Richard Taruskin: Music, Words and the Idea of History
Monteverdi: Music is the Servant of the Words, O/Modernt, Confidencen, Ulriksdals Slottsteater, Solna, Sweden, 11–17 June 2012; Music and…
Taking a Long View
Encounters with Islam: On Religion, Politics and Modernity, Malise Ruthven, IB Tauris, 267pp, £57.50 (hardback) The challenge which Islam,…
A Paraphrase for Survival
Bee Journal, Sean Borodale, Jonathan Cape, 112pp, £10 (paperback) Bees have been a symbol and source of eloquence for…
The Unknown Russian
An introduction to one of the most important artists yet to be discovered.
On your Marks
Ecstatics: A Language of Birds, Laura Drever and Lesley Harrison, Brae Editions, 36pp; The Long Woman, Charlotte Gann, Pighog…
Disorder into Melody:Opera Holland Park 2012
Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti (30 June 2012) Zanetto, Mascagni and Gianni Schicchi, Puccini (6 July 2012) Shortly before he…
Midterm Reports
Selected Poems, Don Paterson, Faber and Faber, 192pp, £14.99 (hardback) Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968-2011, James Fenton, Faber and Faber,…
Signing the Vivid Air
Stephen Spender: New Selected Journals 1939-1995, edited by Lara Feigel and John Sutherland with Natasha Spender, Faber & Faber,…
Between Presence and Absence
Black Cat Bone, John Burnside, Cape Poetry, 66pp, £10 (paperback) Black Cat Bone presents us with a liminal world…
The Unbearable Heaviness of Human Beings
Insecurity, Inequality and Obesity in Affluent Societies, edited by Avner Offer, Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek, Oxford University Press/British…
Making Love Collectively
The parliamentary committee that charged NewsCorp with wilful blindness over phone-hacking should cast its gaze afield. Wilful blindness is…
Isaac D’Israeli’s Curious Conservatism
A late Romantic with a taste for the pliable narrative, Benjamin Disraeli played notoriously fast and loose with historical…
Mysterious Disappearances: God, Money and the Musical Banks
Its name in raised stone lettering, at the end of an alleyway off Fleet Street, is all that is…
Thomas Mann’s ‘Disorder and Early Sorrow’: The Wounded Spirit
’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone. – John Donne In Mann’s ‘Disorder and Early Sorrow’ (1925) the characters…
Othello, the Comedy
An extract from Mr. Foote’s Other Leg: Comedy, Tragedy and Murder in Georgian London (published by Picador, 11 October…
On Arabs and Ignorance
My father nearly died thirteen years before I was born. He was stabbed through the chest while out walking…
To Be a Pilgrim
Pilgrimage is in vogue at the moment. The numbers of pilgrims arriving at Mecca and Santiago de Compostela grow every…
Charlotte Mew: The Moon’s Dropped Child
It is likely that the case of Charlotte Mew is unique in the history of English poetry. A certain…
In the World, Not of the World: Glenn Gould’s Solitude Trilogy
Thirty years after his death: the pianist-turned-broadcaster.
Death and the Maiden
Did you know Ilina? She used to come here all the time and sit with us after we had…
The Consolations of Music: Così fan tutte
OPERA Così fan tutte, ossia La Scuola degli amanti (1790), Opera Holland Park, Holland Park, London, with the City…
Fog Returns to Channel
NON-FICTION The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain, Ian Jack, Vintage, 320pp, £9.99 (paperback) Being British: What’s Wrong with…
Akseli Gallen-Kallela and the Kalevala
PAINTING Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931): A Finnish Passion Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, 1 June-9 September 2012 (Previously at Helsinki Art Museum…
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