Album Review
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)
Superficial pleasures
A te, Puccini (Signum)
Modernism for the many
Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra, Partita &c (Ondine)
Album of the year
The best of an inspiringly musical 2023
Music of hypnotic power
Thomas Larcher: The Living Mountain (ECM New Series)
A conviction singer who convinces
Folk Songs: Magdalena Kozena/Simon Rattle (Pentatone)
A Wodehousian pick-me-up
Noel Coward and Friends: A Marvellous Party (Signum Classics)
Towards a hospitable environmentalism
Green ideas must transcend misanthropy and austerity
A recipe for decline
This budget will do nothing to lift Britain from its doldrums
Wanted: a plan to reform the NHS
No serious party can sit out the ideological battle over the remorseless rise in public spending, including on health
The crisis at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre
Serious as it is, it is no anomaly
The Tory beauty contest
The good, the bad, the ugly and the downright embarrassing
The Meloni effect
How the Italian prime minister could reshape European politics
Vorsprung durch Technik R.I.P.
The vaunted German model really is kaput — bust
Why Sergeant Martyn Blake was acquitted
There does not appear to be any case for rejecting the decision of the jury
Reparate good times, come on!
The Critic’s Extremely Factual Guide to Slavery Reparations the UK Most Definitely Owes
Thou shalt not pray?
The British state is ruthlessly prosecuting thoughtcrime
Roger Scruton’s naive nationalism
Cultural nationalism is an ill-fitting model for the modern nation state
