Brahms
Classical music has much to learn from Liverpool
They do things their own way in Liverpool; they always have. In 1997 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra launched a…
Alsatian string-breaker
One of the most intriguing piano concertos of the late 19th century is unknown to the public – and no…
The pleasures of four-play
One of the few social activities not yet prohibited under lockdown laws is four-handed piano playing. I don’t mean sitting…
Mourning glory
Alexandra Coghlan on the enduring appeal of requiems
Warmth, energy and gripping momentum: Stephen Hough’s Wigmore Hall residency reviewed
In the summer of 1878 Johannes Brahms finally succeeded in growing a beard. It was his third attempt. ‘Prepare your…
Cringingly vulgar, brainless and lacking heart: ENO’s Merry Widow reviewed
Garrick Ohlsson is one of the finest pianists of his generation. Why, then, was the Wigmore Hall not much more…
The Budapest Festival Orchestra make all other orchestra look routine and oafish
Looney Tunes was always at its best when soundtracked by a Hungarian gypsy dance. (Watch ‘Pigs in a Polka’ if…
Partying like it’s 1899: two lieder recitals reviewed
If a symphony is, as Mahler famously put it, ‘like the world’, then songs and lieder are like seeing that…
Make mine a double
If two concert pianists are performing a work written for two grand pianos, there are two ways you can position…
The sound of no hands clapping
‘We’re going to live for ever!’ declares Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler at the end of Ken Russell’s 1974 biopic.…
Age concern
Daniel Barenboim back at the Festival Hall! Cue The Grand March of the Musical Luvvies Across Hungerford Bridge, a bustling…
Bored by Brahms
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet begins, writes his biographer Jan Swafford, with ‘a gentle, dying-away roulade that raises a veil of autumnal…
Worshipping Bach
When I was first learning about classical music, 50 years ago, the scene was more streamlined than it is now.…
