The Listener
The violinist who told the Vienna Phil where to stick it
Grade: A The Viennese violinist Arnold Rosé (1863-1946) held a musical civilisation together. Brother-in-law of Mahler, friend to Brahms and…
A much-deserved revival of a formidable British composer
Grade: B+ ‘Cheltenham Symphonies’, they used to call them – a catch-all term for the kind of large-scale, traditionally inclined…
The finest music ever composed by a Breton naval officer
Grade: B+ There’s a special art in making something difficult appear effortless, and the string trio is a supreme test.…
The joy of Martinu’s symphonies
Grade: A– What, more Martinu? It feels like no time since the Pavel Haas Quartet was persuading us that there…
Is this the missing link between Bach and Haydn?
Grade: B ‘Is that Haydn or Mozart? One can’t always be sure,’ remarks Kenneth Clark in the 18th-century episode of…
Don’t blame Kanye for his abject idiocy
Grade: C– Kanye? No, I can’t, quite. I will always quietly overlook the idiotic political sensibilities of the conformist millennial…
Seductive Debussy and Ravel from the RLPO
Grade: A It’s a cliché that the best Spanish music was written by Frenchmen but it’s mostly true nonetheless, and…
Who let Men Without Hats make a new album?
Grade: D A Montreal band led by a Ukrainian/Canadian called Ivan Doruschuk, with a histrionic baritone, famous solely for having…
Violin concertos from two Broadway legends
Grade: B+ The 20th century, eh? What a lark that was. Vladimir Dukelsky studied in Kiev under Glière and looked…
An album that proves Martinu was one of the great quartet composers
Grade: A Bohuslav Martinu was a patchy composer; worse, he was also a prolific one, meaning that if you dip…
No, Big Thief’s Double Infinity is not the greatest folk album ever
Grade: B- ‘I feel within myself a constant dialogue between my masculinity, my femininity and the part of me that…
Disconcerting but often delightful new Bach transcriptions
Grade: B Everyone loves the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Rather fewer people love the sound of an unaccompanied organ,…
Irritatingly, Wet Leg’s new album is pretty good
Grade: B+ There’s quite a lot to dislike about Wet Leg, even aside from their stupid name. The entirety of…
A cross between Peter Rabbit and Queen Victoria: Bliss: The Composer Conducts reviewed
Grade: A– There’s a classic trajectory for British composers: a five-decade evolution from Angry Young Man to Pillar of the…
A lovely album: Saint Leonard’s The Golden Hour reviewed
Grade: A+ The kids with their synths and hip producers, dragging the 1980s back: I wish they would stop. It…
