Music
![British poet Salena Godden presenter of Mrs Death Misses Death on Radio 4. [Photo: Roberto Ricciuti / Getty Images]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Radio.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Listening to people talking about death can be strangely consoling
‘Without death,’ says Salena Godden, ‘life would be a never-ending conveyor belt of sensation.’ For her death is what gives…
As a symphonist, Mieczyslaw Weinberg was a master: Weinberg Weekend reviewed
It’s a strange compliment to pay a composer — that the most profound impression their music makes is of an…
Brett Anderson on fame, fear and being 50
‘I always think they’re not lusting after me,’ Brett Anderson says of the middle-aged fans who still turn up to…
Handel’s greatest hits — the glorious London decades
England has been home to three great composer-entrepreneurs since 1700: Benjamin Britten in the 20th century; Arthur Sullivan in the…
J.S. Bach v. Joan Baez
I was at a funeral the other day at which the music was so inspiring that I struggled to feel…
A warning to those who argue that we live in a visual society
‘Can one person really grasp the significance of what another person has been through?’ asks Dr Rita Charon in this…
Letters: Judging students by achievement is a greater scourge than diversity at any cost
Harvard’s racial quotas Sir: While I largely agree with Coleman Hughes that racial quotas are counterproductive (‘The diversity trap’, 23 June),…
The industrial kling-klang of ‘Krautrock’
The tricky term ‘Krautrock’ was first used by the British music press in the early 1970s to describe the drones…
‘I think The Kinks could have found a better frontman’: Ray Davies interviewed
‘I like your shirt today,’ Sir Ray Davies says to the waiter who brings his glass of water to the…
You vote for my pupil, I’ll vote for yours – the truth about music competitions
A young Korean, 22 years old, won the Dublin International Piano Competition last month. Nothing unusual about that. Koreans and…
Garsington makes as good a case as you can for Strauss’s frothy Capriccio
‘Is there an end [to this opera] that is not trivial?’ asks the Countess in her final bars of Richard…
The sound of silence that echoes round Paul Simon
Someone has gone to a lot of trouble choosing the jacket cover of Robert Hilburn’s authorised biography of Paul Simon…
Bravura, assurance and generosity: Mark Simpson’s new Cello Concerto reviewed
The opening of Mark Simpson’s new Cello Concerto is pure Hollywood. A fanfare in the low brass, an upwards rush…
Viv Albertine of the Slits on anger, honesty and being an arsey feminist
Viv Albertine, by her own admission, hurls stuff at misbehaving audiences. Specifically, when the rage descends, any nearby full cup…
How the Moody Blues only became good once they realised they were crap
Rarely has one irate punter so affected a band’s trajectory. Without the anger of the man who went to see…
Does Gerald Barry hate music?
Blue Gadoo is one of those cats whose face looks like it’s been bashed flat with a wok. He lives…
Debussy: the musical genius who erupted out of nowhere
At the end of his study of Debussy, Stephen Walsh makes the startling, but probably accurate, claim that musical revolutionaries…
Nick Coleman hears better with half an ear than the rest of us do with two
If you’ve ever had a text or email thread spiral wildly and unexpectedly out of control or clocked a couple…
The vibrant tradition of English folk song
After hundreds of densely packed pages on folk song in England — a subject for which I share Steve Roud’s…
Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe
The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…
She is a severely limited songwriter – and singer: Taylor Swift’s Reputation reviewed
Grade: D+ I was suckered in by the brio of Taylor Swift’s first big single, ‘Love Story’, despite the clunking…
Mourning glory
On the face of it, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds aren’t exactly a natural fit with the O2. Cave’s…
Vice and virtue
‘Can the ultimate betrayal ever be forgiven?’ screams the publicity for The Judas Passion, transforming a Biblical drama into a…
Age concern
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies takes a huge leap into the past. It’s 1971 and we meet two middle-aged couples who knew…
Mozart’s mischievous muse
If you were to compare Mozart to a bird it wouldn’t be the starling. Possibly the wood thrush or nightingale,…
