Album Review
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)
Christmas, irresistibly
Lise Davidsen: Christmas from Norway (Decca)/Miracle of Miracles (Cedille)
Notes of promise
Bruce Liu: Waves (Deutsche Grammophon)
A giant dipper of delights
BBC Legends Volume 4 (ICA Classics)
A celebration of redemption
Handel: Israel in Egypt (Avie)
Over-simplified and underpowered
Shostakovich symphonies 2, 3, 12, 13 (DG)
Flickering with fire and ice
Beethoven: 1st piano concerto, &c (DG)
The world’s last measured moments
Joseph Haydn: Symphonies 93-95
Sausage to fortune
Vague promises might haunt Starmer more than an embarrassing gaffe
One of the greats
Bathos, fatalism, heartbreak: these are the pillars of a MacColl song
What’s wrong with the Human Rights Act?
It makes judges the arbiter of moral and political as well as legal decisions
The horrors of VAR
Technology is making the beautiful game less beautiful
Just the tonic
Rediscover the forgotten treasure of Australia: fortified wines
Badenoch’s “muscular liberalism” is a non-starter
The Conservative leader sounds hopelessly out of touch
She wants to be in America
🎶 Airtime for me in America 🎶
We should have the freedom to criticise Islam
Religious freedom entails the right to criticise a belief system as well as to adhere to it
Fleeing Sally Rooney’s god
Why have critics been ignoring one of the novelist’s most important themes?
Lily Phillips and the importance of feeling
We must remain sensitive to unspoken pain
Reaping a bitter harvest
Labour are struggling to justify their own policies
