Knowing the score

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

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

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

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

Lidy Blijdorp; Tobias Borsboom Channel Classics CCS47726 65:29 mins Using the recording genre creatively is an art in itself. What can it offer that perhaps a live concert cannot? I think it allows mo

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