The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

This Music Matters

22nd June 2021

You don’t have to know much about classical music to know that an awful lot of guff has been written about its ‘universal’ message and ‘worldwide’ appeal. If that is so, how come so many of its key figures are dead, white, and male (or, in snappier terms: male, pale, and stale)? For many younger audiences, the Beethovenian ideal of ‘universal brotherhood’ will not only seem archaically exclusive, but also suspiciously binary. Among those who have long been relegated to the sidelines of western art music – when not completely... read more

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Home-Grown Delights: Orchestral and Choral Own-Labels

15th June 2021

The changes in the classical record industry over the past four decades have seen the end of many once-lucrative contracts between orchestras and the ‘big’ labels of old: EMI, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, RCA and CBS… (Remember the exclusive contract the Vienna Philharmonic had for many years with Decca, the orchestra’s logo proudly emblazoned on the record sleeves?) However, the technological changes that prompted this demise have also offered new opportunities. Since the turn of the millennium, orchestras and... read more

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In praise of... Martha Argerich

8th June 2021

Few classical musicians are held in such universally high regard and affection as Martha Argerich. The outstanding pianist of her generation, and one of the greatest pianists of the post-war period, has just turned 80 – by stealth, as it were, since her playing shows no signs of dimming with age, retaining all of her trademark effervescence and staggering virtuosity. It is some years now since she retired from live solo recitals, having long found the concert platform a lonely place, yet in chamber music and concerto... read more

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The Misfits (Part 2 of 2)

1st June 2021

By the dawn of the twentieth century, the growth of western art music (what we refer to today under the broad umbrella term of ‘classical music’) both as creative phenomenon and as a society activity had grown enormously compared with a century earlier. Musical and wider cultural and social change – the expansion of urban populations, the growing need for cultural engagement of various sorts – were inextricably linked. And with this growth came an increase in the number of musical ‘outsiders’, who didn’t fit altogether... read more

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Fantastic Instruments and Where to Find Them

25th May 2021

For many years those who learnt about music, whether at school or simply out of amateur enthusiasm, were confronted with a standard chart: the Instruments of the Orchestra, with a few solo instruments (piano, harp, organ) thrown in for good measure. The strings, woodwind, brass, timpani and a fairly narrow selection of percussion (bass drum, side drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel): these were the instruments you Had To Know if you wanted to know about music, and that still form the backbone of the modern symphony... read more

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