Why opera can’t get enough of nuns
March 12, 2020
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In the world of opera, nuns are frequent visitors and fair game. They’re exotic, not infrequently neurotic, blistering with fervour
Was Shostakovich a dissident or a lackey?
November 14, 2019
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Shostakovich: Critical Lives By Pauline Fairclough Reaktion Books, 240pp, £11.99/$19 There’s a popular image of Shostakovich – encouraged by books
If you don’t like Mozart, go and watch a football match
October 10, 2019
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Rough Ideas By Stephen Hough Faber, 464pp, £18.99/$21.46 Stephen Hough is famous for a lot of things, mostly to do
Is Christianity better sung than said?
September 19, 2019
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Music and Faith By Jonathan Arnold Boydell, 288pp, £30/$40 Few readers of this magazine would, I imagine, challenge the idea
The world’s oldest music festival continues to fascinate
August 15, 2019
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Christmas came early to Gloucester last week where, on a sultry August day before an audience in summer shirts and
Tippett was silly and pretentious, but his works are masterpieces
July 18, 2019
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Michael Tippett: The Biography By Oliver Soden Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 768pp, £25/$34.95 It’s virtually a law of nature that composers
Schoenberg: The founding father of ‘heroic modernism’
June 20, 2019
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Arnold Schoenberg By Mark Berry Reaktion Books, 224pp, £12/$19 Arnold Schoenberg was a composer much given to statements of sweeping
For music lovers, Versailles is the place to spend Holy Week
April 25, 2019
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Catholics will, one hopes, have spent the Easter Triduum on their knees with open hearts. But those who also managed
Surviving Nazism with help from Bach
April 25, 2019
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One Hundred Miracles By Zuzana Růžičková (with Wendy Holden) Bloomsbury, 368pp, £18.99/$25 Holocaust survivor stories follow a regrettably (in every
‘People are fascinated by the baffling aspects of Christian belief’: an interview with Sir James MacMillan
April 11, 2019
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In a few days’ time, as has become its custom, the concert venue of St John’s Smith Square in London
Competitions expose musicians to the brutal truths of concert life
March 14, 2019
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Competitions are the Marmite of the music world, applauded by the public for their bloodsports element but loathed by plenty
Is playing sport really a spiritual practice?
March 7, 2019
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Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work By Rupert Sheldrake Coronet, 336pp, £20/$25 To be a scientist in modern