“….never had I had a piano teacher so demanding and tyrannical” – Leonard Bernstein on Isabelle Vengerova The composer Philip Glass described her as somewhere “between intimidating and terrifying” whose lessons invariably left students “shaken and silent”, while Virgil Thomson

When musicians first encounter a piece of music, they begin by learning the notes and rhythm, perfecting the dynamics, and studying the instructions from the composer. These might be sparse and involve merely tempo indications and subtle markings. What then?

Trio for 2 Violins and Cello in G Minor, Op. 8 – I. Moderato From LIPIŃSKI, K.: Trios for 2 Violins and Cello, Opp. 8 and 12 (2018) Released by Naxos Lipiński: Trio for 2 Violins and Cello in G

The language of music is vast, however, just like the many spoken languages of the world, not all music will speak a dialect you can easily understand. What is in the music that you and I love that speaks so

In Beethoven’s hands the Classical piano sonata reaches its apotheosis. A fine virtuoso pianist himself, he had a lasting influence on the genre, and the design of the piano, and his piano sonatas reveal the demands he placed on pianist

In 1887, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz brought together a number of works for solo piano that he’d written the previous year and created his Suite Española No. 1, Op. 47. The works take the entire country for their inspiration, with

The North German Schubert Carl Loewe (1796–1869) might no longer be a household name. However, in his time, he was a close friend of Schumann, Weber and Mendelssohn. In fact, he conducted the first performance of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream

On April 24 2019, Xavier Bouvier visited Shanghai and made headlines. A professor of composition at the Haute École de Musique de Genève, he donated a sketch to the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He’d purchased the sketch at an auction in