Johann Sebastian Bach was a ferocious musical cannibal! He habitually borrowed from himself and others in order to adapt a composition to a particular performing venue or occasion. In 1729 he was appointed director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.

Sergei Taneyev: Not the wind from on high From In this moonlit night – Lieder by Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky & Taneyev (2013) Released by Ondine Sergei Taneyev: Not the wind from on highThis second release of star baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky for

I often think that doing interview has a therapeutic effect on me; meeting great and kind artists remind me of the goodness in life. Talking to the German violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann was one of those moments. Zimmermann is gentle,

It’s getting chillier, the morning air is brisk, there might even be snow, and with that, our thoughts turn toward the holidays. But we find that the thing that helps us with that holiday feeling is the sound of the

The art of the transcription has been with us for centuries, coming into play whenever someone tried to play a work written for one instrument on another. We were listening, the other day, to a recording of J.S. Bach transcribed

Mommy’s little Darling It’s not easy being the son or daughter of the richest person in the whole wide word! Just ask Kate Cole, daughter of James Omar Cole, at his time, the richest man in the US state of

Have you had the horrible feeling when you’re playing a concert—“CRAP—I don’t know what comes next?” It’s demoralizing and embarrassing. A memory slip can destroy your confidence. Memorization is one of the biggest challenges for a musician—often causing panic, sweaty

In my last two Interlude articles we followed the development towards abstraction in art and music in Germany and France, but interestingly, it was artists in Russia who led the movement towards total abstraction. There was of course a constant