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From the Lebrecht Album of the Week: Into every musical life, a little Schmidt must fall. I cannot count the conductors who have tried to persuade me that the Viennese cellist Franz Schmidt  belongs among […]

From a special correspondent: An infant in the upper balcony started to cry softly during the last bars of Ukranian composer Valentyn Silvestrov’s Prayer for the Ukraine, expressing the poignancy of his prayer and the […]

What better way to celebrate World Opera Day together than with La bohème ? Touching, comic, realistic and romantic, Puccini’s most popular opera is a timeless testament to the power of love to blossom in the […]

Hamlet with Ian McKellen Click here for subscription tv Ian McKellen is having fun. He first played Hamlet at the age of 31, in 1971. Now he is 85, and having taken on all the heavyweight roles of […]

Queen Mary’s Photograph Album Members of the royal family have been compiling photo albums of their memories for generations. The Royal Photograph Collection houses Queen Mary’s 33 albums, which contain photographs documenting her official visits, family life, and […]

Quarterly figures released today show that Radio 3 listenership has topped 2 million once more and a record number of individual hours was spent listening to the station. They must be doing something right. Classic […]

Matthew Raimondi died in Bar Harbor, Maine, at the age of 96 on Saturday, October 19. He is survived by his wife, Natalie, and daughter, Diana, and scores of friends and fellow musicians with whom […]

The death has been announced of John Titta, chief creative officer and of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. He had struggled with cancer for the past two years. The post Cancer claims […]

The Bishop of Winchester’s review of his crisis-ridden cathedral is proving unexpectedly thorough. Originally intended to report within three months it has now been extended beyond the end of this year. The Review Team has […]

Alastair Macaulay reviews the Royal Ballet’s latest for slippedisc.com: Encounters: Four Contemporary Ballets by Alastair Macaulay The Royal Ballet, as if proclaiming that we have entered a great era of new ballet choreography, is beginning […]