In May 2015, visibly frail, the august Nikolaus Harnoncourt stood before his Concentus Musicus Wien and directed two Beethoven symphonies in a reading that followed…
Slower even than one-horse EMI, Deutsche Grammophon was the last label of consequence to adopt stereo recording in the late 1950s. Its circumspection is, in…
Most composer reputations subside in the generation after their death. It’s as if posterity calls time out while deciding its final judgement. Witold Lutoslawski is…
Viennese masters, always short of cash, picked up commissions from rich British tourists for composing drawing-room settings of national heritage. Haydn and Beethoven filled their…
After two years of creative trauma that silenced almost every leading composer, the latter half of the First World War yielded works of extraordinary intimacy.…
Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s interpretation of Mahler’s first symphony is beautifully played by Munich’s (some say Germany’s) best orchestra and thoughtfully structured by an impressive guest conductor.…