‘Music Was Meant to Be’ Few cellists can lay claim to the breadth and inventiveness of a career such as Santiago Cañón-Valencia. A self-confessed ‘soloist, composer, commissioner, recording artist, painter and photographer’, his prominence on the traditional concert platform, appearing
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
From his popular Maple Leaf Rag to the two operas “A Guest of Honor” and “Treemonisha”
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- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Alfred Brendel and Imogen Cooper
Demonic Intensity Imogen Cooper gives her memories of the demanding master of piano. - On This Day
27 November: Hilary Hahn Was Born Hahn’s musical journey with Klara Berkovich and Jascha Brodsky - Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre
A Divided Life They met at a party and were engaged a few months later... - On This Day
27 November: Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra Was Premiered Strauss’ tone poem that was “freely based on Friedrich Nietzsche” -
Classical Music Beyond the Concert Stage: Ten Classical Pieces Used in Commercials How did various businesses use classical music in advertisement?
- Good riddance 2020, Hello 2021
The Many Versions of “Auld Lang Syne” Which version do you like best?
COMPOSERS
“In Silence, we can truly hear the voice of God” Ten years ago, on 12 November 2013, the British composer John Tavener (1944-2013) died at his home in Child Okeford, Dorset. Tavener had been battling considerable health problems throughout his
MUSIC AND ARTS
Benet Casablancas: Four Darks in Red, After Rothko Although normally on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Mark Rothko’s 1958 Four Darks in Red was on loan to the Tate Modern in London when Catalan
MUSIC OF THE WEEK

The work is a gem of not only Brahms’ humour but also of his consummate skill as a composer. On the surface, the drinking songs come to the fore, but it’s what’s under them that shows Brahms’ work: clever countermelodies, orchestration that both underscores the humour and creates the academic quality of the work, and the use of orchestral colour.
PLAYLIST
We have musically explored the Old Testament, the original Hebrew Bible, and the sacred scriptures of the Jewish faith. The second section of the Bible is the New Testament, written by Christians in the first century AD. It is a