Culture

Solem Quartet: The Four Quarters (Orchid)

The Solem Quartet are my frontrunners for the best new talent in 2021

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
The myriad Mona Lisas

How the multiple Mona Lisa copies, and their prices, testify to the longstanding fame of the painting and its mystique

On Art
Mr Darcy’s new gig

Perhaps “white privilege” exists after all?

Artillery Row
No place for young’uns

Why are pensioners the favoured customer of the National Trust?

Artillery Row
Paderewski & Stojowski: Violin Sonatas (CPO)

I would happily subscribe to an emergent series of forgotten Polish treasures if the quality remained this high

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Resurrecting the great British sitcom

We are getting dangerously close to saying British sitcom itself should be off limits

Artillery Row
Woke identity politics and the corporatist agenda

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to Oliver Wiseman about the undemocratic nature of corporate woke identity politics

Artillery Row
Nikolai Kapustin: 4th piano concerto (Capriccio)

Listening to Kapustin in 2021 is an act of nostalgia, a gesture of defiance to the dictates of fashion

Lebrecht's Album of the Week
Allsopp’s: the rebirth of the original Burton IPA

The Allsopp family has revived the original Burton IPA which made its name and fortune more than a century ago

Artillery Row
Charlie Watts: an unlikely rock star

The drummer of the Rolling Stones — a man of rare class, wit and distinction — has died at the age of 80

Artillery Row