Classical Music
Forgettable history of forgotten music
These four composers deserve to be remembered without exaggeration in service of social revanchism
England’s polymath of the piano
Greatness does not always declare itself in torrents of Slavic emotion or Germanic intellectualism
Music of the here and now
Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs (DG)
Modernists can be monarchists
Radical composers are not out to smash the system
A major talent
Missy Mazzoli: Dark with excessive bright (BIS)
A classic case of missing the point
A misguided campaign to decolonise the Univerity of London’s Classics curriculum
Captivating concertos
Beethoven/Ravel: Concertos (Avanticlassic)
Betjeman the beat poet
Recalling a thrilling collaboration between the poet and a group of oddball musicians
Honky-tonking around
Yuja Wang: The American Album (DG)
Excellence for everyone
What does the BBC have against classical music?
Keir’s woetanical garden
Labour still don’t understand the scale of the reforms that are needed
The kindest of ghosts
A new history of childhood reading is a treasure
The Church of England has to rebuild trust
The next Archbishop must love this church back into health
Butchering La bohème
Opera is “relatable” already
Why young men like Donald Trump
He cuts through the sterility and severity of modern life
Piano in wartime
War poems (Somm)
Tense present
Our demand for immediacy makes it difficult to appreciate the past, the present or the future
Scottish independence is dead, for now
But there is no room for complacency or appeasement
The first female President will be Republican
American conservatives are far less averse to assertive women than the political left
Gifted children
How does one wrap a bank transfer?
End of the Long Peace?
Our technological and institutional sophistication will not eliminate conflict
