Albert's Retreat

Having written many articles and programme notes and given 14 public talks or lectures since returning from the Salzburg Festival in August,...

The Best of 2013... in Live Music

1. Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mariss Jansons (Salzburg Festival) The BRSO's pairing of ...

The Best of 2013... in Books on Music

1. Forbidden Music by Michael Haas (Yale University Press) The product of years of dedicated service putting 'Entartete Musik' back...

The Best of 2013

2013 has certainly been a busy year. With Verdi , Wagner and Britten vying for our attention, we might feel a little weary as we approach ...

Music for JFK

Anyone with basic arithmetic will have worked out that Benjamin Britten was celebrating his 50th birthday at the time John F. Kennedy Jr. wa...

Outsider turned Insider

In life and work, Benjamin Britten often pondered or placed himself on the periphery. Choosing Suffolk rather than London as a home, pursuin...

I come to praise...

The Britten centenary has, by its very nature, expended a lot of energy looking back over the composer’s life and work. Alongside triumphant...