Quite simply glorious music - and what is wrong with that?

Classical music in the UK has become a silly and dangerous boxing match. In one corner are the virtue signallers who advocate any music which ticks the right boxes, irrespective of its merit. In the other corner is the growing anti-woke movement feeding off the click-bait power of alt-rightism. And enthusiastic support for this unseemly struggle comes from the blame-everything-on-Brexit claque. I was reminded of how this leaves much glorious and moving music relegated to the sidelines when listening last night to Nikolaus Harnoncourt's recording of Bach's Motets BWV 225-230 with his Concentus musicus Wien and the Stockholm Bach Choir. All the emotional power of the Passion's is contained in these relatively brief and overlooked masterworks. Great music like this can speak so eloquently when it is not drowned out by the unhelpful outpourings of our cultural commentators. 

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