Anna Amalia (1723-1787) of Prussia was the younger sister of Frederick II of Prussia. Eleven years younger, she benefitted from the new musical focus he brought to the court. Anna Amalia played the harpsichord, flute, and violin, with her first

On the occasion of his 70th birthday, Leoš Janáček received his first honorary doctorate from the Masaryk University in Brno. The composer was predictably proud and signed his correspondence and all his compositions as “Dr. Ph. Leoš Janáček” thereafter. It

“This album […] is a true delight and has much to savour.” Having recorded the last three piano concertos by Saint-Saëns with great acclaim, Alexandre Kantorow, the winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, went on to record not only

For this month, I would like to shift your focus towards one of the unsung heroes of music making that are vital in concerts — collaborative pianists. As a Boston-based professional collaborative pianist, Leona Cheung is an acclaimed musician who

Alexander Glazunov, born on 10 August 1865 in St Petersburg, was a musical prodigy. His father Alexander was in the publishing business, and his mother Yelena, née Gromova, was a professional pianist. From his earliest years, Glazunov was blessed with

We’re so used to the piano being a large black hole in the middle of the living room, or, perhaps, a smaller black hole on the side of the living room, as an upright piano placed against the wall. In

Put Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe or La Valse, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, or Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances—or pretty much anything by Prokofiev or Mahler—in front of me and I’ll play them happily over and over, and I have. But dear readers

Adolf von Henselt (1814-1889) was one of a number of exceptional pianists who all were born in the second decade of 19th century: Chopin (1810-1849), Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Clara Schumann (1819-1896), Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871), Franz Liszt (1811-1886). A classical child