Prom 9: BBC Scottish SO/Wigglesworth review – meticulous making of unexpected connections
Beautiful wind playing in a slow-burning Brahms joined searing strings in Schoenberg and Alice Coote’s fine-grain singing of Mahler for a space-testing night
December 2023
‘It will always be less hellish than the reality’: why cinema keeps returning to the Holocaust
Three new films attempt to address the Holocaust. But can cinema ever hope to adequately confront humanity’s darkest chapter?
June 2023
The week in classical: 74th Aldeburgh Festival; Werther – review
Borletti-Buitoni Trust at 20 review – first footholds celebrated by benificaries of musical trust
May 2023
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde review – Gerhaher and Beczała give late masterpiece new life
Heard in a less usual male-voice pairing and with a piano reduction of the full orchestral score, there are more gains than losses to be found here
April 2023
LPO/Gardner review – Brett Dean provides tantalising prelude to cool Mahler
BBC Singers/LSO review – music, and words, of power as Rattle protests vandalism of UK’s musical life
January 2023
Absolute power, misconduct and decline: the classical music pieces that unlock Tár
In his controversial film, Todd Field foregrounds melancholic works by Mahler and Elgar. Are they a requiem for Cate Blanchett’s supremely powerful conductor?
November 2022
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ Harding review – gorgeous Mahler with expressionist edge
Daniel Harding led a modernist interpretation of Mahler’s Ninth full of fierce drama, eloquence and intensity, in the orchestra’s thrilling return to this hall
October 2022
The week in classical: The Marriage of Figaro; Mahler Symphony No 8 review – phenomenal
RPO/Petrenko review – Mahler’s grand and imposing 8th sounds as if it belongs here
September 2022
Prom 62: Berlin Phil/Petrenko review – sinister magic marks a concert of startling brilliance
Petrenko proved his mastery of Mahler’s Seventh yet again as he brought out its lurking ambiguity in a performance that hovered between dream and nightmare
November 2021
Honest playlist
‘I know all the words to Copacabana’: Katy Wix’s honest playlist
The comedian on her love of Mahler’s Symphony No 5 – and the folk song from Georgia that she sings in the shower
October 2021
From Cleopatra’s sorrow to Duke Ellington’s solitude, music helps us heal
Joyce DiDonato
Music always brings me comfort, and through singing stories both ancient and modern of love and pain, we can emerge from these long months stronger and better able to understand each other
September 2021
Proms Festival Orch/Wigglesworth review – freelance orchestra’s Mahler brings hope and celebration
‘There won’t be a dry eye anywhere’: the Proms Festival Orchestra – in pictures
August 2021
Mahler CO/Benjamin/Aimard review – intricate textures and the sparkle of cut glass
George Benjamin conducted the belated premiere of his Concerto for Orchestra, part of a programme that also celebrated his friendship with the late Oliver Knussen
July 2021
Mahler & Ye: The Song of the Earth review – song-symphony returns to its golden age
Xiaogang Ye sets the Tang-era Chinese poems that ultimately inspired Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde to colourful new music
March 2021
Mahler/Cooke: Symphony No 10 review – one of the finest recordings of a final masterpiece
Part of his cycle of works by Mahler, Vänskä’s stoic approach pays dividends in the composer’s unfinished work, with unswerving instrumental detail
February 2021
Mahler: Symphonies 1-10 review – a sumptuous Berlin Phil moves from the glib to the sublime
This mammoth undertaking, of all of Mahler’s symphonies with different conductors over the last decade, brings variable musical results
