The problem for Liszt was how to expand the orchestral genre into something less confining than the symphony – 4 movements, alternating slow and fast, contrasting triple section. Sigh. It’s all so old. Ok, we have the concert overture, but

The longer I live, and the more music I hear, I become further convinced that the string quartet offers the greatest musical experience. This year, I have been lucky enough to see and hear perhaps the best two string quartets

Classical Music is obsessed with greatness, especially amongst critics, audiences, and pedagogues who constantly seek to define “greatness” in musicians and composers, and there are innumerable lists, rankings and recordings of great composers and artists, concertos, symphonies et al. Schumann:

On 14 March 1928 a concert honoring Manuel de Falla’s admittance to the French Légion d’Honneur took place in Paris. Falla insisted that music by some of his young Spanish colleagues should be heard as well, and Joaquin Rodrigo stole

French director Benoît Jacquot’s production (Revival Director Andrew Sinclair) dates back to 2004, and has had at least two revivals at the Royal Opera House. It remains as insipid and drab as at its first showing and it is hard

In the path of Ives, Johns and Kaftka, I alternate my life between music and hospitality; prevention being better than cure. I decided a couple of years ago to pick-up a day job and start a parallel career in hospitality—allowing

The classicist painter Anselm Feuerbach was one of the artists who formed a close friendship with Brahms, and who was often compared to him. He sought in his art to both follow a stringent aesthetic and a Classical restraint, while

Too often it seems that we view learning, studying, practising and performing music as a kind of fight. People talk about “doing battle with Beethoven” or “fighting the fear” (of performing) as if one must take up arms against unseen,