The concert hall is like the theatre, and the performer the actor on the stage. And for the audience, a concert is both a visual and aural experience – we “listen” with eyes as well as ears. Today audiences are

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes brought music, art, and dance into the 20th century. Eschewing the traditional, Diaghilev worked with the leading artists in all fields to bring a new life to a fairly moribund art form.

In 2016 we remember the 150th anniversary of the passing of Johann Baptist Wenzel Kalliwoda. Remember might be a somewhat misleading word, as the 20th century never managed to acknowledge his contributions to music. Interest in the composer was reawakened

18 Danses No. 18. Cotillon in A – Flat Major From Szymanowska: Dances for Solo Piano (2015) Released by Grand Piano Szymanowska: 18 Danses – No. 18. Cotillon in A – Flat MajorDisplaying exceptional musical precocity, the young pianist Maria

You might never have heard of the composer Léo Delibes, but I bet you are familiar with at least one of his tunes. I am, of course, talking of the “Flower Duet” from his opera Lakmé. The opera has barely

Let’s dance! The reputation of Léo Delibes (1836-1891) rests almost exclusively with his two 90-minute ballet scores Coppélia and Sylvia. For the first time in the history of music, Delibes had crafted ballet scores of symphonic proportions. Full of memorable

Dictatorial societies are notorious for fostering environments of suspicion and fear. It is always chilling to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s three-volume narrative The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn relied on eyewitness testimony and primary research as well as his own experiences as a

Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) was never particularly interested in making friends! Rather, he became thoroughly absorbed in a mission to write music worthy of his time, and to fight cynicism and indifference wherever he found them. That he mercilessly dismantled the