Elgar
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.…
The myth of the outsider
The job of radio critic for the Tablet offers several perquisites. One of them is access to the BBC previews…
A luminous new recording of The Dream of Gerontius
Grade: A– There’s a species of music-lover who enjoys pointing out that Elgar isn’t played much on the Continent –…
Baffling and vile: ETO’s Manon Lescaut reviewed
In 1937, John Barbirolli took six pieces by Henry Purcell and arranged them for an orchestra of strings, horns and…
A thankless task
The final volume of Peter Ackroyd’s History of England feels like a dutiful exercise carried out in a hurry, says Philip Hensher
Where to start with Ethel Smyth
I’m reminded of an old Irish joke. A tourist approaches a local for directions to Dublin. The local, after much…
Recorded delivery
For an orchestra to lose one anniversary concert may be regarded as unfortunate. To lose two? Welcome to 2020. The…
Class acts
The Last Night of the Proms came and went, and it was pretty much as anyone might have predicted, if…
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…
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
The forgotten masterpieces of Amy Beach
At the Wigmore Hall last Friday, the Takacs String Quartet and Garrick Ohlsson played a piano quintet that was once…
Music’s Brexit
It’s October 1895 and the spirit of Music has been absent from Britain for exactly 200 years. Why she fled,…
Partying like it’s 1899: two lieder recitals reviewed
If a symphony is, as Mahler famously put it, ‘like the world’, then songs and lieder are like seeing that…
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…
Giselle has floored many a ballerina — it did so again last week
English has all sorts of emotive metaphors for how we feel about the ground. We’re floored. Or well grounded. Or…
The legend returns
Daniel Barenboim is back in town: the South Bank is mounting a ‘Barenboim Project 2015’ in which he’s playing the…
Pitch perfect
To go from the second day of the England v. India Test match at Lord’s to the Albert Hall for…
Behind the masque
Music has always been integral to the image and power of monarchy. Our present Royal family should take note, says Jonathan Keate
