Music
Four recordings of Beethoven’s Ninth on a £10 app
Last weekend my iPad sucked me deeper into Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony than I thought possible. Deutsche Grammophon and Touch Press have released an app devoted to the work that rendered… Read more
Chic’s Nile Rodgers on Daft Punk’s new single
Every new product, whatever it is, needs a bit of ‘buzz’, and indeed vast numbers of people around the world make a decent living trying to generate that ‘buzz’, while… Read more
Pick of the Proms
With the publication of this year’s Proms brochure it is clear that what was already large has just become larger; and what was already a smooth production has just got… Read more
Interview with the musician Paul Lewis
Being an English pianist must be a lonely calling at times. There is no native tradition like the ones that, say, German or Russian musicians are heir to, so many… Read more
Are today's composers up to the challenge of writing sublime music?
When we describe music as ‘sublime’, what do we mean? For the Romans, sublimis signified greatness beyond measure. In the 18th century, Englishmen looked to The Spectator for clarification. Joseph… Read more
Richard Wagner at 200
‘The overpowering accents of the music that accompanies Siegfried’s funeral cortège no longer tell of the woodland boy who set out to learn the meaning of fear; they speak to… Read more
The brilliant fun of Bryan Ferry’s The Jazz Age
When you can do anything you like, what do you do? In Bryan Ferry’s case, the answer seems to be ‘make a 1920s instrumental jazz record out of some of… Read more
The ideal place to hear classical concerts
What sort of room do you prefer to hear classical concerts in? We have all got used to industrial-strength symphony halls and opera houses, capable of holding 3,000 people, with… Read more
Parsifal at Salzburg Easter Festival
To hear Christian Thielemann conduct the Dresden Staatskapelle in Wagner’s ‘stage consecration play’, in Salzburg at Easter, proved a musical experience that could only deepen anybody’s love of this extraordinary… Read more
Beethoven at dinner parties: how to bluff it
I’ve just been reunited with a man whose pungent and patronising views on great composers have haunted me for more than 30 years. His name is Gervase Hughes, and I’ve… Read more
If David Bowie really has returned to form, I’ll cry
I haven’t heard the David Bowie album yet, but the Amazon order is in and Postie has been alerted as to the importance of the delivery. How often these days… Read more
Class prejudice is keeping talented children out of classical music
Musicians have always had an uncertain social status in England, the traditional reactions varying from amused condescension to mild repulsion. The former was the old class-based judgment on men who… Read more
Why can’t the British pop industry launch new acts that last?
It’s all been happening in the pop world since I was last here. David Bowie released a new song, arguably his best in several decades. Wilko Johnson announced that he… Read more
Making music
Since the birth of the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster in the late 1990s, the record industry has been the unwilling poster child for entire businesses being overthrown by the march… Read more
Changing habits
The question of who is going to buy EMI Classics has arisen once again in the past few days with the collapse of HMV. This followed on from the collapse… Read more
Rediscovering Spotify
All my life I’ve wanted to be able to write confidently about orchestral performances and I think I may have cracked it. So forgive me while I show off for… Read more
Wielding the axe
I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling a bit sorry for Mike Harding. The long-serving host of BBC Radio 2’s ‘folk, roots and acoustic’ show was given the heave-ho last… Read more
If the price is right …
The question of who is going to buy EMI Classics took up most of 2012 and seems destined to run well into the new year. Given that the catalogue in… Read more
Chorus of approval
Is there anything more essential to one’s well-being than the sound of an English choir at evensong? Is there, for that matter, any word in our language more beautiful than… Read more
The quiz biz
Come December, I often find myself writing a lot of quizzes. Not that I’m complaining: I love writing quizzes, and I really love being paid for writing quizzes. There’s a… Read more
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