Karajan
Why imperfect operas like Don Carlo are more interesting than perfect ones
In the 62 years since I first heard and saw Don Carlo, in the famous and long-lasting production by Visconti…
I'm still not wholly convinced by Kirill Petrenko: Berlin Phil's Digital Concert Hall reviewed
At the start of Elgar’s Second Symphony the full orchestra hovers, poised. It pulls back; and then, like a dam…
The best recordings of the greatest symphony
I am daunted. Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony is a work that I regard with love, awe and even anxiety. I always…
Director’s cut
Much fuss has been made of the title given to Sir Simon Rattle on arrival at the London Symphony Orchestra.…
Why has classical music been so gender-biased for so long?
Hurrah for Radio 3 and its (long-overdue) efforts to give us music not just performed by women but composed, and…
Musical maestros and football managers have more in common than you think
You don’t have to be a follower of Liverpool Football Club, or football at all, to spot the difference. Two…
The old-fashioned greatness of Christian Thielemann
Philip Hensher admires an old-fashioned conductor who unashamedly favours the great German composers — and Wagner in particular
What really happened in the Berlin Philharmonic election
The morning after the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra failed to elect a music director, I took a call from Bild-Zeitung, Berlin’s…
Old age is not for sissies
The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The…
Confessions of an illegal downloader
I’ve never been into shoplifting, though I once had a friend who was. And, no, before you ask, I’m not…
