Music
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…
If we really cared about mental health, muzak would be a top priority
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
Late Brahms is wonderfully crafted - which is why it's so dull
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet begins, writes his biographer Jan Swafford, with ‘a gentle, dying-away roulade that raises a veil of autumnal…
I want to put on a concert in Antarctica. Who will help me?
In this exciting new era of Spectator cruises I have been put in mind of a dream event long in…
Never again, I told myself last time Bob Dylan was in town
We were like four hapless contestants on University Challenge. None of us knew the answer. But just like they do…
Why I’m glad my piano teacher spent more time chatting than teaching
At the entrance to Marylebone railway station is an old piano that anyone can play. Unfortunately, whoever had this sweet…
There's a good reason why there are no great female composers
Last week a 17-year-old girl forced the Edexcel exam board to change its A-level music syllabus to include the work…
Orchestral conductors would be much better if they tried performing Renaissance music
To be honest, my friendship with Michael Tilson Thomas hasn’t gone quite as I had hoped. It started in February…
Jascha Spivakovsky: the great lost pianist we can finally hear
William Kapell was an American concert pianist with the looks of a male model and the fingers of a wizard.…