Classical music
What cinema gets wrong about conductors
André Previn began his career at MGM. And after he’d quit the studio to become conductor of the London Symphony…
The genius of Pam Tanowitz
Too much ballet these days is top-heavy with narrative that would be better served by the spoken word than it…
The woman who showed us the real Russia
It’s hard to know where to start – or finish – when explaining the formidable Lilian Hochhauser, due her centenary…
A passion for music: Partita, by Barbara Kingsolver, reviewed
Livia Cable, from poor, rural eastern Tennessee, seems capable of becoming a concert pianist. But will her ambitions be forever thwarted?
Do we really need a Dudamel Schumann cycle?
Grade: B These are strange days in the recording industry. Heaven alone knows why Platoon – an Apple sub-conglomerate with…
Apple Music has redeemed itself
Just two weeks ago I was ready to cancel my subscription to Apple Music. I’d stumbled across its ‘Composer Essentials’…
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.…
In defence of Hindemith
There’s a photo of Paul Hindemith with the pianist Artur Schnabel on hands and knees, surrounded by model railway track.…
Heart-melting loveliness from John Rutter
Anyone for a spot of acoustic science? Apparently the distinctive colour of a musical note is concentrated almost wholly in…
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 Neapolitan Horowitz
‘You play Bach your way, and I’ll play it his way.’ That remark by the Polish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska is…
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…
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 art of the transatlantic liner
Some time in the next few weeks, a great ocean liner will be lost at sea. One of the greatest,…
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 genius of Morton Feldman
To accompany an exhibition of paintings by Philip Guston at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2004, a…
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…
A Spectator poll: What is the greatest artwork of the century so far?
Slavoj Zizek Hegel thought that, in the movement of history, the world spirit passes from one country to another, from…
