Classical music
Embarrassing – but electrifying: Bernstein 100 reviewed
‘There is something enviable about the utter lack of inhibition with which Leonard Bernstein carries on,’ wrote the critic of…
Salon Strauss
An opera without singers, a Strauss orchestra of just 16, and an early music ensemble playing Mahler: welcome to the…
Speed limit
Slow radio is popping up everywhere at the moment — programmes that have no outward form but just meander through…
Make mine a double
If two concert pianists are performing a work written for two grand pianos, there are two ways you can position…
Vice and virtue
‘Can the ultimate betrayal ever be forgiven?’ screams the publicity for The Judas Passion, transforming a Biblical drama into a…
Beauty and the beast
I was going to start with a little moan. About the shouty marketing, the digital diarrhoea, the sycophantic drivel, which,…
Director’s cut
Much fuss has been made of the title given to Sir Simon Rattle on arrival at the London Symphony Orchestra.…
The sound of no hands clapping
‘We’re going to live for ever!’ declares Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler at the end of Ken Russell’s 1974 biopic.…
Ave, Maria
Anyone who thinks that an artist’s life is irrelevant to their artistic achievement, and for that matter anyone who thinks…
Bowled over by Bruckner
The two Proms concerts given on consecutive evenings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were well planned: a short opening work,…
‘Smile, segue and shut up’
Three weeks before Classic FM launched, I was on the radio in Hong Kong, introducing hits by Rick Astley and…
Mistaken identity
This year’s Lucerne Festival is given its identity by having as its theme ‘Identity’. Since the word doesn’t mean anything,…
Time to end authenticity
They say the first step towards recovery is admitting that you have a problem. So I’m staging an intervention and…
Losing our religion
Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this…
Beethoven: Missa solemnis
When you first encounter it, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis can sound like the Ninth Symphony with more singing but no tunes.…
The joy of the Proms
Summer nights, hot and humid, mean just one thing — it’s Proms season again. Sore feet, sweaty armpits, queuing outside…
Hadyn recreated
‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ wrote Elgar, quoting Shelley, at the top of his Second Symphony. He should…
Gustav Mahler
When I began listening to music seriously, in about 1950, I had read about Mahler but wasn’t able to hear…
Myth-making
For years I have been telling people that they should listen to, in the absence of staged performances, Enescu’s opera…
Verdi
Verdi has a peculiar if not unique place in the pantheon of great composers. If you love classical music at…
Unsung hero
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Deluded divas
Were Florence Foster Jenkins and her fellow culprits touchingly heroic, cynically fraudulent or just plain bonkers? Rupert Christiansen reports
Last words
This, my 479th, is to be my last contribution as a regular columnist to The Spectator. I have written here…
Service with a smile
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
Sound and vision
Janacek’s Jenufa, his first great opera, had a one-night stand at the Royal Festival Hall last Monday, courtesy of the…
