Norman Lebrecht

London

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Founder and Writer at Slipped Disc

writer, also at https://t.co/qOFWXnePGa

Articles

Some composers are rightly obscure

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

This article is taken from the June 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25. A rustling in the record schedules warns me that 2026 will be the Year of Havergal Brian. Never heard of him? Don’t panic. He’s an English composer of 32 symphonies that, some proclaim, will bring audiences storming back into concert halls. These believers are not isolated.
Witnessing the birth of a star

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

Sergei Rachmaninoff: 3rd piano concerto (Decca) ★★★★☆Rachmaninoff had large hands and enormous fingers. He wrote concertos for himself to play. The third, in D minor, had its US premieres in Carnegie Hall with Walter Damrosch conducting the first run, Gustav Mahler the next. The concerto proved conspicuously more difficult than its predecessors to achieve with precision. A fear factor set in among lesser pianists.
Just Biber (Outhere Music)

2 weeks ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

A slinky, fun-loving playing style ★★★★☆If you had told me at the start of the week that I’d still be listening to Biber on Friday, my response would have been dusty and unprintable. Middle-European music before Johann Sebastian Bach has about as much interest for me as a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. The world of Heinrich Biber, a Salzburg violin composer in the Italian style, was rendered obsolete by the birth in 1785 of Bach and Handel.
Gubaidulina - Scherzo

3 weeks ago | scherzo.es | Norman Lebrecht

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Redescubriendo a Paul Ben-Haim

3 weeks ago | scherzo.es | Norman Lebrecht

PAUL BEN-HAIM: Música orquestal y de cámara. Liv Migdal, violín. Jagar Sharvit, mezzosoprano. Staatskapelle Weimar. Director: Jesko Sirvend. CPO (2 CD) Si anda en busca de valores desatendidos, no hará mal dedicando un poco de atención a Paul Ben-Haim, un autor en vías de redescubrimiento. Lahav Shani está grabando sus sinfonías para DG y más obras están apareciendo en diferentes sellos. La compilación que reseñamos ... Disfruta de contenido exclusivo y sigue leyendo Accede a tu cuenta o suscríbete.
Why does this record exist?

3 weeks ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

Wilhelm Furtwängler: 2nd symphony (Chandos) ★★☆☆☆What’s this record doing on my deck? I have listened to Furtwängler’s own recordings of his overlong second symphony and have heard it performed live by Daniel Barenboim with the Berlin Philharmonic without walking out. The works spends three-quarters of an hour going nowhere. Furtwängler composed it in Switzerland after fleeing Berlin in January 1945, abandoning his musicians to a desperate fate.
Castanets in her socks

1 month ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

Martha Argerich Edition (Warner Classics, 46 CDs) ★★★★★Some artists stop at nothing to get attention. Others shy away from it like birds of an endangered species. No prizes for guessing which category Martha Argerich belongs to. The Buenos Aires-born pianist has never given a sit-down interview in her life, never posed for cover shots, never taken a political stance. Despite these modest precautions, she became the world’s most sought-after keyboard artist.
Nunca nos cansaremos de escuchar a Martha

1 month ago | scherzo.es | Norman Lebrecht

Utilizamos tecnologías como las cookies para almacenar y/o acceder a la información del dispositivo. Lo hacemos para mejorar la experiencia de navegación y para mostrar anuncios personalizados. El consentimiento a estas tecnologías nos permitirá procesar datos como el comportamiento de navegación o las identificaciones únicas en este sitio. No consentir o retirar el consentimiento, puede afectar negativamente a ciertas características y funciones.
Can Russia hit the high notes again?

1 month ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. Twice in the last century, Russia stood on the brink of world dominance. Specifically in music, but in other fields as well. Here’s roughly what happened. In 1914, with German tonality broken and Italian opera exhausted, Russia stood to inherit the earth.
The sweet sounds of catastrophe

1 month ago | thecritic.co.uk | Norman Lebrecht

Shostakovich/Britten: Cello works (Decca) ★★★★☆The second cello concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich has never matched the first in public appeal or soloist appreciation. Premiered on the composer’s sixtieth birthday, at a concert where he was proclaimed a Hero of Socialist Labour, the concerto is ambivalent both in meaning and in its balance between soloist and orchestra. There are stretches where the cello is left to find its own way home as a huge orchestra sits idly by.