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
Why should the sound of a consort of four viols be more moving than that of a string quartet? It goes against all logic. With its flat back, and played like a Middle-Eastern spike-fiddle, the v...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
The Wigmore Hall is running two Beethoven sonata cycles in tandem, at different speeds: while Igor Levit gets stuck into his cycle, Llyr Williams continues his in a more leisurely arc. And since in Oc...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
Words are of limited usefulness in evoking music, but we critics aren’t usually lost for them, so it came as a surprise to find, the morning after the Meshk Ensemble’s performance at the Barbican...Read More
When Dan Crawford established the King’s Head Theatre in 1970, it seemed the sort of venture which might burn brightly for a year or two, then fizzle out like other bright ideas from the Sixties: to...Read More