LA variation
A life in music: Esa-Pekka Salonen emerged from a Finnish clique to shape American musical taste. As he prepares to take over the Philharmonia he hopes to make classical music as exciting as Radiohead.
Sound and vision
A life in music: Vladimir Jurowski's bold interpretations have made him one of the world's most sought-after conductors. Now, at only 34, he is preparing to take over at the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
True anarchists
Thanks to camp productions, Gilbert and Sullivan's operas are often dismissed as bland and sentimental. But, argues director Mike Leigh, they are outrageously subversive.
‘I had to write it’
Oliver Knussen tells Tom Service why he read 1,700 Emily Dickinson poems in order to compose a requiem for his former wife Sue.
Love in a time of terror
Michel Houellebecq caused a furore with his novel, Platform. So who better to adapt it for stage than 'the Quentin Tarantino of opera', Calixto Bieito? By Stuart Jeffries.
‘Dying of love for you’
On the 150th anniversary of Robert Schumann's death, acclaimed Schumann interpreter Steven Isserlis looks back at the composer's tragic life and the passionate correspondence between his wife, Clara, and Brahms.
The secret rebel
As Shostakovich's satirical operas and ballets come to London, Martin Sixsmith talks to Stalin's chief arbiter of musical life and the composer's widow, who says he was anything but a lackey of the state.
Unbearable lightness
Despite the magnificent music, it is easy to dismiss Così fan tutte as a heedless romp. In fact, argued Edward Said, in an essay written shortly before his death, it is one of the most complex and unexpectedly dark of all Mozart's operas.
Wagner’s women
Can it be that the great egoist of opera had a feminist streak? Is Brünnhilde the true heroine of the Ring? The truth lies in the music, argues Natasha Walter.
Baroque brio
American conductor William Christie founded Les Arts Florissants and brought early music to a wider audience in his adopted France. Lucasta Miller meets him as he takes Handel's Messiah to London.
Musical moments
Mitsuko Uchida was a reluctant concert pianist but felt a kinship with Schubert's music. Her performance of Mozart's sonatas established her reputation. Now she is increasingly drawn to Bach.
Mozart: the man and his myths
Lucasta Miller on a quartet of Mozartian biographies from David Cairns, Anthony Holden, Julian Rushton and Stanley Sadie.
In from the cold
A hundred years after his birth, Shostakovich is still vehemently dividing critics.
The phoenix
A poet, priest and womaniser, who ended his days as a grocer, he also wrote the words to some of the greatest operas. On the eve of Mozart's 250th anniversary, Anthony Holden looks at the colourful life of his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte.
The modest maestro
Charles Mackerras was born in the US and raised in Australia before coming to England to study music. Though internationally acclaimed, he disdained stardom and missed out on the plum post at Covent Garden. Now approaching 80, he is still in great demand.