tue 11/02/2025

stephen walsh

Bio
Stephen is a former Observer music critic and a regular contributor to The Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Independent and the BBC. He is the author of a major biography of Stravinsky and other books on Stravinsky, Bartók and Schumann. He holds a chair in music at Cardiff University.

Articles By Stephen Walsh

Kim, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Bancroft, St.David's Hall, Cardiff review - finding a style in the Eighties

Read more...

Blaze of Glory!, Welsh National Opera review - sparkling entertainment up the valleys

Read more...

The Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera review - Mozart remodelled and remuddled

Read more...

BBC National Chorus of Wales, BBC NOW, Jeannin, BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff review - competent music-making, interesting choices

Read more...

Mahler 9, BBC NOW, Stenz, St David's Hall, Cardiff review - passionate without bloodshed on the rostrum

Read more...

The Makropulos Affair, Welsh National Opera review - complexity realised brilliantly on the stage

Read more...

Spell Book/La liberazione di Ruggiero dell'isola di Alcina, Longborough Festival review - the pitfalls of diversity

Read more...

Quo vadis, Three Choirs Festival review - a hundred minutes of smug serenity and flowing piety

Read more...

Alcina, Glyndebourne review - Handel on the strand

Read more...

Die tote Stadt, Longborough Festival review - Korngold on the way back

Read more...

Tamerlano, The Grange Festival review - Handel brilliant in parts, but you have to wait for the drama

Read more...

Siegfried, Longborough Festival review - happily concept-free but with 'Good Ideas'

Read more...

Jenůfa, Welsh National Opera review - powerful drama with a kitsch tailpiece

Read more...

Don Giovanni, Welsh National Opera review - fine young cast let down by unhelpful conducting

Read more...

Madam Butterfly, Welsh National Opera review - decent performance, disagreeable context

Read more...

The Barber of Seville, Welsh National Opera review - back to work in an old banger

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican revi...

For all its passing British sea shanties and folksongs, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony does Walt Whitman’s determinedly global-oriented...

Bowling For Soup, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton review - nostalg...

Bowling For Soup are celebrating their iconic album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, on a fun-filled, energetic tour for its 20th...

Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe

Working on materials was basic to human culture from the start: chipping at flint to make a hand-axe; fashioning bone or wood; drying hides....

Blu-ray: High and Low

Akira Kurosawa’s mastery of different genres is a given and one of High and Low’s strengths is a seamless blending of various...

The Years, Harold Pinter Theatre review - a bravura, joyous...

Annie Ernaux’s semi-autobiographical book Les Années charts a woman’s life across time and space, history and memory, through...

Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?, Brighton Dome review -...

“I really am the repository for all your shit,” Nina Conti’s famous Monkey hand puppet tells her. Monkey may have a point.

The brilliance of...

Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Fernandes, Gent, 229 review - a beguil...

It was the sonically adventurous, shiveringly atmospheric cello piece by Latvian composer Preteris Vasks that proved to be the first showstopper...

Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre...

Greek myths are all over theatre stages at the moment, their fierce, vengeful stories offering unnerving parallels with events in our modern world...