Had Robin Holloway published Music’s Odyssey—described by its author as “an invitation to the glorious long voyage of Western classical music”—30 years ago, he might well have got away with it. By day

Music is a serious business. Whether it’s love, death, heartbreak, loneliness, power, conflict, destruction, sin, faith, hope, despair… you name it, every weighty subject and state of mind has been ta

Michael Fjeldsøe, Katarina Smitt Engberg, Bjarke Moe Aarhus University Press 978-87-7597-332-3 794pp (hb) £39 Academic studies of composers notoriously combine convoluted, abstract thinking with an in

Never meet your heroes, so the saying goes. Writing about a favourite subject – classical music – has permitted me occasional opportunity to test that theory. While the odd star might have tarnished a

Malin Broman (violin); Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding OUR Recordings 9.70867 22 mins This recording comes from the premiere of Helen Grime’s Concerto in 2016, but it has taken a long

The perhaps wisely uncredited author of the piece about Tellef Johnson’s premiere of Sorabji’s Piano Sonata No. 5 (Full Score, February) seeks to claim ‘due seriousness’ for their report. The presumed