Classical music
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…
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…
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…
My unofficial music teacher
In the early 1970s my father moved offices and I was plucked out of my cosy prep school in Surrey…
A cracking little 1967 opera that we ought to see more often
Ravel’s L’heure espagnole is set in a clockmaker’s shop and the first thing you hear is ticking and chiming. It’s…
Why was the 19th century so full of bigots and weirdos?
Da Vinci’s Laundry is based on an art world rumour. In 2017, Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ sold at Christie’s for $450…
A Magic Flute that will make you weep
English Touring Opera has begun its autumn season and the miracle isn’t so much that they’re touring at all these…
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…
Robin Holloway lambasts some of our most beloved composers
Works by Strauss, Holst, Rossini, Schoenberg and Wagner are all targeted, while Hildegard of Bingen’s music is pronounced a ‘psychedelic bore’
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…
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 decline of Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival was established to champion the civilising power of European high culture in a spirit of postwar healing.…
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,…
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…
