Royal Festival Hall
Spellbinding: Herbert Blomstedt’s Mahler 9 reviewed
Ivor Cutler called silence the music of the cognoscenti. But there’s silence and there’s silence, and a regular concertgoer hears…
The importance of lesbianism to British modernism: Double Weave, at Ditchling Museum, reviewed
The name of Ditchling used to be synonymous with Eric Gill, but since he was outed as an abuser of…
Salve Regina
We’ll get on to the brilliance of Regina Spektor in a moment. But first a question: why are pop music…
Sold down the river
The roots of the Southbank Centre’s current crisis stretch back to before the pandemic, says Oliver Basciano
South Bank Centre
I must have written about this subject 100 times in 30 years and I’m still having to restate the bloody…
In his new piano concerto Thomas Ades’s inspiration has completely dried up
There’s nothing like a good piano concerto and, sad to relate, Thomas Adès’s long-awaited first proper attempt at the genre…
Why did Parry’s Judith vanish?
‘When a man takes it upon himself to write an oratorio — perhaps the most gratuitous exploit open to a…
Garsington makes as good a case as you can for Strauss’s frothy Capriccio
‘Is there an end [to this opera] that is not trivial?’ asks the Countess in her final bars of Richard…
How does David Matthews get away with writing symphonies with tunes in them?
‘All fish in flood and fowl of flight/ Be mirthful now and make melody’ writes the poet William Dunbar in…
Gorgeous but exhausting: Jurowski/LPO at Royal Festival Hall reviewed
To get a flavour of Joseph Marx’s An Autumn Symphony, picture the confectionery counter in a grand Viennese café. Beneath…
Sound and vision
Janacek’s Jenufa, his first great opera, had a one-night stand at the Royal Festival Hall last Monday, courtesy of the…
Age concern
Daniel Barenboim back at the Festival Hall! Cue The Grand March of the Musical Luvvies Across Hungerford Bridge, a bustling…
Please let’s have more musicals like this Kiss Me, Kate at Opera North
Opera North’s new production of Cole Porter’s masterwork Kiss Me, Kate has been so widely and justly praised that I…
The legend returns
Daniel Barenboim is back in town: the South Bank is mounting a ‘Barenboim Project 2015’ in which he’s playing the…
Crime and punishment
In one of the more peculiar concerts that I have been to at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski conducted…
Don’t look now
Mozart’s first great opera, Idomeneo, is not often performed, and perhaps it’s better that way. It should be seen as…
