Lebrecht’s Album of the Week
Surprise and tension
Czech Songs: Magdalena Kozena (Pentatone)
Elgar’s excellence
Elgar: Symphonies (Halle/Oehms)
In praise of the viola
Cantabile: Anthems for viola (Delphian)
Musical no man’s lands
Two violin concertos fail to inspire
Playfulness and tedium
Stravinsky, Petrushka; Debussy, Jeux and Prelude (Decca)
A talented pianist and a battered piano
Bezhod Abduraimov: Shadows of my ancestors (Alpha-Classics)
Laid-back Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Württemburg sonatas (ECM)
Stravinsky’s aching quality
Stravinsky, Bartok, Martinu: Works for violin and orchestra (BIS)
Superficial pleasures
A te, Puccini (Signum)
Modernism for the many
Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra, Partita &c (Ondine)
The British state is failing to protect women
Misogyny, rape and sectarian violence go increasingly unchallenged in the UK
The esoterica trap
We should not pollute good causes with unreliable information
Labour is killing British farming
Attacks on British agriculture must be resisted
One of the greats
Bathos, fatalism, heartbreak: these are the pillars of a MacColl song
Tragedy, comedy and an Italian parable
Three great novels capture a moment of change for society
A matter of life and death
It is not the job of judges to tell someone that they are wrong for believing in life
Hoorah for winter!
Life comes alive again in October when you can start anticipating proper National Hunt racing
The new equality bar
Is the Bar Standards Council really fit to enforce a proposed raft of new equality rules?
The Church of England has to rebuild trust
The next Archbishop must love this church back into health
Join the escalation?
That world war may not erupt imminently is no excuse for being complacent
The second life of Tracey Emin
A brush with death has revitalised her work
