Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
Poor conduct
Shostakovich: Symphonies 4-6 (Decca)
More than just noise
Berg, Schoenberg, Webern: Piano works (Warner)
Franco-Irish vigour
Augusta Holmès: Symphonic poems (CPO)
Forces of nature
Antonin Dvorak: Symphonies (Warner/Pentatone)
Enthralling eclecticism
Roberto Gerhard: Don Quixote, &c. (Chandos)
Piano in wartime
War poems (Somm)
Devilishly good
Liszt: Faust Symphony (Bis)
Indulgent Italian treats
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Complete string quartets (Naxos)
Illicit fun
Jonathan Leibowitz: Eastern Reflections (Delphian)
Composed and electrifying
Klaus Tennstedt: The Radio Broadcasts (Doremi, 4CDs)
On cockroaches and cancellation (w/ James Dreyfus)
How ideology is spoiling the arts
Out of Africa
You can say what you like about European empires, but they improved African cooking
The authorities are inept sheriffs of social media
Politicians, the police and the judiciary should stop trying to control a landscape they do not understand
Are Jewish students really afraid of the Freedom of Speech Act?
Some of have raised concerns, yes, but generalisations are wrong and unhelpful
In search of forgotten heroes
The Church has consigned to oblivion those who risked all to end the slave trade
How to end the free speech crisis
The right must plan to demolish the four pillars of Britain’s stifling anti-speech laws
Kim Leadbeater’s “safeguards” won’t keep people safe
The proposed legal hurdles are effectively useless
A captivating northern star
If Lise Davidsen sneezes, the opera world shuts down
Disability is not an identity
Long before trans rights lobby, disability activists were denying biological reality
What does it mean to be Christian?
We are in danger of reducing faith to the shallow depths of personality and politics
The French far right are losers
Will Rassemblement National will ever be the ruling party?
