Culture

Culture

The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.

Damian Thompson

The legend returns

Music

Daniel Barenboim is back in town: the South Bank is mounting a ‘Barenboim Project 2015’ in which he’s playing the Schubert piano sonatas and conducting his magnificent Berlin Staatskapelle in Elgar’s Second Symphony and Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, with Martha Argerich as soloist (if she doesn’t cancel yet again, in which case I assume Barenboim

End of the Rainbow

Music

The golden age of pop music may be long gone, but the golden age of pop musicians’ obituaries is definitely with us. Soon I shall have to start apologising for returning to this subject with such regularity, but barely a week now seems to pass without some rock legend turning his or her eminent toes

Damian Thompson

Eight remastered classical recordings you need to hear

In the magazine this week I’ve written about spectacular new advances in the art of remastering vintage classical recordings. Many restoration engineers are removing hiss and correcting pitch so that historic performances are no longer muffled or distorted. But one of them stands out from the rest: Andrew Rose, whose Pristine Classical label is more interventionist than

Why you should never trust songwriting credits

Music

Songwriting credits are, as we know, not always to be trusted. Since the dawn of music publishing, there has always been a manager or an agent or a well-connected representative of organised crime willing to take a small cut of a song’s royalties, in return for services rendered or threats not carried out. Who actually

Fraser Nelson

Måns Zelmerlöw’s ‘Heroes’ shows why Sweden rules the pop world

This is a blog written after the first screening of Måns Zelmerlöw’s Heroes, which went on to win the Swedish nomination and the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. The world’s most-watched cultural event is some time away, but for Eurovision affectionados the entertainment has started already. Britain and Sweden are the continent’s two greatest exporters of pop music, but the UK Eurovision

Oscars 2015: Neil Patrick Harris took it too far

Birdman soared past longtime favourite Boyhood at the 87th Academy Awards, as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s hilarious Hollywood satire unexpectedly took both of the top prizes – best picture and director – and joint top number of awards overall, in a slightly awkward ceremony where many of the host’s razor-edged jokes drew clear disapproval from the

Steerpike

Chris Bryant: I am not James Blunt’s sex toy

After Mr S revealed that Chris Bryant has broken two ribs getting out of bed, speculation is rife that his nemesis James Blunt could be to blame for the incident. The duo fell out after the Labour MP claimed that British culture should not be dominated by the likes of privately educated crooners such as Blunt.

Spotify: saint or sinner?

Music

We have all read about the current woeful state of the CD industry — how it is 28 per cent down on last year, which was 25 per cent down on the previous year, and so on — but do we know why? Is it the endless financial crisis? Or is it that CDs, as

Damian Thompson

Confessions of an illegal downloader

Music

I’ve never been into shoplifting, though I once had a friend who was. And, no, before you ask, I’m not using that old ‘friend’ device to hide my own identity. She was a girl I met at university. Bookshops were her hunting ground. I’m assuming she was driven by some sort of compulsion because she

The Spectator at war: War music

From ‘Music and the War’, The Spectator, 16 January 1915: The war, so far, has not thrown up any supreme musical product. It would be an affectation to pretend that the taste of the average British soldier is elevated. As in the Boer War, his repertory is confined to music-ball tunes and songs of an

The cook, the critic, the composer and the love child

Michael Kennedy, who died on New Year’s Eve, was the Sunday Telegraph’s music critic when I was for a while assistant arts editor there about 20 years ago. He was of course musically knowledgeable beyond reproach, but his writing had the compulsive readability of a man who was always a journalist, a storyteller. He was elitist in

Does anyone have the balls to bring back castrati?

Music

One of the most complete bars to the authentic performance of both baroque opera and some renaissance polyphony is the current unavailability of castrati. There isn’t much to be done about it of course, but we might regret that we can no longer hear a sound which, at its best, fascinated all who did hear

Bob Dylan and the illusion of modern times

Features

I was talking the other day to a young woman who knows a lot about the history of rock. We shared an enthusiasm for Bob Dylan’s later work — especially Blood on the Tracks (1975). As we talked, it occurred to me that Dylan recorded this ‘late’ effort 40 years ago, only 13 years into

Michael Tanner’s five least objectionable opera performances of 2014

1. Khovanskygate A typically brilliant and wayward production by the Birmingham Opera Company of this unfollowable opera, with stupendous choral singing by local inhabitants. 2. Dialogues des Carmélites The Royal Opera did Poulenc’s gamey masterpiece proud, in a direct and intense account, with ideal all-round casting. 3. Götterdämmerung Opera North, under the inspiring leadership and baton of Richard

Ismene Brown’s best of dance in 2014

As the revels of the year end, here are my best memories. I think new was the word: new names, and new directions from familiar names. Stories rushed back into fashion. There was big emotion and bold movement, and untraditional means: collaborations with composers and communities thinking large on tiny budgets. Here are my highlights –

Kate Chisholm’s radio top five from 2014

1. My top gong would be shared by June Spencer and Patricia Greene for their brilliant character acting on Radio 4’s The Archers, creating in Peggy and Jill two resilient women of their time yet also strong-minded, decisive, fiercely independent and in Jill’s case always game for a laugh. 2. Not far behind is Neil

Fraser Nelson

Why Joe Cocker was the only singer to improve a Beatles song

Joe Cocker died yesterday, just 70 years old, from lung cancer. He was one of a handful of rock singers whose voice was instantly recognisable, adding a new dimension to any song he sang. And perhaps this is why his cover versions worked so well – they did sound completely different, and yet still thrilling and

From the archive: Sound of the season

Features

Some songs are hits — No. 1 for a couple of weeks. Some songs are standards — they endure decade after decade. And a few very rare songs reach way beyond either category, to embed themselves so deeply in the collective consciousness they become part of the soundtrack of society. They start off the same

Actually, Bob, they do know it’s Christmas (we checked)

Barometer

Yeah, Bob, they know The answer to the rhetorical question posed by the Band Aid single, ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’, is broadly yes. Christmas Day is a public holiday everywhere in Africa except Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Somalia, although countries have widely differing customs associated with the event. — In