Classical Music
Contemplating infinity
Franz Liszt: Transcendental Etudes (Steinway)
Inconsistent glory
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphonies 2 and 3
We are indebted to Otto Klemperer
On the extraordinary talent of a troubled composer
Brahms: sublime genius on a major scale
Forget the sneering of Benjamin Britten, for whom Brahms’s music was “ugly and foul”, the German composer and pianist was a virtuoso talent whose best works burn with volcanic passion and seriousness of purpose
Two essays in excellence
The BBC at its best on Shakespeare, and remembering Barry Humphries.
Stravinsky’s reputation is in freefall
Norman Lebrecht re-examines the life and legacy of Stravinsky.
The apple of my ear
Limitless choice and a rattle of regret
Pain, poise and passion
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: String quartets 1-3 (Naxos)
The quietest guest of all
The clavichord makes up for a lack of grandeur with extraordinary expressiveness
Leave our pubs alone
New public health proposals are missing the pint
The Age of Coles
The former vicar is perfectly suited for the Starmer years
The coming of age
On the anxieties and ambiguities of adulthood
Fiddling while Canterbury burns
The new proposals from the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice are depressingly wrongheaded
The afterlife of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko
Reflections on forty years since his death shook communist Poland
Swiftism’s role in saving the V&A Museum
The unconventional Englishness of the Taylor Swift phenomenon
The price of victory
Benjamin Netanyahu has won battles, but there is no foreseeable end to the war
The kindest of ghosts
A new history of childhood reading is a treasure
The case for Jenrick
He can reform the party and take on Labour
Why Ukraine almost certainly cannot win
And why the war is likely to continue anyway
The vital few
A new book explores the importance, as well as the dangers, of risk
