‘If I were a gambler,’ I wrote in The Independent seventeen years ago, ‘I’d put serious money on a 23-year-old Russian mezzo who will make her discreet solo UK debut in a Suffolk church...Read More
Emerging from a rare sabbatical, Evgeny Kissin – the world’s most acclaimed classical pianist – has just published his autobiography. He has also just married a childhood friend, and he’s ...Read More
‘If there’s no blood, there’s no entertainment,’ shouts Netia Jones, as her Puck catapults himself high into the air, and lands with a sickening thump on the rehearsal room floor. ‘Gosh – ...Read More
“WE LEFT our native land thinking we carried no baggage, completely unaware of the biggest gift our country had bestowed on us: the gift of music.” So said Basel Rajoub, a Syrian composer and saxo...Read More
Japan’s Westernisation is only skin-deep. For musical proof of this, consider the eagerness with which the Japanese periodically forsake their hi-tech existence, and immerse themselves in their anci...Read More
Out, brief candle! As life nears its end, thoughts can acquire urgent clarity. This truth may not be particularly perceptible in literature, because novelists find endless ways of disguising it. But i...Read More
ON OCTOBER 31st, the lights on Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall spelled out “fertig”—“finished”. That heralded a monumental wave of relief, for the history of this crazily ambitious ...Read More
We in Britain have only seen the beginning of our government’s scorched-earth policy towards culture outside London. Unavoidable local authority cuts – unavoidable because the only alternative wou...Read More
Should we know the story behind the creation of a piece of music, or should we let it speak for itself? The British cellist Steven Isserlis poses this question in the liner note to a CD he has just re...Read More
When Semyon Bychkov raises his baton at the start of his Tchaikovsky series at London’s Barbican next week [Oct 19], the hall will be packed, as will New York’s Lincoln Center when he repeats the ...Read More