Classical music
The Renaissance master who rescued polyphonic music
Last month I watched conductor Harry Christophers blow through what sounded like an arthritic harmonica but in fact was a…
Poulenc’s Stabat Mater – sacred, fervent and always on the verge of breaking into giggles
It’s funny what you see at orchestral concerts. See, that is, not just hear. If you weren’t in the hall…
‘I’ve seen controllers come and go’: Radio 3’s Michael Berkeley interviewed
A few years ago I had a panic-stricken phone call from a female friend. ‘Help!’ she wailed. ‘Remind me what…
Sunny Schubert and iridescent Ravel: album of the week
Grade: A Maurice Ravel was tougher than he looked. True, he dressed like a dandy and wrote an opera about…
The unnerving world of Erik Satie’s 20-hour composition
Once Igor Levit starts playing Erik Satie at 10 a.m. on 24 April at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, he can…
The liberating force of musical modernism
It’s Arvo Part’s 90th birthday year, which is good news if you like your minimalism glum, low and very, very…
Splendid revival of an unsurpassed production: Royal Opera’s Turandot reviewed
Puccini’s Turandot is back at the Royal Opera in the 40-year old production by Andrei Serban and… well, guilty pleasure…
If ‘wokeness’ is over, can someone please tell the Fitzwilliam Museum?
Optimists believe that the tide of ‘wokeness’ is now ebbing. If so, the message has not yet reached Cambridge, whose…
Barbara Hannigan needs to stop conducting while singing
Last week, Barbara Hannigan conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Haydn, Roussel, Ravel and Britten, though to be honest she…
The agony of making music at Auschwitz
Anne Sebba explores the ethical questions that haunted members of the female orchestra obliged to play marching music to hurry fellow inmates to and from forced labour
The filthy side of Dame Myra Hess
The photograph on the cover of Jessica Duchen’s magnificent new biography of Dame Myra Hess shows a statuesque lady sitting…
A luminous new recording of The Dream of Gerontius
Grade: A– There’s a species of music-lover who enjoys pointing out that Elgar isn’t played much on the Continent –…
A dancing, weightless garland of gems: Stephen Hough’s piano concerto reviewed
Stephen Hough’s new piano concerto is called The World of Yesterday but its second ever performance offered a dispiriting glimpse…
How to write a piano concerto
My Piano Concerto, The World of Yesterday, began with an email during one of the darker days of the pandemic:…
Are these performances of the Bach cantatas the best on record?
Three projects shedding light on the sacred music of J.S. Bach are nearing completion. The first consists of an epic…
Opera North’s Flying Dutchman scores a full house in cliché bingo
The overture to The Flying Dutchman opens at gale force. There’s nothing like it; Mendelssohn and Berlioz both painted orchestral…
The thankless art of the librettist
Next week, after the première of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera Festen, the cast and conductor will take their bow. All…
Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool
They do things their own way in Liverpool; they always have. In 1997 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra launched a…
The stupidity of the classical piano trio
It’s a right mess, the classical piano trio; the unintended consequence of one of musical history’s more frustrating twists. When…
Our verdict on Pappano’s first months at the London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Antonio Pappano began 2024 as music director of the Royal Opera and ended as chief conductor of the London…
Vivid, noble and bouyant: AAM’s Messiah reviewed
More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t…
Radio 3 Unwind is music for the morgue
Soon after the launch of Classic FM in 1992, the then controller of Radio 3, Nicholas Kenyon, asserted that his…
