Gustav Mahler: Symphony 1, “Feierlich and gemessen” When Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) took up his conducting appointment in the city of Olmütz, located in the Moravian region of the Czech lands, everybody thought he was a rather odd duck. According to

‘If one day my passion for music fades, I would have done something else!’ the French pianist Cédric Tiberghien told me a few years ago when we first met in a practice room in Hong Kong. Time flies, but the

An intelligent violinist Beethoven Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24, “Spring” With Cédric Tiberghien Bach Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060 With Alexei Ogrintchouk and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra Once shared the stage

When Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) died at the incredibly young age of thirty-eight, he simply had not yet made arrangements for literally hundreds of unpublished musical manuscripts and artworks, alongside thousands of personal letters to and from the composer. During his

Are you a Facebook addict? I admit it. I am. Many of my friends are musicians, of course. Recently, I noticed that one of my friends has a “friend” who began posting some of the most amazing archival photos I’d

According to the apostle Luke, when the angels announced the birth of Christ to the Shepherds, they sang a hymn beginning with the words “Gloria in excelsis Deo” (Glory to God in the highest.) In time, additional verses were added

‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture’. These were the words of Miles Davis. Or was it Elvis Costello? Perhaps it was Thelonius Monk… Or Frank Zappa? Regardless of who said these words (maybe they all uttered it at

During a 1928 lecture for choral conductors in Berlin, Paul Hindemith addressed the widening gap between contemporary composers — and here he particularly emphasized Arnold Schoenberg — and the general musical public. “The tenuous connection in music today between producers