Tom Service
Tom Service writes about music for the Guardian
-
Rifles, bears and Buñuel: Thomas Adès on his new never-ending operaThe Exterminating Angel is a surreal classic about the dinner party from hell. Now Thomas Adès has turned Buñuel’s film into an opera stuffed with stars – and live sheep
-
Florence Foster Jenkins: we may laugh, but to be this bad took talentDavid Bowie was a fan of the ‘world’s worst singer’, but is the epithet a fair one?
-
Stuck on repeat: why we love repetition in musicMusic of every genre, every culture and every period employs repeated phrases for effect. Why do we love to listen to the same things again and again?
-
Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars on Pelléas et Mélisande: 'It's as creepy as Hitchcock'The orchestra doubles as a forest and the heroine dies among the violins … Peter Sellars and Simon Rattle reveal how they’re taking Debussy’s dark and disturbing opera Pelléas et Mélisande to new heights
-
Performing sculpture: Calder's mobile comes in for a hammeringThe musical and the visual collide satisfyingly in Earle Brown’s composition Calder Piece and Alexander Calder’s sculpture Chef d’orchestre at Tate Modern
-
Alice Cooper: 'These classical composers were crazier than me!'Rock’s shocker-in-chief, who once threw a live chicken at his audience, explains how he fell for a children’s classic by Prokofiev
-
Halloween horrors: writers reveal their private fright nights ...MR James’s ghost stories are guaranteed to provide a Halloween chill. But a Mozart piano concerto? The Simpsons? Three surgeons from Dundee?
-
Music as a torture weapon: exploring the dark sideA composer’s highest joys have long been used to violate prisoners’ minds, destroying their inner beings. And not just at Guantanamo, either
-
Meet the Turner prize shortlist, from the musician to the mind-readerArchitecture, opera, fashion, parapsychology … this year’s contenders are taking contemporary art into exciting new territory. We sent our experts to meet the artists on the shortlist
-
Music to give you nightmares – 10 of the bestRadio 3 are broadcasting Max Richter’s eight-hour lullaby Sleep on Saturday night, live from the Wellcome Collection. Here, by contrast, are 10 works that certainly won’t give you sweet dreams
-
East coast v west coast: two opposing US visions of the orchestraAs the LA Philharmonic embarks on a virtual reality tour of the city, over in New York there are calls to ban technology from the concert hall
-
George Walker: the great American composer you've never heard ofThe first African American to win the Pulitzer for music is celebrated for overcoming cultural prejudice, but his work is so good this should only be a sideshow to the main event of his compositions
-
A day for Boulez: moving tributes and newly composed homages at the Lucerne festivalPeers and pupils celebrated the French composer-conductor’s legacy with passionate performances of his music and eight new pieces, including two by György Kurtág and Wolfgang Rihm
-
A post-Nils Frahm playlistThe BBC Radio 6 Music favourite and keyboard wizard performed in a sold-out Prom earlier this month. If you enjoyed that, why not try these?
-
The wonders of the internet – listen to John Cage and Morton Feldman in conversationSpend an afternoon with Cage and Feldman. You’ll see the world through different eyes
-
Classical cover art: the good, the bad and the uglyMatching music with images is a tricky art in any genre. Classical has some remarkable examples, for better and worse, of how fine the balance can be.
-
Classical music completists, unite! What mighty cycles shall we stage at the Proms?Many stamina-testing, technically demanding musical marathons could really work at the Royal Albert Hall. Here are five contenders – what would you choose?
-
What would Beethoven have thought of Leif Ove Andsnes's take on his piano concertos?Andsnes and the MCO’s fresh and sensitive performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos have been an early Proms highlight. But is there such a thing as ‘authentic’ Beethoven?
-
Take that, Take That! Violinist André Rieu sets new music-concert record at UK cinemasThe immaculately coiffured fiddler took £1.1m at British cinemas this week, making him more popular than One Direction and Take That
Sheku Kanneh-Mason: 'Classical music isn't elitist – the problem is it's expensive'