Classical music
Stolen pleasures
I’ve never been into shoplifting, though I once had a friend who was. And, no, before you ask, I’m not…
Dirty dancing
Vienna’s New Year’s Day concert is still tarnished by its Nazi origins, says Norman Lebrecht
Sistema’s secrets
An explosive new book uncovers abuse at the heart of one of classical music’s most revered institutions. Damian Thompson investigates
Chorus of approval
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
Rameau resurrected
The poor French. When we think of classical music, we always think of the Germans. It’s understandable. Instinctive. Ingrained. But…
Second coming
Earlier this month the Wigmore Hall was sold out for a Schubert recital by a concert pianist whose only solo…
What iff?
Would musical history have turned out differently if Alexander Glazunov hadn’t been smashed out of his wits when he conducted…
Class of ’73
The death of Christopher Hogwood has deprived the world of the most successful exponent of early music there has ever…
Bach triumphant
A few weeks ago I was at the perfect wedding. My young friend Will Heaven, a comment editor at the…
The Spectator’s Notes
When I interviewed Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, for my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I asked him…
A writer’s notebook
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the Master of the Queen’s Music, recently wrote about the almost total ignorance of young people…
Nationalist stirrings
Philip Hensher on how an impassioned, chaotic group of amateur 19th-century composers created the first distinctively Russian music
Conduct becoming
Michael Henderson talks to the youthful conductor Daniel Harding, who realises that the older he gets the more he has to learn
Singing under cardboard
To undertake a concert tour of New Zealand’s cathedrals at the moment is to be constantly reminded of the destructive…
