Classical Music

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
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies 7 & 9 (Hallé)

VW will never catch on beyond Anglophiles — ask not the reason why

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Last swipe at the Proms

Is it time to give a grudging nod of acknowledgement to the BBC Proms?

On Music
Erwin Schulhoff: Violin sonatas (Orfeo/FHR)

Virtuosity amidst violence

Lebrecht's Album of the Week