symphonies
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…
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…
How does David Matthews get away with writing symphonies with tunes in them?
‘All fish in flood and fowl of flight/ Be mirthful now and make melody’ writes the poet William Dunbar in…
Gustav Mahler
When I began listening to music seriously, in about 1950, I had read about Mahler but wasn’t able to hear…
Our neglect of this great working-class British composer is a disgrace
One of the greatest choral symphonies of the 20th century, entitled Das Siegeslied (Psalm of Victory), has been heard only…
The drunk conductor who ruined Rachmaninov’s career
Would musical history have turned out differently if Alexander Glazunov hadn’t been smashed out of his wits when he conducted…
