Yo-yo Ma, cello Emanuel Ax, piano Richard Strauss: Cello Sonata in F Major, Op. 6, TrV 115 Richard Strauss was controversial as a person and as a composer, despite being one of the more prominent composers of the 20th Century.

Slowly, behind the heroine, the shadow rises….the audience shrinks back in their cinema seats, helped with a hearty push from the music, generally starting in the cellos, which signal the terror that awaits. Then the violins take over, strident in

In the fifteenth century, when manuscript book production really took off, the problem of blank space in the margins had some unique solutions. When these were music books, even the initial letters of songs were decorated.

The image of Jesus on the cross has inspired artists of many kinds for centuries. There are of course many striking paintings of the scene by artists from Veláquez’s Cristo crucificado to Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the

Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen was first produced at the Vienna Opera on 23 October 1875, with an extremely curious Johannes Brahms in the audience. Brahms had been aware of the scandalous Parisian premiere, summarized by a local critic. “Mr. Bizet

We’ve looked at English ceremonial music – now let’s cross La Manche and look at French music of the same kind. A king such as King Louis XIV and centrality of the court at Versailles meant that there was the

The Sydney Opera House is easily one of the most iconic and readily recognized performing arts centers in the world. Of course it’s not really a single venue, but a building complex that houses multiple performance spaces. It plays host

Amidst much doom and gloom, the UK’s opera scene has quietly flourished into perhaps the country’s most diverse and creative arts sector. As well as regular performances from the Royal Opera House (now offering cheaper seats than ever before), English