contemporary music
Does Gerald Barry hate music?
Blue Gadoo is one of those cats whose face looks like it’s been bashed flat with a wok. He lives…
Nils Frahm is clever with textures – but it’s the melodies which drag you in
Grade: A Here we are in that twilit zone where post-techno and post-ambient meets modern classical, a terrain that has…
A colossal bore: Royal Opera’s Carmen reviewed
The new production of Bizet’s Carmen at the Royal Opera has received mixed reviews. It shouldn’t have done. They should…
Celebrating Carter was one of the most energising musical occasions in years
Das Rheingold at the Royal Festival Hall was, all told, a disappointment, but it might not have been had there…
Debussy, Tippett and Wagner: the musical treats of 2018
Claude Debussy died on 25 March 1918 to the sound of explosions. Four days earlier, the Kaiser’s army had deployed…
Some of the greatest moments at HCMF 2017 were the gentlest
The musicians of Ensemble Grizzana are arranged in the usual way for their concert at St Paul’s Hall in Huddersfield.…
Composer Nico Muhly on drugs, cults and James MacMillan
There’s a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie in which Tippi Hedren is emptying a safe while a cleaning lady silently…
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,…
Bowled over by Bruckner
The two Proms concerts given on consecutive evenings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were well planned: a short opening work,…
Whatever happened to Alice?
In 1987, the art of opera changed decisively. John Adams’s opera Nixon in China was so unlike the usual run…
Classy and classic
The Edinburgh International Festival began with a double helping of incest. Curiously, Greek — Mark-Anthony Turnage’s East End retelling of…
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…
Hadyn recreated
‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ wrote Elgar, quoting Shelley, at the top of his Second Symphony. He should…
Unsung hero
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Lady killer
‘Kiss me, Sergei! Kiss me hard! Kiss me until the icons fall and split!’ sings Katerina Ismailova, adulterous antiheroine of…
Deadlier than the male
Last week a 17-year-old girl forced the Edexcel exam board to change its A-level music syllabus to include the work…
Selective memory
It’s 70 years since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet there has been no rush to…
The London ear
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
Première league
This year the Proms are to stage 21 world premières and 11 European, UK or London premières. It is good…
Forward thinking
The award of a knighthood to the composer James MacMillan will have ruined last weekend for lots of unsavoury people:…
Between Kafka and Crossroads
We opera critics love gazing into crystal balls. We’re particularly good at discovering Ed Milibands and backing them to the…
Lost boys
In Beryl Bainbridge’s novel An Awfully Big Adventure the producer Meredith Potter issues a doughty injunction on the subject of…
Mistress of modernism
What classical music really needs is more performers like Barbara Hannigan. Philip Clark meets theself-conducting soprano
Gone girl
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson loved little girls. He loved to tell them stories, he loved to feed them jam, he loved…
