Music

This year’s rural festivals provided a feast of productions of works outside the main repertoire

Scottish nationalists seem out to destroy a precious musical heritage built up over many generations

To hear my Stabat Mater sung in Michelangelo’s chapel was the high point of my musical life

Religion plays an integral role in modern music even when it is composed by non-believers

Ernest Newman’s towering biography of Wagner helped to shape my own view of the composer

Director Willy Decker makes a plausible case that the eternal  feminine underpins The Ring

Look to Beethoven to answer Adorno’s famous post-Holocaust critique of Western culture

Mozart’s great contemporary should be regarded as his equal, particularly in his string quartets

A dozen of the best Schubert Lieder to take the listener beyond the three great song cycles

Many composers, including me, love football so much that we are inspired by the beautiful game