Orchestra
And the band played on
Cash crisis in the arts — what’s new?
We are indebted to Otto Klemperer
On the extraordinary talent of a troubled composer
The vast plight of the Proms
The end of BBC Four is a death sentence for BBC Orchestras and the Proms alike
The Sea! The Sea!
Southbank Sinfonia Baroque at St John’s Smith Square
Passing on the batons
The future of conducting is looking bright — everywhere except in Russia and America
Savour the silence
The first duty of a conductor is to imagine a world without noise
And the band played on…
The appointment of a chief conductor little affects the general performance of an orchestra
High notes go wrong
Flying is a macho thing for musicians. It shows they are in demand and living the good life
High Drama on the Podium
Norman Lebrecht on the late, great Mariss Jansons who died on December 1st
Keir the coward
Narrowing the borders of permissible opinion will not solve Britain’s societal crises
The truth about sex
No amount of clever-clever language games can obscure basic biological facts
In praise of centibillionaires
When people are free to make a lot of money from new businesses, everybody wins
What is academia without scholarship?
Research is an essential feature of academic life
The BBC feeds us bad science
We can’t even trust the Beeb to tell us about the basic facts of motherhood
What are our cathedrals for?
Changes to the management of cathedrals have obscured the very point of their existence
Entering the populist Pyongyang
Your correspondent watches the far right debate immigration — but will he go native?
The elusive Seiji Ozawa was Japan’s greatest peacemaker
Farewell not just to a conductor but to a generous man
Vanishing act
Jeremy Hunt did not, in fact, pull a rabbit out of his hat
Stop blaming Brexit for Britain’s economic ills
It is not only wrong — it distracts us from our real problems
This is not where I live at all
Cynthia Erivo’s slighting of Sunderland was indicative of British arts establishment beholden to a homogenous, Americanised vision of culture
