Pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin wrote four Ballades for solo piano: Ballade No. 1 in G-minor, Op. 23 (written in 1835, when he was twenty-five) Ballade No. 2 in F-major, Op. 38 (written between 1836-39, when he was in his

Etelka Freund is a singular figure in classical music history. As a talented teenager, she befriended and bewitched Brahms. She became Busoni’s best student. Her brother studied with Liszt, then taught her. Then, as a young woman, she befriended up-and-coming

She may be obscure today, but Eunice Norton was one of the most fascinating pianists of the 1920s and 1930s: a woman who came from the American Midwest, who made an innovative and international career for herself. Today, we’re looking

Johannes Brahms had famously difficult romantic relationships with women. He had a penchant for idealising women, as well as sabotaging his romantic relationships with them once he got close to proposing. In the first part of this article, we met

For generations after the invention of the instruments, the violin was widely considered to be a masculine instrument. Despite this, from the eighteenth century on, women have flocked to this instrument and succeeded at the highest levels. Today, we’re looking

Louise Farrenc is one of the most unjustly neglected composers of her generation. But despite the challenges of working as a woman musician in the nineteenth century, she carved out an extraordinary multi-pronged career for herself as a professor, performer,

Romantic Era composers had a unique relationship with Ludwig van Beethoven. The man and his music cast a massive shadow over the nineteenth century, especially when it came to orchestral music. The Beethoven works that loomed the largest were his

On the occasion of John Rutter’s 80th birthday on 24 September 2025, choral communities across the globe join in a formal celebration of his extraordinary contributions to the world of music. His compositions have enriched the repertoire of choirs worldwide,