Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
John Adams: Slonimsky’s Earbox (Alpha)
Among his best work
John Cage: Four Walls (Fuga Libera)
More than a little bit mad
Kurt Weill: 2nd symphony, violin concerto (Somm)
A beautiful recording of an esoteric item
Isabella Leonarda; A portrait (Brilliant Classics)
Passion and originality blossom behind the walls of the cloister
Nico Muhly: Stranger (AVIE)
This new album of three works offers quiet empathy more than overwhelming emotion
Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the end of time (OUR)
Messiaen’s quartet, first performed in a freezing barracks in 1941, is a thing of great beauty
Ferdinand Ries: Piano Trio and Sextets (Hyperion)
Ludwig van Beethoven’s former secretary and pupil was no forgettable curiosity
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies 7 & 9 (Hallé)
VW will never catch on beyond Anglophiles — ask not the reason why
Erwin Schulhoff: Violin sonatas (Orfeo/FHR)
Virtuosity amidst violence
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
Middle management in the Middle East
The war against Iran has emphasised the importance of deep leadership
Dumbed-down democracy
“Public opinion” is useless when the public is largely ignorant
The missing variable in the masculinity crisis
The literature on masculinity ignores the most obvious factor of all: a steady, civilisational fall in testosterone
The Islamic identity crisis
V.S. Naipaul was prophetic on the struggles between Islam and modernity
Why nobody likes a smarty pants
Is it reasonable to conflate genuine intellectual endeavour with undue concern for supposed accuracy?
Information rage
Jacob Siegel’s new book The Information State is profound and troubling
Why Ed Miliband can’t change course
He would have to abandon his self-appointed role as an agent of progress
The Boston barbarians
The Boston Symphony acted like a New Orleans nightclub owner with a recalcitrant pole-dancer
North Korea’s rogue state development
How Kim Jong Un is embracing the modern world
The old age elephant in the room
Does Andy Burnham seriously think that he can fix social care?
London is broken
Local politics can’t offer the renewal our nation’s capital desperately needs