Despite the retreat from faith, many modern composers are inspired by true spirituality

The essays of Ferdinand Mount offer a conflicted but compelling account of national identity

Isaiah Berlin’s intellectual heirs are vital voices in an era that challenges liberal assumptions

All Edgar Speyer’s good works could not save him amid the hysteria of the First World War

Cocteau’s poetic protégé was a louche literary wunderkind the world lost too soon

Berlin’s vast correspondence is a true monument to European, Jewish and liberal civilisation

"English writers have fallen out of love with marriage, and I shared their scepticism — until now."

The letters of the great writer reveal affairs with both sexes but also an intense intellectual and spiritual life

Beethoven set the bar impossibly high but composers like myself still regard it as the ultimate challenge

Leonardo is seen as the presiding genius of his age, but his drawings reveal a reassuringly human artist