Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Classical music
by Richard Fairman
At Large: Behind the Camera with Brian Large by Brian Large and Jane Scovell (Verlag für moderne Kunst)
Few memoirs from a life in music are as entertaining as this one. Across a long career behind the camera making live broadcasts of concerts and operas, Brian Large has worked with everybody from Benjamin Britten to Luciano Pavarotti. If you want to know which soprano bit a famous tenor on stage, read on.
Gustav Mahler: Critical Lives by Stephen Downes (Reaktion Books)
There are many biographies of Gustav Mahler, but Downes has a magpie eye that takes in much background material and a wealth of contrasting opinions, both contemporary and modern. Summarised as “short stories from [a] multi-stranded life”, his book is a readable digest of a complex life.
Myra Hess: National Treasure by Jessica Duchen (Kahn & Averill)
After bombs fell on the National Gallery’s lunchtime concerts during the Blitz, the redoubtable Myra Hess traded oranges for repairs. With obvious affection Duchen paints a rounded portrait of this much-loved and determined pianist, who instigated the famed wartime series at the National Gallery.
Summer Books 2025
All this week, FT writers and critics share their favourites. Some highlights are:
Monday: Business by Andrew Hill
Tuesday: Environment by Pilita Clark
Wednesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Thursday: Fiction by Maria Crawford
Friday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Saturday: Critics’ picks
Pop Music
by Ludovic Hunter-Tilney
Heartbreaker: A Memoir by Mike Campbell, with Ari Surdoval (Constable/Grand Central Publishing)
Campbell is one of rock’s sidekicks, as lead guitarist in Tom Petty’s band The Heartbreakers for more than 40 years. His likeable memoir resembles his guitar-playing, full of character but not self-aggrandising, with neat riffs such as Stevie Nicks resembling “a California Botticelli, like Venus on a coke spoon”.
Maybe I’m Amazed: A Story of Love and Connection in Ten Songs by John Harris (John Murray)
Music’s ability to touch a secret chord within us as well as the not-so-secret ones of singalongs and public ceremonies makes it both mysterious and familiar. This strange power is illustrated by Harris’s captivating account of his autistic son’s self-fashioning zeal for Kraftwerk and Beatles songs.
John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie (Faber and Faber/Celadon Books)
“We decided we’d just keep to two of us,” Paul McCartney said of the start of his songwriting partnership with John Lennon. Leslie’s John and Paul insightfully depicts their relationship as a “volatile, conflicted, madly creative quasi-marriage” in which the stereotypes of safe Paul and rebellious John dissolve.
Men of a Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty by Kate Mossman (Nine Eight Books)
The subjects of Mossman’s book are male, mostly pale and, in career terms, somewhat stale. They’re older musicians whom a fascinated Mossman has interviewed as a music journalist, among them members of Queen, her teenage obsession; Kevin Ayers, an alcoholic shipwreck; and Depeche Mode’s reformed hedonist Dave Gahan.
Tell us what you think
Will you be taking any of these books on your summer holiday this year? Which ones? And what titles have we missed? Let us know in the comments below
Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café
