Alex Ross
Alex Ross has been the music critic at The New Yorker since 1996. He writes about classical music, covering the field from the Metropolitan Opera to the contemporary avant-garde, and has also contributed essays on literature, history, the visual arts, film, and ecology. His first book, “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century,” a cultural history of music since 1900, won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Guardian First Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His second book, the essay collection “Listen to This,” won an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. His latest book is “Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music,” an account of Wagner’s vast cultural impact. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
What Is Noise?
Sometimes we embrace it, sometimes we hate it—and everything depends on who is making it.
Conductors Had One Job. Now They Have Three or Four
Klaus Mäkelä and the age of the multitasking maestro.
The Escher Quartet and Igor Levit Test Musical Limits
The chamber ensemble played all six of Bartók’s string quartets, and the pianist played devilishly difficult transcriptions of symphonic scores by Mahler and Beethoven.
How Arnold Schoenberg Changed Hollywood
He moved to California during the Nazi era, and his music—which ranged from the lushly melodic to the rigorously atonal—caught the ears of everyone from George Gershwin to James Dean.
The Opera “Chornobyldorf” Channels Ukrainian Rage and Sorrow
The experimental work, recently staged at La Mama, feels eerily resonant in a time of war.
The Sonic Revolutions of George Lewis
As composer, improviser, electronic pioneer, and scholar, Lewis is one of the major musical minds of our time.
Notable Classical Recordings of 2023
I can’t remember a year of so many pleasure-inducing, addiction-triggering albums.
“Maestro” Honors the Chaotic Charisma of Leonard Bernstein
The famed composer-conductor had a dire, sweaty passion for music, and the new bio-pic has a six-minute set piece that strikingly conveys his joy in the power of sound.
What Does California Sound Like?
A dazzling array of new music at the California Festival, spearheaded by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Secrets of the East German Oboe Underground
Oboists rarely strike out on their own. James Austin Smith’s recent program at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust—pieces culled entirely from the vaults of the German Democratic Republic—was a true solo mission.
Reorienting “Madama Butterfly”
At Detroit Opera, a new production subverts Puccini’s depiction of Japan.
London’s Feisty Music Scene
Classical audiences are rebelling against funding cuts by faux-populist arts leaders.
Lisztomania Enters the Twenty-first Century
Franz Liszt was the demigod of the piano. Today’s musicians find substance behind the spectacle.
Deciphering the Wagner Group’s Love for Wagner
Nazism influenced the mercenary group’s twisted aesthetics, but so did Wagnerian Hollywood spectacle.
Requiem for Mostly Mozart
Does the end of the beloved summer festival signal a rising disdain for classical music at Lincoln Center?
Elemental Opera at Santa Fe
The pioneering summer company presents Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” in the open air, with a bracing orchestration by Nico Muhly.
Apple Again Fails to Save Classical Music
As classical listeners shift to streaming, Apple’s bespoke app falls short of its smaller-scale competitors.
Staging Nuclear Dread in “Oppenheimer” and “Doctor Atomic”
How do you depict an event that has left a psychological scar—in some cases, physical scars—on almost everyone on the planet?
The Love Song of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
San Francisco Opera hosts a haunting new work by Gabriela Lena Frank.
Ernst Jünger’s Narratives of Complicity
A morally compromised writer can project a strange kind of honesty—especially when his society is compromised to the same degree.
What Is Noise?
Sometimes we embrace it, sometimes we hate it—and everything depends on who is making it.
Conductors Had One Job. Now They Have Three or Four
Klaus Mäkelä and the age of the multitasking maestro.
The Escher Quartet and Igor Levit Test Musical Limits
The chamber ensemble played all six of Bartók’s string quartets, and the pianist played devilishly difficult transcriptions of symphonic scores by Mahler and Beethoven.
How Arnold Schoenberg Changed Hollywood
He moved to California during the Nazi era, and his music—which ranged from the lushly melodic to the rigorously atonal—caught the ears of everyone from George Gershwin to James Dean.
The Opera “Chornobyldorf” Channels Ukrainian Rage and Sorrow
The experimental work, recently staged at La Mama, feels eerily resonant in a time of war.
The Sonic Revolutions of George Lewis
As composer, improviser, electronic pioneer, and scholar, Lewis is one of the major musical minds of our time.
Notable Classical Recordings of 2023
I can’t remember a year of so many pleasure-inducing, addiction-triggering albums.
“Maestro” Honors the Chaotic Charisma of Leonard Bernstein
The famed composer-conductor had a dire, sweaty passion for music, and the new bio-pic has a six-minute set piece that strikingly conveys his joy in the power of sound.
What Does California Sound Like?
A dazzling array of new music at the California Festival, spearheaded by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Secrets of the East German Oboe Underground
Oboists rarely strike out on their own. James Austin Smith’s recent program at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust—pieces culled entirely from the vaults of the German Democratic Republic—was a true solo mission.
Reorienting “Madama Butterfly”
At Detroit Opera, a new production subverts Puccini’s depiction of Japan.
London’s Feisty Music Scene
Classical audiences are rebelling against funding cuts by faux-populist arts leaders.
Lisztomania Enters the Twenty-first Century
Franz Liszt was the demigod of the piano. Today’s musicians find substance behind the spectacle.
Deciphering the Wagner Group’s Love for Wagner
Nazism influenced the mercenary group’s twisted aesthetics, but so did Wagnerian Hollywood spectacle.
Requiem for Mostly Mozart
Does the end of the beloved summer festival signal a rising disdain for classical music at Lincoln Center?
Elemental Opera at Santa Fe
The pioneering summer company presents Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” in the open air, with a bracing orchestration by Nico Muhly.
Apple Again Fails to Save Classical Music
As classical listeners shift to streaming, Apple’s bespoke app falls short of its smaller-scale competitors.
Staging Nuclear Dread in “Oppenheimer” and “Doctor Atomic”
How do you depict an event that has left a psychological scar—in some cases, physical scars—on almost everyone on the planet?
The Love Song of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
San Francisco Opera hosts a haunting new work by Gabriela Lena Frank.
Ernst Jünger’s Narratives of Complicity
A morally compromised writer can project a strange kind of honesty—especially when his society is compromised to the same degree.