Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
What became of Tchaikovsky?
Tchaikovsky: 5th symphony etc (ICA Classics)
Essential all-embracing warmth
Gidon Kremer: Songs of Fate (ECM)
The light and the insubstantial
Poulenc and others: Chamber music (Calliope/DG)
Laid-back Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Württemburg sonatas (ECM)
Rozsa’s regret
Miklos Rozsa: Orchestral works (Capriccio)
Stravinsky’s aching quality
Stravinsky, Bartok, Martinu: Works for violin and orchestra (BIS)
Masterful pianism
Bartok, Janacek, Szymanowski (Warner)
Bruckner’s delicate thunder
Anton Bruckner: 7th symphony (BR Klassik)
Modernism for the many
Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra, Partita &c (Ondine)
Album of the year
The best of an inspiringly musical 2023
Accidental Orientalism
Britain has been reduced to selling a cheap simulacrum of its history
Two cheers for pedestrianisation
Pedestrianisation cannot solve all of Oxford Street’s problems
The state Will Hutton is in
Dissecting a spiteful attack on British farmers
Doom and bloom
Live woke and die
Graduation blues
On the sad decline of the British university
Some picture-perfect restorations
What we were seeing looked as good as it would have at its premiere
Techno, bombs, and babushkas
A month travelling across Ukraine
Explaining the Boriswave
How and why the Conservatives betrayed their voters on immigration
Two cheers for Trump on free speech
The President-elect cannot just protect speech that he likes
Splashing the cash
On the complex relationship between art and money
Patostreamers and the decline of public life
A depressing new trend reflects the impoverished state of social existence
