Chances are, if you’ve ever watched classical pianists on YouTube, you’ve probably seen a performance by Valentina Lisitsa. She has become one of the most frequently watched pianists on YouTube, building her audience over nearly twenty years, one view at

As we noted in part 1 of our overview of the best memoirs of the great composers, music isn’t the only kind of creative work that composers can make. Many have written autobiographies or memoirs, or sat for interviews that

When it comes to quirky holidays on the calendar, Love Note Day on September 26 deserves a standing ovation. It’s a charming little holiday dedicated to the art of expressing affection through the written word. In a world dominated by

When Frédéric Chopin died in 1849 at the age of thirty-nine, it was a major blow to the musical world. His colleague and contemporary, Franz Liszt, was especially shaken. To process the loss, Liszt began writing a tribute to his

Béla Bartók, the Hungarian genius of 20th-century music, often gets a bad rap. His compositions, with their bold harmonies and wild rhythms, can feel like a leap into the unknown for listeners used to the cosy melodies of Mozart or

The love story between Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck is surely the best-known love story in classical music history. According to legend, the young composer and the young pianist fell in love, but her cruel father kept the lovers apart,

As the calendar turns to September 25, kitchens across the land hum with the chaotic symphony of National Cooking Day. It’s a day when amateur chefs, wannabe gourmets, and people who can barely boil water unite in a culinary free-for-all.

In the heart of Dijon, France, on 25 September 1683, a boy named Jean-Philippe Rameau was born into a world that was not yet ready for the revolutionary sounds he would one day unleash. The son of a local organist,