The week in classical: Giulio Cesare; Così fan tutte; Siegfried/Götterdämmerung – review
Rock on, Shostakovich, Handel, Ravel: lives of great composers hit the screens
February 2024
Phoenix Dance Theatre review – triple bill swings from tortured to tender
Brief letters
When grapefruit mustn’t be your cup of tea
December 2023
Einstein on the Beach with goats? No, thanks
Letters: John Coldwell on his first ever walkout from a performance. Plus letters from Ian Garner, David Riley and Tim Edwards on leaving theatres at the interval or even earlier
November 2023
Book of the day
Mozart in Italy by Jane Glover review – the making of a master
An account of the teenage Mozart’s operatic awakening is packed with humanising detail
October 2023
Mozart: Piano Concs K238 and 503 album review – cool precision from Kristian Bezuidenhout on a period fortepiano
Freiburg Baroque Orch. (Harmonia Mundi)
How we made
‘John McEnroe was my reference point’: how we made hit Mozart movie Amadeus
‘I was told my laugh wasn’t extreme enough. So I got through an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s getting its idiot sound right’
In brief: Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop; Birdgirl; Mozart in Italy – reviews
The tale of a divorcee embraces its sentimentality; a young birdwatcher proves a gifted memoirist; and Mozart’s Italian job sparkles with detail
September 2023
After Amadeus: Brian Cox as Bach is theatre’s latest orchestral manoeuvre
Oliver Cotton’s The Score, a new drama about Bach’s confrontation with Frederick II, continues a rich tradition of plays about great composers
August 2023
Music may reduce babies’ pain during jabs or heel-prick tests, study suggests
Mozart Piano Quartets review – rising soloists combine elegance and eloquence
July 2023
Ingrid Haebler obituary
Quintessentially Viennese pianist who brought delicacy and charm to her performances of Mozart and Schubert
May 2023
Don Giovanni review – obsession, distress and danger in uneven new production
Rebel, rapist, libertine or libertarian? Staging Mozart’s Don Giovanni
April 2023
OAE/Bezuidenhout review – on an exemplary Mozart journey
With Kristian Bezuidenhout conducting from the fortepiano, this was a genial celebration of three works written in the year 1784
March 2023
The Magic Flute review – WNO’s hectic new version is a lightsaber too far
Daisy Evans’ psychedelic and frantic modern reworking dodges the original’s problems, but loses much of Mozart’s magic and energy in the process – and the flute itself
December 2022
Michael Sheen on art, fear and Amadeus: ‘David Suchet was in really good shape. I … am not!’
The Magic Flute review – well-behaved revival needs more of Mozart’s anarchic spirit
November 2022
Slaves to the rhythm: rats can’t resist a good beat, researchers say
Study finds rats instinctively move in time to music – an ability previously thought to be uniquely human
