Peter Phillips bids farewell to his music column after 33 years
This, my 479th, is to be my last contribution as a regular columnist to The Spectator. I have written here…
The rotten fruits of Peter Maxwell Davies’s modernism
The intransigence of Maxwell Davies, Boulez and Stockhausen is coming home to roost. Here were three composers, famous if not…
ENO must go
Last week Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, revealed that opera receives just under a fifth of the…
If we really cared about mental health, muzak would be a top priority
No one is consulted. No one is held to account. No one has the authority to turn it off. How…
Can this year’s Gesualdo celebrations be about the music rather than the blood and gore?
The allure of Carlo Gesualdo, eighth Count of Conza and third Prince of Venosa, has been felt by music-lovers from…
I want to put on a concert in Antarctica. Who will help me?
In this exciting new era of Spectator cruises I have been put in mind of a dream event long in…
Orchestral conductors would be much better if they tried performing Renaissance music
To be honest, my friendship with Michael Tilson Thomas hasn’t gone quite as I had hoped. It started in February…
Why are symphony orchestras expected to survive indefinitely?
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
New works at the Proms that some would rather dernière than première
This year the Proms are to stage 21 world premières and 11 European, UK or London premières. It is good…
I fear for this year’s Proms
As Sepp Blatter has so affectingly remarked, the organisation he formerly headed needs evolution, not revolution. There is a consensus…
When Peter Phillips met E.L. James
Tours that start in Mexico have a nasty habit of repeating on one. Of all the British groups touring in…
Our hero worship of Bach is to blame for rubbish like ‘Written By Mrs Bach’
My impression that Bach has come to rival Shakespeare as a flawless reference point in the cultural life of the…
There’s nothing wrong with getting into Thomas Tallis on the back of Fifty Shades of Grey
Great works of art may have a strange afterlife. Deracinated from the world that created them they are at the…
Spotify: saint or sinner?
We have all read about the current woeful state of the CD industry — how it is 28 per cent…
Does anyone have the balls to bring back castrati?
One of the most complete bars to the authentic performance of both baroque opera and some renaissance polyphony is the…
Why Church music is back in vogue - and squeaky-gate music has had its day
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
Peter Phillips is mugged by a gang of Praetorius-loving six-year-old girls in China
We have read about the remarkable opening up of China in recent years: how many people live there and how…
Christopher Hogwood: the absolutist of early music
The death of Christopher Hogwood has deprived the world of the most successful exponent of early music there has ever…
Enough ‘themes’ at festivals
One might have expected the streets of Edinburgh, especially at festival time, to bear some evidence of the political struggle…
Was Elgar’s The Kingdom an attempt to write a religious Ring Cycle?
To go from the second day of the England v. India Test match at Lord’s to the Albert Hall for…
Roger Wright's legacy at Radio Three – and his one big mistake
Roger Wright’s precipitate departure from both Radio Three and the Proms came as a surprise. At first the news was…
Why it's good to remember that Bach could be a tedious old windbag
When I was first learning about classical music, 50 years ago, the scene was more streamlined than it is now.…
British choirs can’t match up to those from abroad
To curate a festival these days is to put oneself in the firing line. There is every chance that all…
The mean, bullying maestro is extinct – or should be
W.H.Auden once wrote: ‘Real artists are not nice people. All their best feelings go into their work and life has…
Less subsidy means better music
One of the unlooked-for side effects of the financial crisis has been what might be called the desocialising of music…
