Michael White, Author at Catholic Herald

Michael White

Mother’s boy

March 30, 2022

Michael White is charmed by fast-rising Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński’s rendition of Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater

Too much to Handel

February 28, 2022

The Royal Opera’s flashy production of ‘Theodora’ reduces its Christian context to a minimum, says Michael White

Festive fortunes

January 27, 2022

Over Christmas, Michael White is unmoved by Verdi’s ‘Nambucco’ and charmed by Berlioz’s ‘L‘Enfance du Christ’

MacMillan’s Christmas cracker

December 26, 2021

Michael White reports on the premiere of James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio and the annual Britten festival in Suffolk

Pole stars hit the right note

December 03, 2021

It sometimes seems like Poland has its own, peculiarly national, hotline to God. Why this should be, beyond the fact that it produces the occasional pope, is more a question for historians than music critics. But the Poles are undeniably and overwhelmingly devout, and it’s reflected in their music, which leans heavily these days toward

The show must go on

October 22, 2021

Concerts are finally back after 18 months, with those institutions that took creative risks during the pandemic continuing to shine

Beatlemania: a case study in how cults develop

June 26, 2020

One, Two, Three, Four: The Beatles in Time By Craig Brown Fourth Estate, 656pp, £20 The Beatles generated something close to a religion of their own. When John Lennon claimed to be more famous than Jesus, he didn’t endear himself to many Christians but was drawing a comparison that others half-conceded – even sceptics like

Why opera can’t get enough of nuns

March 12, 2020

In the world of opera, nuns are frequent visitors and fair game. They’re exotic, not infrequently neurotic, blistering with fervour and not difficult to costume (you can hire the habits off the peg, they never need a perfect fit). More seriously, nuns on the opera stage deliver opportunities for a composer and librettist to reflect

Was Shostakovich a dissident or a lackey?

November 14, 2019

Shostakovich: Critical Lives By Pauline Fairclough Reaktion Books, 240pp, £11.99/$19 There’s a popular image of Shostakovich – encouraged by books such as Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time and by music history of the kind you hear on Classic FM – which has the Soviet composer sleeping with a packed bag by his bed, ready

If you don’t like Mozart, go and watch a football match

October 10, 2019

Rough Ideas By Stephen Hough Faber, 464pp, £18.99/$21.46 Stephen Hough is famous for a lot of things, mostly to do with playing the piano. He ranks high among the leading keyboard geniuses of our time – and genius is not an idle word here: it’s a status formally acknowledged in the US with what’s known

Is Christianity better sung than said?

September 19, 2019

Music and Faith By Jonathan Arnold Boydell, 288pp, £30/$40 Few readers of this magazine would, I imagine, challenge the idea that music is a Good Thing with a proper place in liturgy. It hardly seems a controversial statement. And it might not seem to warrant a 288-page book to argue the point. But then, Jonathan

The world’s oldest music festival continues to fascinate

August 15, 2019

Christmas came early to Gloucester last week where, on a sultry August day before an audience in summer shirts and sandals, the cathedral gave the premiere of a new Christmas Oratorio – packaged for good measure with Britten’s Ceremony of Carols as part of a concert that will broadcast in December to listeners who’ll have

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