Philip Clark

1 week ago | thespectator.com | Philip Clark

In February 1951, Leonard Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic through the première of a symphony by an American composer unknown at Carnegie Hall. The composer in question was Charles Ives, by then too frail to attend in person. He listened from home when the concert was broadcast a few weeks later. An experimenter by instinct, Ives’s work had already proved an inspiration to a younger generation of radical American composers including John Cage, Lou Harrison and Morton Feldman.

Jan 13, 2025 | thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Philip Clark |Aaron Gwyn

The Robbie Williams biopic Better Man opened in American theaters last weekend and, as every single box office commentator predicted, it flopped, and flopped hard. A gross of just over $1 million in its opening three days — less than the Golden Globe-winning The Brutalist, which is only showing on sixty-eight screens nationwide — is utterly disastrous, all the more so because this wasn’t a $10 million indie, or even a $40 million Rocketman, but a movie that it cost $110 million to make.

Mar 18, 2024 | thespectator.com | Philip Clark |Niall Ferguson |Roger Kimball |Tim Rice

In the mid-1950s, alongside his close friend and intimate confidant John Coltrane, the revered saxophonist Sonny Rollins completely revolutionized notions about how the tenor saxophone could function within modern jazz.

Jan 22, 2024 | thespectator.com | Francesca Peacock |Freddy Gray |Philip Clark |Christopher Bedford

One Friday evening in a half-ruined, half-rebuilt city, where smart tourists dine out in restaurants next to refugees in makeshift shelters, a woman walks the streets. In torn clothes and slippers “worn ragged,” she hands out leaflets.

Jan 22, 2024 | thespectator.com | Freddy Gray |Philip Clark |Christopher Bedford |Dot Wordsworth

Manchester, New HampshireNew Hampshire votes tomorrow and today Nikki Haley has just two planned events in New Hampshire. She has a morning meet-and-great in the city of Franklin and a “get out the vote rally” in Salem this evening. Nobody could accuse Haley of not working hard. She’s famously an industrious woman. But given the make-or-break nature of tomorrow’s vote, her campaign seems strangely lacking in urgency. Yes, she’s spending a fortune on campaign ads.