In the month before his friend Ferdinand Walcher quit Vienna for a posting in Venice, Schubert had been a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral. The death of his greatest inspiration, whom he had only been able to meet days before Beethoven’s

Please let me introduce you to probably the most horrendous musical torture device ever invented. It might reasonably have been used to extract confessions during the Spanish Inquisition, but in reality, it was a patented apparatus that was to increase

Music for children has inspired composers from J S Bach to the present day. Bach’s Twelve Little Preludes were included in Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s Klavierbüchlein, a collection of short pieces for one of Bach’s sons, and intended to help the

“Five Lines, Four Spaces” As a composer and teacher George Rochberg (1918-2005) strongly believed that “music should express the passions of the human heart.” A robust proponent of serial techniques in the mid-1960s, Rochberg eventually sought new expressions by returning

Berlin to Stuttgart I speak to young German conductor Thomas Guggeis on the eve of his first day as First Kappellmeister at Staatsoper Stuttgart. He is in Berlin for some concerts before moving to Stuttgart, having recently finished studying in

Say what you want, but Johann Sebastian Bach certainly knew a good tune when he heard one! And he certainly was not shy reusing his own tunes when time was of the essence. Bach took up the position of Thomaskantor,

In a number of recent publications, musicologists Luca Bianchini and Anna Trombetta have investigated the countless myths and legends that elevated Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart into a singular musical genius. Attempting to set the record straight, the first part of our

If you hope to have a career in music sooner or later you’ll have to participate in some sort of competition. Although they can be life-changing for a young person’s career, the preparation is arduous, and an audition or contest