Blogs

archive-post-image
Baldassare Galuppi at the Keyboard
Conversation in Every Key
If Italian Baroque music had a gift for conversation, Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785) would be one of its most charming talkers. He is often remembered today as an opera composer, but that misses out on something intimate and quietly revolutionary. And
Read more
archive-post-image
Ten of the Oldest Classical Music Recordings of All Time, From 1888 On
Today, we’re going back in time to hear ten of the earliest and oldest classical music recordings of all time. Long before streaming services, records, or radio, engineers were experimenting with ways to preserve sound on fragile wax cylinders. The
Read more
archive-post-image
Can You Hear Me?
Thomas Hewitt Jones’ anthem of kindness and connection still resonates six years after lockdown. Originally composed during the UK Covid lockdown in 2020, Can You Hear Me? by award-winning British composer Thomas Hewitt Jones still has the power to resonate
Read more
archive-post-image
Four Love-Hate Relationships Between Composers and Critics
Throughout music history, music critics have often elevated (or eviscerated) a composer’s reputation. Sometimes critics and composers have found themselves in public feuds. Other times, the composer and critic in question became unlikely friends. Today, we’re looking at four of
Read more
archive-post-image
Celebrating 100 Years of the Royal School of Church Music
Join the celebrations with Songs of the Spirit
As the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) prepares to celebrate its centenary in 2027, a major new musical milestone is on the horizon – a significant new choral commission, Songs of the Spirit, written by the award-winning and newly-awarded
Read more
archive-post-image
How Klaus Mäkelä’s Teacher Jorma Panula Created a Conducting Dynasty
Few teachers have had as profound an influence on modern conducting as Finnish conductor and pedagogue Jorma Panula. Born in 1930 in Kauhajoki, Finland, Panula studied music and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He served as the music
Read more
archive-post-image
Gregor Joseph Werner: The Composer Colleague Who Hated Haydn
Joseph Haydn earned his nickname “Father of the Symphony” while working as the Kapellmeister in the Esterházy household, where he worked for decades, overseeing the court orchestra. However, when Haydn first joined that household at the age of twenty-nine, he
Read more
archive-post-image
The Four Teachers Who Shaped Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven is often remembered as a solitary genius: a composer who wrestled with fate, revolutionised music, and struggled through tinnitus, deafness, and depression to create some of the most influential works in the Western canon. But Beethoven didn’t
Read more