Alex Cobbe’s piano collection at Hatchlands Park has one massive square piano that was immensely practical to its two composer owners. How do composers compose? We’re familiar with the images from movies, the composer with one hand on the keyboard

“Jan Ladislav Dussek and Sophia Giustina Corri” As soon as the pianist and composer Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) left his native Bohemia for Paris, his fortunes increased manifold. He performed for Marie Antoinette and was a regular guest at the

The Mozarteum University, nestled in the Austrian town of Salzburg, forms an inseparable part of the musical fabric of this artistically and historically rich town. Thomas Manhart from the Mozarteum’s press office tells me how the School that dates back

The Alex Cobbe Collection of composer’s pianos is a collection that can give us a feeling for how pianos developed, often in response to the demands of composers. The square piano, called that despite the fact that they’re actually rectangles,

For Erik Satie, dance, theatre and cabaret music run as virtually continuous threads throughout his life. And every single composition adheres to the virtues of his musical craft; simplicity, brevity and precision. Many of Satie’s early compositional efforts rely on

“I thought if I could play my own work, nobody would know if I played the wrong notes or wrong rhythms.” This was what composer and pianist A-Mao Wang thought, when at the age of 10, her father asked her

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the undisputed pop star of the 18th century! Numerous composers and musicians arranged his music, and profited handsomely from this indirect association with a superstar. But Mozart himself was also a rather active arranger of works

Hamburg, a Hanseatic city of 1.8 million inhabitants, previously a free city-state. It is part of the Hanseatic chain of ports, sitting on the Baltic Sea. (along with Lübeck, Antwerp, Bergen, Novgorod and London by extension)