Music
Too measured for its own good
Lukas Foss: 1st symphony &c (Naxos)
What future for Winchester Cathedral Choir?
The choral tradition in the cathedral must be enlivened rather than diluted
Surprise and tension
Czech Songs: Magdalena Kozena (Pentatone)
Of course we need opera
Click-hungry editors should stop enabling philistinism
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
Against the relegation of Record Review
Why is Radio 3 mistreating one of its greatest assets?
Finding the middle ground
Where do the acts too big for pubs but too small for arenas play?
God save The Kinks
How did four ornery lads rearing up from the post-war English underclass become national treasures?
Most Read
The establishment is still living in an immigration fantasy land
It is influential left-wingers, not the broader public, who have deluded themselves on mass migration
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Saint Nicola
Nicola Sturgeon wants sympathy for her husband’s crimes—but after years spent avoiding awkward questions, her latest reinvention may be the hardest sell yet.
On Britain as a capitalist command economy
It is neither neoliberal nor socialist but a secret third thing
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
What on Earth is the point of the Lib Dems?
With neither power nor principles, the party is an absolute waste of space
An unholy war
Donald Trump is damaging America as well as Iran
The government must curb its appetite for junk policy
The “junk food advertising ban” is indigestible nonsense
Marriage and muscular liberalism
The Fury controversy exposes the contradictions behind Britain’s new marriage laws
The malignant mediocrity of managerialism
A country ruled by lawyers and HR managers will be culturally desiccated and politically sclerotic
Spectres of folk
Can the gallery embrace unofficial culture?
Our new five-party system
First-past-the-post no longer means
an electoral carve-up between the
Tories and Labour, allowing “fringe”
parties real political influence
Questionably loyal opposition
A “rainbow coalition” between Conservatives and the Greens raises questions about the state of the Tories
The ephemeral Farage
Nigel Farage’s appearance in Parliament was as rare as it was undistinguished
The fog of facts
As elections approach, voters are forced to navigate a swamp of spin, distortion, and inaccessible data.
Peston’s Inbox
Kemi doesn’t give her kids Easter eggs