John Cage

When atonal music was original and exciting

2 December 2023 9:00 am

Alexander Goehr, the sole survivor of the radical Manchester School of Music in the 1960s, describes turning pre-war European tradition into British cutting edge

Drunk singers, Ravel on film and prime Viennese operetta: the addictive joys of classical YouTube

23 May 2020 9:00 am

The full addictive potential of classical YouTube needs to be experienced to be understood. And let’s be honest, there are…

‘Telepainting’, 1964, by Takis

Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern reviewed

13 July 2019 9:00 am

Steel flowers bend in a ‘breeze’ generated by magnetic pendulums. This is the first thing you see as you enter…

The bias against digital music is more emotional than scientific

6 July 2019 9:00 am

It’s an increasingly common lament that computers have ruined everything, and a longing for the days before Google and Twitter,…

Dancer, choreographer, iconoclast: Merce Cunningham in 1962

Merce Cunningham’s work was magical, intangible, Einsteinian – revival is futile

13 April 2019 9:00 am

On Tuesday, thousands of miles apart, in three great cities, London, New York and Los Angeles, 75 dancers will dance…

‘Majesty’, 2006, by Tacita Dean

Intelligent, poetic and profound: Tacita Dean at the National and National Portrait galleries

24 March 2018 9:00 am

Andy Warhol would probably have been surprised to learn that his 1964 film ‘Empire’ had given rise to an entire…

Could a change of body language make a difference to American policing?

9 January 2016 9:00 am

One of the most shocking items of recent news has been the bald statistic that the number of people shot…

Was Bach really a ‘tasteless and chaotic composer’?

14 November 2015 9:00 am

It’s just not what you expect to hear on Radio 3 but I happened upon Music Matters on Saturday morning…

London shouting: The Clash at the ICA, 1976

Why plotting a sound map of London is impossible

18 July 2015 9:00 am

It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?