On Music
The sadder side of summer
Tragedy struck Gustav Mahler, the archetypal summer composer, in 1907
The welcome sound of silence
For three days I listened to nothing but birdsong, marvelling at the variety and the volume
Lifetimes of self-isolation
Composing in seclusion
Welcome to the unfrozen North
How Canada reinvented its musical prowess
Unleash this heavenly voice
The role of music in Jewish worship has acquired a sudden topicality with the involvement of two major record labels
Tapping into history
As soon as you enter Idagio.com you can kiss your working day goodbye
High notes go wrong
Flying is a macho thing for musicians. It shows they are in demand and living the good life
Was Plácido a pest?
Domingo is far from the monster that America’s #MeToo movement has made of him
Who’d want to be a critic?
Criticism has died at London’s newspaper
Debating the Covid-19 Lockdown
Toby Young and Kapil Komireddi on this week’s podcast debating the costs of the Covid-19 Lockdown
Writer who caught the reality of war
Vasily Grossman was not only a great correspondent in World War Two but a courageous dissident
The Misdirection of the Fat Police
Focusing on obesity distracts from the real reasons we’ve had such high death rates
More plausible than real life
John Preston reviews Beneath the Streets by Adam Macqueen
The perils of mind-altering substances in the Horn of Africa
Stifled by bureaucratic governments, many chew through tonnes of khat
Actors do love gongs
Stars of the stage are more likely to feature in the Honours list than the people who write their scripts