Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Why orchestras are sounding better than ever under social-distancing
Our college choirmaster had a trick that he liked to deploy when he sensed that we were phoning it in.…
An overcooked blowout: Glyndebourne’s Die Zauberflöte reviewed
Think back to when you were 12, and the sensation of re-opening your favourite book. (This is The Spectator; I’m…
Hearing Gilbert & Sullivan on period instruments was a revelation
‘I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all,’ wrote Stravinsky in one…
Never quite pivots from thesis to drama: Royal Opera’s Queen of Spades reviewed
We increasingly accept the collision between life and art. Whether we’re puzzling over the real identity of Elena Ferrante, choosing…
Salon Strauss
An opera without singers, a Strauss orchestra of just 16, and an early music ensemble playing Mahler: welcome to the…
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…
Why are symphony orchestras expected to survive indefinitely?
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
Startling and sublime - even the candles got a round of applause: Glyndebourne’s Saul reviewed
Caius Gabriel Cibber’s statues of ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Raving Madness’, their eyes staring blindly into the void, petrified in torment, once…
Forget the Germans. It’s the French who made classical music what it is
The poor French. When we think of classical music, we always think of the Germans. It’s understandable. Instinctive. Ingrained. But…
Christopher Hogwood: the absolutist of early music
The death of Christopher Hogwood has deprived the world of the most successful exponent of early music there has ever…
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