Classical Music

The vast plight of the Proms

The end of BBC Four is a death sentence for BBC Orchestras and the Proms alike

On Music
Kurt Weill: 2nd symphony, violin concerto (Somm)

A beautiful recording of an esoteric item

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Isabella Leonarda; A portrait (Brilliant Classics)

Passion and originality blossom behind the walls of the cloister

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Nico Muhly: Stranger (AVIE)

This new album of three works offers quiet empathy more than overwhelming emotion

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the end of time (OUR)

Messiaen’s quartet, first performed in a freezing barracks in 1941, is a thing of great beauty

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Finnish on a high note

The biggest symphony orchestras are in need of music directors: but who’s in the running for the top spot?

On Music
A madman’s guide to Wagner

You don’t have to be crazy to enjoy Wagner, but it helps

Artillery Row
Is classical colonial?

Naive proposals to “decolonise” Western classical music risk losing the richness of its history

Features
Ferdinand Ries: Piano Trio and Sextets (Hyperion)

Ludwig van Beethoven’s former secretary and pupil was no forgettable curiosity

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
De-Goulding: an incomplete coda

Part two of Mahan Esfahani’s deconstruction of the modern association of pianist Glenn Gould with Bach’s Goldberg Variations

Features