Mozart

Was Vera Brittain really this insufferable? Buxton Festival’s The Land of Might-Have-Been reviewed

15 July 2023 9:00 am

‘Ring out your bells for me, ivory keys! Weave out your spell for me, orchestra please!’ It’s lush stuff, the…

Wikipedia does more justice to this fascinating story than this film: Chevalier reviewed

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Chevalier is a biopic of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whom you’ve probably never heard of, as I hadn’t. He…

WNO sinks an unsinkable opera: The Magic Flute, at Birmingham Hippodrome, reviewed

13 May 2023 9:00 am

As stage directions go, the The Magic Flute opens with a zinger. ‘Tamino enters from the right wearing a splendid…

Reprehensible – but fun: Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's Complete DG Recordings reviewed

11 December 2021 9:00 am

 Grade: B It must have been an interesting day in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s press office when Blair Tindall’s memoir…

In defence of the earworm

4 December 2021 9:00 am

That strain again… it’s the morning after the concert and one tune is still there, playing in the head upon…

Small but perfectly formed: the Royal College of Music Museum reopening reviewed

30 October 2021 9:00 am

Haydn is looking well — in fact, he’s positively glowing. The dignified pose; the modest, intelligent smile: it’s only when…

Hit every auditory G-spot simultaneously: CBSO/Hough/Gardner concert reviewed

29 May 2021 9:00 am

Rejoice: live music is back. Or at least, live music with a live audience, which, as Sir Simon Rattle admitted,…

Are Mozart's forgotten contemporaries worth reviving?

1 May 2021 9:00 am

There are worse fates than posthumous obscurity. When Mozart visited Munich in October 1777, he was initially reluctant to visit…

Alan Rusbridger on the joys of four-hand piano

19 December 2020 9:00 am

One of the few social activities not yet prohibited under lockdown laws is four-handed piano playing. I don’t mean sitting…

The grotesque unevenness of Mozart’s Requiem

28 November 2020 9:00 am

It is amazing what fine performances you can get beamed to your computer these days. Slightly less amazing is the…

Would be much better without Bill or Ted: Bill & Ted Face the Music reviewed

26 September 2020 9:00 am

I think I am supposed to say that Bill & Ted Face the Music, the third in a franchise about…

The forgotten female composer fêted by Mozart and Haydn

12 September 2020 9:00 am

Selina Mills on Maria Theresia von Paradis, the gifted but forgotten 18th-century composer, whose story will finally be told in a new chamber opera

The marvel of Mozart’s letters

18 April 2020 9:00 am

It’s 1771, you’re in Milan, and your 14-year-old genius son has just premièred his new opera. How do you reward…

The musical vaccination we all need against the bleak times ahead: ETO’s Cosi fan tutte reviewed

21 March 2020 9:00 am

Anyone familiar with Joe Hill-Gibbins’s work will brace instinctively when the curtain goes up on his new Figaro. He’s the…

This year, I’m performing all 32 of Beethoven’s sonatas. Here’s why

21 December 2019 9:00 am

For the past several decades, little in my life as a professional pianist has been as constant as my relationship…

Why are Haydn’s operas so lousy? La fedelta premiata reviewed

16 November 2019 9:00 am

There’s a book about musicals that every opera lover should read. Not Since Carrie by Ken Mandelbaum is a history…

An overcooked blowout: Glyndebourne’s Die Zauberflöte reviewed

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Think back to when you were 12, and the sensation of re-opening your favourite book. (This is The Spectator; I’m…

Easily the best thing I’ve seen at the Grange Festival: Falstaff reviewed

15 June 2019 9:00 am

‘Tutto nel mondo e burla’ sings the company at the end of Verdi’s Falstaff — ‘All the world’s a joke’…

Deft humour and daft imagery: WNO’s Magic Flute reviewed

16 March 2019 9:00 am

Operas are like buses. Both are filled with pensioners and take ages to get anywhere, but more importantly they always…

Kang Wang as Tamino in Opera North's new Magic Flute. Photo: Alastair Muir

Only adults struggle with The Magic Flute. Kids get it

2 February 2019 9:00 am

Spoiler alert: it’s all a dream. At least, I think that’s what we’re meant to take away from the business…

Sexy hints of affluence with top notes of fascism: Grange Park’s Roméo et Juliette reviewed

30 June 2018 9:00 am

Patrick Mason’s new production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette reminded me of something, but it took a while to work…

Detail of Cantata ‘Es ist das Heil’, BWV9

I don’t get why people worship Bach

16 June 2018 9:00 am

I don’t get Johann Sebastian Bach. I mean, I get that he was good — no Mozart, sure, but definitely…

Mozart died too late rather than too early. Discuss.

14 April 2018 9:00 am

Glenn Gould used to say that Mozart died too late rather than too early. The remark was intended to get…

The Old Town seen from the Charles Bridge

Prague

30 September 2017 9:00 am

Prague. Prague. It helps to say the name at least twice as a countermeasure to the ridiculous ease of modern…