Album reviews

The unconventional instrumentation favoured by Tortoise is an indicator of how many different lineups have always jostled for space under the jazz umbrella. The national treasure that is The Pete Alle

From espresso machine to percolator, there are many ways to make a cup of coffee, and such is the case with Bach’s cantata, too. Sporting just two soloists plus cameo narrator, tracking down a vocal d

A composer’s idiosyncratic guide to western classical music

There’s a trepidatious growl from the contra-bassoon. Soon, it is joined by French horns, strings and timpani; the sound rumbles, snowballs – and then: abrupt silence. The piano sings into the stillne

After the premiere of his orchestral piece Coptic Light in 1986, Morton Feldman was described by an irate American critic as ‘the most boring composer in the history of music’. Listeners coming to his

There was once a time when native New Yorkers like Aaron Copland and Ferde Grofé composed odes to the American West; when Europeans like Darius Milhaud and Frederick Delius extolled the deep South; an