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Music

Welcome to our new website. Read the introductory letter from our editors.

Richard Wagner; illustration by Joanna Neborsky

Jed Perl

The Cults of Wagner

Alex Ross’s ‘Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music’

October 8, 2020 issue

Accra Shepp

An Interview with Archie Shepp

My father, the saxophonist Archie Shepp, was a revolutionary, both musically and politically.

September 29, 2020

Fragments of a silk painting from the Astana Tombs, Xinjiang, China, circa 200–800

Larry Wolff

What China Sounded Like

September 24, 2020 issue

Adam Shatz

The Stanley Crouch I Knew

What Stanley believed in, I think, was calling things as he saw them even if it meant speaking hard truths, which used to be the business of critics. He left a number of bruises.

September 24, 2020

Ted Reichman

My Quarantine: One More Vibration

On March 6, 2020, one of the last days of what we might call normalcy, I bought a violin at a thrift store outside Boston.

August 15, 2020

Matthew Aucoin

Opera at the Edge

Perhaps, in our newfound state of isolation, we can learn new ways to listen across borders, with open ears

May 14, 2020 issue

Beethoven; illustration by Joanna Neborsky

Lewis Lockwood

Beethoven’s Empire of the Mind

March 26, 2020 issue

Herbert von Karajan (right) with the violinist Nathan Milstein during a rehearsal, Lucerne, 1957

Tim Page

The Wizard of Salzburg

June 7, 2018 issue

The Latest

Pierre Boulez; illustration by Tom Bachtell

Matthew Aucoin

The Fury of Pierre Boulez

A collection of his lectures on music reveals the composer’s narrow-mindedness and disdain.

November 5, 2020 issue

Ming Smith: Sun Ra Space II, New York City, 1978

Namwali Serpell

Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’

The photographer Ming Smith’s pictures of Sun Ra from 1978 beautifully capture his energy.

July 23, 2020 issue

Adam Shatz

In the Vanguard of Trio Jazz with Micah Thomas

The piano trio has always held a special place in my experience—and imagination—of jazz clubs. And the most exciting debut on record that I’ve heard in the last year is Micah Thomas’s trio, recorded live last spring at Kitano, a small club in New York.

May 29, 2020

Jeanne Lee performing at the Banlieues Bleues Festival, Seine-Saint-Denis, France, 1997

Adam Shatz

An Invitation from Jeanne Lee

June 11, 2020 issue

Headie One performing at O2 Academy Brixton, London, November 10, 2019

Tiana Reid

My Quarantine: More Time Now?

Despite the assumption, hostile to me, that we have “more time now,” I still prefer television shows under thirty minutes.

May 21, 2020

Joyce DiDonato as Agrippina and Matthew Rose as Claudio in Handel’s Agrippina at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2020

James Romm

The Winking Satire of ‘Agrippina’

Agrippina, the Handel opera now premiering on the Metropolitan Opera’s stage, may have been written as a satire on the politics of its own time, but in the hands of producer Sir David McVicar, and set in the present day, it offers a timely paradigm of hypocrisy, corruption, and sexual manipulation in the halls of power.

March 1, 2020

Elza van den Heever as Marie and Peter Mattei as Wozzeck in Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera

Geoffrey O’Brien

Becoming the Nightmare

February 27, 2020 issue

Adam Shatz

Capturing the Ephemeral Beauty of Improvisation

As Crispell fires off cascades of notes, Sorey follows her every step of the way, sometimes echoing her, sometimes throwing down a gauntlet—but always with an eye to the music’s direction.

October 2, 2019

Michael Stipe of REM and Bruce Springsteen performing at the “Vote For Change” concert at the Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, October 1, 2004

Wesley Stace

Springsteen at Seventy

Bruce does not wink at you. Though there is always humor, the show is not ironic. His smile is open. Bruce gives you the truth straight. The set seems entirely honest. That is its appeal.

September 21, 2019

David Berman performing with the Silver Jews, Barcelona, Spain, 2008

Alissa Quart

David Berman of Silver Jews Remembered

The lead singer of the indie rock band Silver Jews, David Berman, died last month. While he might at first glance appear just another icon of Gen X, Berman reflected that generation’s ironic, dark hunches about existence.

September 12, 2019