Classical Music
Musical morphine
Radio 3 has given up its time-honoured mission to inform, educate and entertain
Album of the year?
György Kurtág: Játékok (Pentatone)
In defence of excellence
The anti-elitist Left and libertarian Right are both wrong
Pure pleasure
Maurice Ravel: Complete solo piano music (Chandos), Complete songs (Signum)
Strings attached
How politics orchestrates contemporary classical music
Jenufa’s body
Zlatomir Fung: Fantasies (Signum)/Stephen Sondheim: Chamber music (Bridge)
Sheer sensual pleasure
Fatma Said: Lieder (Warner Classics)
Mahler done right
Gustav Mahler: 7th symphony (BR Klassik)
Hahn and Gál: Music out of time
Two composers who stuck to their musical roots as the world turned
Final notes
The end The Musical Times is symbolic of a broader malaise in classical music
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unconquered by a
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Gary Stevenson is wrong about wealth taxes
The popular economist is irritating, but more importantly he is mistaken
Why they hated Ann Widdecombe
Fair-minded people could agree or disagree with her opinions. Left-wing bigots hated her for not abandoning them
What is wrong now was wrong before
Julia Gillard should not pretend that the “unintended consequences” of the gender debate were unknowable
Ethnic minorities are abandoning Labour
It is not just Muslim voters who have been abandoning the Labour Party
Why 1776 matters to modern Britain
The American founding is a case study in peaceful regime change
Will we miss Mahmood?
Shabana Mahmood has been a voice of sanity in the Labour Party
The memory wars
Poland and Ukraine must find some way to stop falling out over history
A Laboured response
Keir Starmer and his advocates are all out of ideas
Venice Biennale 2026
Collected detritus of Biennales past, left available for recycling when there’s space to fill
Keep the state out of sex
Bureaucracy should not be allowed into the bedroom
Squeezing out your generation
New laws are harming, not helping, younger people
Wrestling with realignment
Labour will use the Irish Sea border as an excuse to realign with the EU’s rules
Can we get removals right?
Deporting illegal migrants is a lot more difficult than promising to deport them
Peeves and a weekend in Worcester
Thoroughly entertaining, darkly funny and humanely nasty
Welcome to the low-trust economy
The multi-billion pound cost of Britain’s shoplifting surge