Music
This is how you reimagine Bach’s St John Passion
‘The dripping blood our only drink/ The bloody flesh our only food…/ Again, in spite of that, we call this…
London’s orchestral scene is dead. Time to change the music – and some CEOs
For much of the past half-century, London has been the world’s orchestral capital. Not always in quality, but numerically without…
Meet the founder of the Boring Music Society (and possible neglected genius)
It’s always promising when the orchestra won’t fit on the stage. For the UK première, some 97 years after it…
Maurizio Pollini needs to retire
There’s a moment in the finale of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata when the frenzied piano writing turns unexpectedly jolly. The late…
Did Igor Levit’s latest Beethoven recital deserve to be booed?
Nothing pleased Iannis Xenakis more than a great big rattling storm. The sound of a thunderclap would have him running…
Spare us the gerontophilia
Brahms didn’t always have a beard. The picture in the London Symphony Orchestra’s programme book showed him clean-shaven, and rightly.…
Not many concerts should be as devastating as this: Philharmonia Orchestra/Nelsons reviewed
It used to be said that Bruckner composed the same symphony nine times, whereas, thanks to the comparative frequency of…
Does Radio 3 really need to tiptoe around every controversy?
This week the Southbank Centre began its ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ festival — a series of concerts and talks claiming…
The sound of very earnest millennials making music: The xx’s I See you reviewed
The xx is a trio of Londoners whose eponymous first album, released in 2009, has defined the way pop music…
Nonsense squared: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground reviewed
Gerald Barry loved playing organ for Protestants as they allowed him a lie in. Then they found out he wasn’t…
A surprising number of great composers were fond of the bottle – but can you hear it?
‘Brahms and Liszt’ is a lovely bit of rhyming slang, but it doesn’t have the ring of authenticity. Can you…
Elvis would have loved it: Elvis in Concert at the O2
Elvis Aron Presley departed this world on 16 August, 1977. Even if you delight in conspiracy theories and believe the…
I always thought the North and classical music didn’t mix
Years ago, when I met a famous concert pianist, I was surprised when he greeted me in a northern accent.…
Life’s too short for ‘well-crafted’ pieces by musical mediocrities – and Handel
There’s a folder in my computer’s external hard drive in which you’ll find 24 complete recordings of the Bach Cello…
Performing the Goldberg Variations on the piano involves too many compromises
The churning, rheumatic mechanism of a harpsichord — notes needling your ears like drops of acid rain — doesn’t necessarily…
Why are so many composers drawn to the Stabat Mater?
Music likes to tell the same story over and over again. This is part of its tradition but even individual…
The day I tried to rescue the alcoholic former Master of the Queen’s Music
I was looking forward to going to Malcolm Williamson’s opera English Eccentrics set to a text by Edith Sitwell at…
Memphis is a dream destination for music lovers – but how long will this last?
The bad news for old rock’n’rollers is that there’s not much time left to stay at Heartbreak Hotel — these…
Stevie Wonder, Genesis, punk and the Stones – 1976 was the year that changed music
Forty years ago, I spent 14 hours in a large field near the A1 in Hertfordshire. I had just taken…
Electronic Dance Music is not for rebels – it’s for tyrants and drones
Electronic Dance Music is dying. You may not have noticed. It may not affect you directly. But it’s a really…
In search of Mozart’s Tempest
This must rank as the most heartbreaking example of premature chicken-counting in musical history. ‘Gotter has made a marvellous free…
Satie invented the cultural poison that is Muzak – why should he be celebrated?
After peaking at around the tenth instalment, birthday celebrations get progressively less interesting, for their subjects at least. I remember…
We want them not to give us what we want: Radiohead at the Roundhouse reviewed
Radiohead have been at the top of the musical tree for so long now that it’s easy to forget what…
Our neglect of this great working-class British composer is a disgrace
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
Peter Phillips bids farewell to his music column after 33 years
This, my 479th, is to be my last contribution as a regular columnist to The Spectator. I have written here…
