During the period when I was Chief Classical Music and Opera critic of The Independent newspaper one thing was always sure to spike my blood pressure: interval banter. Of phrases most commonly overheard at the opera the…

Ravel may have lived most of his live in Paris but the Basque National Symphony Orchestra are bound to wear this particular badge with pride. And with that pride, of course, comes an added responsibility that the…

Surely here was an opportunity to stray a little from the well-trodden path and offer perhaps Mussorgsky’s startling original version of Night on the Bare Mountain instead of Rimsky-Korsakov’s popular sanitisation? And given the hugely imaginative title…

Music journalist Edward Seckerson reveals his must-have recording of Bernstein’s choral masterpiece, the Chichester Psalms. Leonard Bernstein’s exuberant Chichester Psalms was one of the composer’s many strong connections with the UK, commissioned for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals…

You would expect a seasoned Mahlerian like Eliahu Inbal to offer an emotive response to this extraordinary symphony – but I really hadn’t anticipated quite how powerfully he and his young orchestra (the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart is…

As Adam Fischer’s Dusseldorf Mahler cycle has evolved a clearer picture has emerged of his choices and priorities. He’s a very sympathetic and clear-headed Mahlerian whose nose for beauty and atmosphere (clearly led by very personal convictions)…

LSO Live have billed their new Simon Rattle recording of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony as ‘the complete version’. Doesn’t that go without saying these days? Surely no reputable conductor performing the piece now would countenance anything less? But…

Listening to Bartók’s chilling ‘pantomime grotesque’ The Miraculous Mandarin – complete – in a performance as good as this one you do ask yourself why anyone would programme the Suite any more. There is the small matter…