Der Abschied

It was a salutary experience visiting the Hôtel des Bains on the Lido in Venice last week. The site of Gustav von Aschenbach’s demise, it is...

Soundworld

This morning at City Lit, one of the students in my Franz Schreker class asked about my use of the word 'soundworld'. Truth be told ...

Helping Complete the Symphonic Picture

I'm guilty of oversights. Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler... it's a symphony trajectory I repeat ad absurdum . Of course I include the fin...

Mengelberg's Mahler

The first part of my 'listening diary' which surveys the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's Radio Legacy boxed set, celebrating its...

Symphonic Connections

I've often felt that Mahler's symphonies refer to their numbered Beethovenian counterpart.  Mahler's Fifth, for instance, nods t...

Engaging with Folk

We compartmentalise: Classical Music. Pop. Rock etc. And within these genres we further subdivide – Classical, Romantic, Modern – bisecting ...

Longing for Simplicity

Sitting on the banks of the Attersee, where Mahler composed many of his songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn , you could easily drift back to a ...

The Best of 2013... in Recorded Music

1. Mahler's Sixth Symphony by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Riccardo Chailly (Accentus Music) This film of Chailly's 2012 perf...

A Restrained Farewell

Recordings of Das Lied von der Erde are like buses... indeed, for all the many accounts of the Symphonies appearing on labels around the wor...

Don't Polish the Pedestal

Yesterday, I tendered that we are all too keen to defend the creatures we know as composers (but never knew as men and women). Mahler, I ma...

Redressing the Balance

Today at the National Gallery , I revisited the subject of Alma Schindler's marriage to Gustav Mahler. I was appearing alongside pianist...

Berlin brings Sibelius to London

The Berliner Philharmoniker has announced a juicy residency in London in February 2015. Coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the birth o...

Sacrifices on the Altar

Nigel Simeone's edition of The Leonard Bernstein Letters is a veritable treasure trove. Bernstein may not be the greatest composer of t...

Freuet Euch des Lebens

Certain pieces of music evoke a building... and vice versa. Sitting in the Goldener Saal of the Musikverein last weekend, listening to Fabio...

A Young Legend

Those readers who heeded my advice to drink off-piste and poke around the 'Rest of Europe' part of the Waitrose wine section will r...

The Eye of the Storm

Jonathan Nott and the Bamberger Symphoniker's Mahler comes to a close this Autumn with the release of the Sixth and Eight Symphonies. I ...

Accepting the End of Empire

I was standing in the wings of Symphony Hall earlier this week, waiting to go on stage and speak about Tchaikovsky's 'Manfred' S...

Tension Lines

In today's Independent on Sunday , ahead of the National Gallery's  Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 , I ponder whethe...

Word by Word

There are certain singers with whom you cannot discern any effort at all. Communication through music is entirely natural to them and the ef...

Face the Modern

From 9 October to 12 January, the Viennese fin de siècle will be much in evidence in Trafalgar Square.  Facing the Modern: The Portrait in ...