Harrison Birtwistle
Why I booed Birtwistle
Keith Burstein recalls a key moment in the battle for emancipation from the ivory tower of atonalism
Community music-making is the jewel in the British crown
Community music-making is the unifying jewel in the British crown, says James MacMillan
![English National Opera's triumphant new production of Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, directed by Daniel Kramer. [Photo: Alistair Muir]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Opera_Exhibitions.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
A triumph: ENO’s Mask of Orpheus reviewed
ENO’s Mask of Orpheus is a triumph. It’s also unintelligible. Even David Pountney, who produced the original ENO staging in…
Rattle’s recapitulation: LSO/Simon Rattle at Barbican reviewed
A pregnant silence, a peaty belch from the tuba, and the scrape of brass on brass as gears lock into…
Beauty and the beast
I was going to start with a little moan. About the shouty marketing, the digital diarrhoea, the sycophantic drivel, which,…
Why plotting a sound map of London is impossible
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
Hans Werner Henze: the Ed Miliband of opera
We opera critics love gazing into crystal balls. We’re particularly good at discovering Ed Milibands and backing them to the…
Max Hastings’s diary: The joys of middle age, and Prince Charles’s strange letters
I am living in rustic seclusion while writing a book. Our only cultural outing of the week was to Newbury…
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…
