Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
Stars of David
Like Tony Thomas I am a lover of classical music. That is my favourite but I Iike most genres, and jazz is right up there, although I’m no expert. My wife definitely prefers jazz. That is why Saturday night is America Night in our musical programme.
Last Saturday night, just before I pulled up stumps, a thought struck me about what I had just listened to. There was a thread running through it. I wonder if you can spot it.
We started with Benny Goodman – the king of swing. When we think of swing, we tend to think of Goodman and Glenn Miller. I like them both, but I prefer Goodman. I feel his music retains more of the traditional New Orleans style. It’s a little grittier than Miller’s very big band sound.
For example, one of my favourites is He ain’t got rhythm. And I think his Perfidia is the best version (not gritty, I concede).
Goodman is regarded as one of the musicians influential in helping jazz evolve from being strictly dance music to music…
The Editor of Quadrant Music, Alexander Voltz, has won the symphonic section of the prestigious George Enescu International Competition in Bucharest.
Sep 03 2024
1 mins
Some have argued that Auden was a victim of his own naivety regarding the prospect of impending war. A few days before its declaration and while on a Greyhound bus at the end of that 1939 “honeymoon” with Kallman, he had written home to England: “There is a radio on this coach, so that every hour or so, one has a violent pain in one’s stomach as the news comes on. By the time you get this, I suppose, we shall know one way or the other.”
Aug 29 2024
15 mins
This is the paradox of the War Against the Past: those who are waging it are, inadvertently, denying themselves the capacity to win. For if your past is evil, if your centuries-old story is defined by bitterness and bad faith, how can you possibly hope to redeem yourself?
Aug 29 2024
11 mins
