Classical music
Live and let die
Remember when 2020 was going to be Beethoven year? There were going to be cycles and festivals, recordings and reappraisals;…
Dallas with violins
On the face of it, a French-language drama about a Parisian symphony orchestra mightn’t sound like the most action-packed of…
From joy to dissolution
At the start of Elgar’s Second Symphony the full orchestra hovers, poised. It pulls back; and then, like a dam…
Swanky, stale and sullen
The summer music festival has had its day, says Norman Lebrecht
Surfer’s paradise
The full addictive potential of classical YouTube needs to be experienced to be understood. And let’s be honest, there are…
The best recordings of Bruckner’s Eighth
I am daunted. Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony is a work that I regard with love, awe and even anxiety. I always…
Forget me not
No surprise: the greatest musical experience of my life was Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1962. I thought at the time…
Meet the Mozarts
It’s 1771, you’re in Milan, and your 14-year-old genius son has just premièred his new opera. How do you reward…
Like a prayer
In the autumn of 1632, a man called Kaspar Schisler returned home to the small Bavarian town of Oberammergau. He…
Radio 3 presenters
Anyone who has listened regularly to Radio 3 over the decades — not to mention the Third Programme, which Radio…
Haydn seek
As Joseph Haydn was getting out of bed on the morning of 10 May 1809, a cannonball landed in his…
Raiding the sonic store cupboard
There’s a certain merit in bluntness. ‘Quarantine Soirées’ was what the Budapest Festival Orchestra called its response to the crisis,…
Bigamists, lunatics and adventurers
The world of 19th-century British music was raucous, but are there any masterpieces waiting to be rediscovered? wonders Richard Bratby
The alienation effect
‘People may say I can’t sing,’ said the soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, ‘but no one can ever say I didn’t…
Apex carnivore
Beethoven wears a feather boa and pink shades. He wrangles an electric guitar. A red lightning flash streaks across that…
Top bantz
So, you’ve fallen in love with a piece of classical music and you want to buy a recording. The problems…
Warmth, energy and gripping momentum: Stephen Hough’s Wigmore Hall residency reviewed
In the summer of 1878 Johannes Brahms finally succeeded in growing a beard. It was his third attempt. ‘Prepare your…
Beethoven wasn’t just history’s greatest composer but also one of its greatest human beings
Ludwig van Beethoven isn’t just my favourite composer: he’s my household god. There’s a bust of him on my mantelpiece.…
Beer, sweat and jockstraps: the real history of the CBSO
In childhood, the theme tune to The Box of Delights was the sound of Christmas. The melody was ‘The First…
Why 2019 has been a wonderful year
I received my Christmas present earlier than usual. It was a message sent via The Spectator from a gentleman who…
Sadistic and repellent and thrilling: Mascagni’s Iris reviewed
If you’ve ever felt that poor Madama Butterfly had a bit of a raw deal, then you really, really don’t…
Handsome and revivable but I wasn’t moved: Royal Opera’s Death in Venice reviewed
Premièred within two years of each other, Luchino Visconti’s film and Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice both take Thomas…
Meet the unrivalled Sun King of early music, William Christie
It’s morning in the garden of William Christie, and he’s talking about home improvements. ‘I planted three pines up there…
Why are Haydn’s operas so lousy? La fedelta premiata reviewed
There’s a book about musicals that every opera lover should read. Not Since Carrie by Ken Mandelbaum is a history…
How a City lawyer conquered the hardest piano work ever written
Charles-Valentin Alkan played the piano faster than Liszt and louder than Chopin. The dying Pole left instructions that only Alkan…
