choral music
The Renaissance master who rescued polyphonic music
Last month I watched conductor Harry Christophers blow through what sounded like an arthritic harmonica but in fact was a…
Forget the Proms and Edinburgh – the Three Choirs Festival is where it’s at
The Proms have started but there is a world elsewhere, and in Worcester Cathedral the 296th Three Choirs Festival set…
Let hymn in
The silencing of indoor singing is senseless
Master of the notes
Stepping into the Sistine Chapel, the choir loft is probably the last thing you’d notice. ‘Loft’ is, frankly, a stretch…
Going for a song
Alexandra Coghlan on how we became a nation of choirs and carollers
The early death of Lili Boulanger is the most grievous of all among composers
Total immersion weekends can prove tricky. The established masters don’t need them, while lesser-known figures often turn out to be…
I dread the extinction of boys’ choirs
One by one, cathedrals have succumbed to the inevitable. In blazes of publicity, with front-page photographs of girls in cassocks…
Losing our religion
Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this…
Beethoven: Missa solemnis
When you first encounter it, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis can sound like the Ninth Symphony with more singing but no tunes.…
Fantasy on ice
In this exciting new era of Spectator cruises I have been put in mind of a dream event long in…
Mexican wave
Tours that start in Mexico have a nasty habit of repeating on one. Of all the British groups touring in…
Glad to be Grey
Great works of art may have a strange afterlife. Deracinated from the world that created them they are at the…
Chorus of approval
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
Cultural revolution
We have read about the remarkable opening up of China in recent years: how many people live there and how…
