one…
Ghost town
BBC1’s authentically spooky three-part ghost story Remember Me hasn’t yet revealed what’s really going on in that gloomy Yorkshire town.…
A dose of good sense
Each year the Reith Lectures come round as Radio 4’s annual assertion of intellectual authority, fulfilling the BBC’s original aspiration…
