Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
A bore and a balm
Inferno: Behzod Abdurimov (Alpha Classics)
Beyond Carmen
Georges Bizet: The piano works (Hyperion)
Eroticism and intrigue
Out of Vienna (Alpha-Classics)
Standout singers
If Music (Erato), Day of These Days (Delphian) & Eisnacht (Genuin)
Italian elegance
Italian Perspectives (Pentatone)
Diabolically good
Sergei Prokofiev: 2nd violin concerto &c (Warner Classics)
Alkan the Awesome
Alkan: Complete organ works, vol. 1 (Signum Classics)
A cherishable dream
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius (Hyperion)
The twilight of genius
Dmitri Shostakovich: The last 3 quartets (Harmonia Mundi)
A better America
American Tapestry (Signum)
Most Read
The Book of JO’B
James O’Brien’s aggressive incuriosity is becoming ever more embattled as his worldview crumbles
The rise and fall of Nicola Sturgeon
The former SNP leader squandered her talents in a classic tale of hubris
Fear and fury in Belfast
Violence spiralled out of control in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of a shocking crime
The screaming spires
Oxford University must clarify where it stands on academic freedom
Nigel Farage, community leader
The logic of multiculturalism is turning on its architects
The name game
Nominative determinism is a rich seam to be mined in sport
The government must end its war on the price mechanism
The government is stubbornly ignoring the harms and risks of its interventions into markets
Our oriental roots
Marian Boswall salutes the early plant
hunters who revolutionised gardening
Why left-wingers should care about borders
A welfare state, and social solidarity, depend on immigration restrictionism
The resistible centrism of Mark Gatiss
Why a centre-left worldview struggles to understand dissent
The man who ended overreach
Lord Reed’s tenure as president of the Supreme Court has been admired by those who value the stability of the law
The art of statesmanship
An exhibition at the Wallace Collection shows how Britain’s greatest wartime leader found solace and satisfaction in painting
It’s high time we banned dogs
The tide is turning against these slobbering beasts
Greene around the gills
A truly ghastly gastropub
Steel blues
The Government’s new steel strategy is stupid and destructive
Dining in a different world
Transported by a restored institution