The Heckler
Why do Radio 3 presenters adopt the tone stupid adults use when addressing children?
Anyone who has listened regularly to Radio 3 over the decades — not to mention the Third Programme, which Radio…
I don’t get why people worship Bach
I don’t get Johann Sebastian Bach. I mean, I get that he was good — no Mozart, sure, but definitely…
The Bilbao effect
Twenty years ago I wrote of the otherwise slaveringly praised Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao: I’m in a minority of, apparently,…
Gustav Mahler
When I began listening to music seriously, in about 1950, I had read about Mahler but wasn’t able to hear…
The Heckler: love your music, Macca, just not sure about you
It’s slightly galling, after years of sticking up for Paul McCartney, to read a new biography of the bloke and…
The Heckler: those who doubt the brilliance of Phil Collins are snobs
Three boos for those rotten spoilsports who started an online petition against Phil Collins coming out of retirement (there’s already…
The Heckler: why we must stop Thomas Heatherwick's Garden Bridge
Thomas Heatherwick is the most famous designer in the United Kingdom today and has an unquestionable flair for attention-grabbing creations.…
The Heckler: architecture would be better off without Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is the most famous woman architect in the world. Would women or, indeed, architecture, be better off without…
The Heckler: my decades-long campaign against Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
For anyone who has been interested in classical vocal music since the middle of the last century, whether choral, operatic…
The Heckler: Shakespeare's duds should be struck from the canon
I love Shakespeare. But when he pulls on his wellies and hikes into the forest I yearn for the exit.…
The Heckler: why does John Eliot Gardiner have to be so rude?
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is talented almost beyond measure. His Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and stupidly named Orchestre Révolutionnaire…
The Heckler: Curators were once donnish scholars. Now they’re hip illiterates
As a purveyor of lairy souvenirs Venice outdoes even Lourdes. The scores of shops and booths that peddle this lagoonal…
The Heckler: down with the actor-commentariat!
I’ve never been terribly keen on actors. I prefer hairdressers and accountants. And teachers and builders and lawyers. I may…
The Heckler: Why I’m allergic to Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
The Heckler: Tate Britain is a mess. Its director Penelope Curtis must go
Things have not been happy at Tate Britain for some time. Last year Waldemar Januszczak wrote an article culminating with…
