A marriage of Brahms and Wagner
Before his journey into atonality, Schoenberg composed the surprisingly accessible "Verklärte Nacht"
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Brandt and Moore: The gentleman and the miner
Based on the impulse to look at everything afresh, Modernist photography could not help but deliver a jumble of perspectives, on both sides of the Atlantic
A writer diminished
"Defenders of Leonard Woolf’s wife, Virginia, have turned her into a heroine, even a victim, and diminished his formidable achievements"
A glimpse of heaven
Schumann’s setting of Faust is an aesthetic and spiritual triumph—and now with a singer to match
A multitude of dignities
Are human rights dependent on “human dignity”—and what does “human dignity” even mean?
An explosive error
When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Austrian writer Peter Handke—infamous for defending the regime of Slobodan Milošević—the world was astonished
A conspiracy unmasked
Despite having no instinct for organisation and never using the jargon of modern business management, Margaret Thatcher had extraordinary political instincts. These are a central theme of Herself Alone, the third volume
Against all odds
'When the whole nation is taking a huge punt on whether (or how) to leave the EU, a gambler’s memoirs are timely'
Dechristianity by the numbers
'In the US, levels of religiosity are traditionally high. But Americans aren't somehow hard-wired to preserve their faith in a high-tech world. They are just behind the curve'
A well-armed corporation
'William Dalrymple dismantles the inadequacies of prep school history: Britain was a relatively poor, agricultural nation in 1599, while much of India was populous and rich'
A reckoning for justice
Thomas Grant's "Court Number One" reveals the changing values of the society which the criminal justice system ultimately exists to enforce
Charlie Chaplin à la Française
Louis de Funès may be France’s most beloved actor. The choice tells us a lot about those who love him