Schoenberg
Schoenberg owes his survival to crime drama
George Gershwin once made a home movie of Arnold Schoenberg grinning in a suit on his tennis court in Beverly…
Simon Rattle’s Messiaen is improving with age
Two flutes, a clarinet and a bassoon breathe a chord on the edge of silence. As they fade, the sound…
What does it mean to be ‘moved’ by something?
Catching a train last week at London’s St Pancras I encountered a man playing a piano. You can do this…
We’re entering a new era for dance - expect big ballets with big stories
Dance has its own archaeological periods, and 2016’s schedules are confirming what 2015 indicated — that the era of dances…
Late Brahms is wonderfully crafted - which is why it's so dull
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet begins, writes his biographer Jan Swafford, with ‘a gentle, dying-away roulade that raises a veil of autumnal…
Rambert Dance: one piercing masterpiece - and one dud
Mark Baldwin, artistic director of Rambert Dance, must take responsibility for most of the good times I’ve had recently, midwife…
Bartók would have made history even if he’d never composed a note
‘All my life, always and in every way, I shall have one objective: the good of Hungary and the Hungarian…
WNO's production of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron is an overwhelming experience – but make sure you close your eyes
On paper, Moses und Aron might seem intractable and abstract: a 12-tone score setting a libretto that meditates on God,…