Classical Music
Passionate subjectivity
La traviata, ENO, Coliseum
Notes of promise
Bruce Liu: Waves (Deutsche Grammophon)
Fanfares for the common man
Communist composers tried to create ideologically pure works for the workers — but without any great degree of success
A giant dipper of delights
BBC Legends Volume 4 (ICA Classics)
Over-simplified and underpowered
Shostakovich symphonies 2, 3, 12, 13 (DG)
Flickering with fire and ice
Beethoven: 1st piano concerto, &c (DG)
Why do we persist with Opera?
Dependent on state subsidies, artistically ossified and only a few go to see it
Against pop culture populism
The phoney courage of disdaining classical music
The end of the Emersons
Infinite Voyage: Emerson Quartet (Alpha Classics)
Immense energies
Grazyna Bacewicz: Piano concertos &c (Ondine)
A festival for women — and men?
You cannot address the underrepresentation of women by including men
An unconvincing case against the UNRWA
It should take more evidence to strip the Palestinians of essential support
Motorway-mania
Britain in the age of the automobile
A cut above
Above all is the quietude, broken only by the snipping chatter of several scissors
Crisis, what crisis?
The Spring Budget was a shameless manifesto of complacency and managed decline
What are our cathedrals for?
Changes to the management of cathedrals have obscured the very point of their existence
The meaning of Navalny’s death
This tragic event illustrates the cruelty and fragility of the Kremlin
The cowards, the pretenders and the woman-haters
Awkwardness is no excuse for not supporting the gender-critical cause
Religious freedom is back on the agenda
The International Freedom of Religion or Belief Bill, currently before parliament, is an important step for securing Britain’s role in promoting religious liberty
TransForming London
You deserve to be inclusioned in London’s progressive future
The building that inspired Orwell
Was there an appetite at the time for monumental buildings, equivalent to those in Moscow?
