Proms
An embarrassing and misshapen dud: Opera Holland Park’s Isabeau reviewed
I’ve been trying to pinpoint the exact moment when it became impossible to take Mascagni’s Isabeau seriously. It wasn’t when…
The marketisation of BBC radio is a recipe for creative disaster
There’s been a lot of fuss and many column inches written about levels of pay at the BBC, as revealed…
Bowled over by Bruckner
The two Proms concerts given on consecutive evenings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were well planned: a short opening work,…
Gustav Mahler
When I began listening to music seriously, in about 1950, I had read about Mahler but wasn’t able to hear…
If you want to know how music really works listen to Classic FM not Radio 3
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
Orchestral conductors would be much better if they tried performing Renaissance music
To be honest, my friendship with Michael Tilson Thomas hasn’t gone quite as I had hoped. It started in February…
Why are symphony orchestras expected to survive indefinitely?
Watching the Berlin Philharmonic going into conclave to choose a successor to Simon Rattle — after countless hours of secret…
Tony Hall’s diary: the Proms, my walking obsession, and why the BBC is like James Bond
There’s nothing quite like a First Night — and last Friday we launched the Proms, the most celebrated classical music…
The Proms is taxpayers’ money well spent: it’s a national asset like fish and chips and the royal baby
Make no mistake: the Proms, whose 2015 season was launched last night, would not, could not, exist without the BBC,…
New works at the Proms that some would rather dernière than première
This year the Proms are to stage 21 world premières and 11 European, UK or London premières. It is good…
I fear for this year’s Proms
As Sepp Blatter has so affectingly remarked, the organisation he formerly headed needs evolution, not revolution. There is a consensus…
Michael Tanner: Why I prefer Donizetti to Strauss
Three operas this week, each of them named after its (anti-)heroine: one of the heroines (the most sympathetic) murders her…
Enough ‘themes’ at festivals
One might have expected the streets of Edinburgh, especially at festival time, to bear some evidence of the political struggle…
Does Radio 3 need a new controller?
Where next for Radio 3? Last Friday was the First Night of this year’s Proms season but it was the…
Roger Wright's legacy at Radio Three – and his one big mistake
Roger Wright’s precipitate departure from both Radio Three and the Proms came as a surprise. At first the news was…
I could be dead soon. What should I listen to?
If I live as long as my father, I’ll be checking out on 9 December 2017. Since every man in…
Goodbye, Claudio Abbado. You helped us glimpse eternity
Fellini’s credo ‘the visionary is the only true realist’ could also be applied to the life of Claudio Abbado, who…
A world-class orchestra in the heart of São Paulo’s Crackland
Damian Thompson visits Brazil to hear Marin Alsop whip São Paulo’s orchestra into shape
Mark Elder and the Hallé surpassed any other account of Parsifal that Michael Tanner has heard
The Proms season of Wagner operas — pity they didn’t do them all; Die Meistersinger would have been specially welcome,…
Who cares if Wagner’s 200? The plague of the anniversary
Centenaries now seem to be the only reason that publishers and concert planners do anything at all
Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage is an opera of exuberant genius — but forget about the text
Whenever Michael Tippett’s first opera, The Midsummer Marriage, is revived, there is a chorus of voices, including mine, complaining that…
Wagner at the Proms
It would be interesting to know why Tristan und Isolde was placed in the Proms programme in between Siegfried and…
Roger Scruton’s diary: Finding Scrutopia in the Czech Republic
Hay-making was easy this year, and over in good time for a holiday. I am opposed to holidays, having worked…
Is this the best Ring ever?
The first complete performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Proms is already, less than a week after its conclusion,…
