Classical Music
Soothing sounds in time of war
There are expectations going back to 1948 that musicians turn up to provide relief
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)
Art is not all about you
It is not elitist to expect audiences to be quiet
The Irish should reject the new hate speech bill
It threatens free speech while offering dubious benefits for society
Josephine Tey, woman of mystery
Deeply private, her elegant and sharply engaging writing has often been wrongly overlooked
The untalented Mx. Ripley
In a story of a fiendishly successful performance, Eliot Sumner proved an extremely unconvincing man
A right to protest?
The right to dissent is often at odds with the will of the mob
Four women seers in a time of strife
Eilenberger’s design is to present philosophy outside the lecture theatre in its life-transforming power
The human condition, in Wales
The universal and the particular sit awkwardly in this Cardiff exhibition
The poverty of miners’ strike nostalgia
We should not romanticise a futile and sometimes thuggish struggle
What became of Tchaikovsky?
Tchaikovsky: 5th symphony etc (ICA Classics)
Crocodile Keir
For all of Sunak’s shoddy timing, Starmer’s opportunism was pathetic
The coddlin’ of the British dance
How Britain’s anarchic rave scene turned authoritarian
Clerical error
Clergy should be in the business of saving souls, not stamping passports
