The oldest wind instrument is also the world’s most universal. A special exhibition at the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Phoenix, Arizona—The Magical Flute: Beauty, Enchantment and Power—traces the flute‘s extraordinary role in society and its evolution over the millennia.

The year 2026 marks both the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich‘s birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the British composer Benjamin Britten. Today, the two composers, who lived on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, are not

Some years in classical music history are transitional, but 1826 was seismic. In a single twelve-month span two hundred years ago, the final pillars of the Classical era were falling, while the Romantic era was being built up by a

Few composers loom larger in Western music history than Johann Sebastian Bach – and few are surrounded by as many myths. Over the centuries, Bach has been described as everything from a neglected genius labouring in obscurity to a joyless

In 1960, Columbia Pictures released the romantic biopic Song Without End, tracing the love affair between pianist/composer Franz Liszt and the married Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. One would assume that this real-life story of forbidden love would make a great

This article is a continuation of Episode 1 | The Venice of the North: A Republic’s Musical Startup, Episode 2 | The Business Animal of Opera House: Reinhard Keiser’s Baroque Empire and Episode 3 | The Baroque Silicon Valley: Christoph

So, you want to try to learn how to play the cello? You wouldn’t be alone. Audiences love the cello. Its golden tones are the closest sounds to the human voice, and whenever there is a romantic or heartbreaking scene

Classical music has never been as conservative as its stereotypes suggest. Long before experimental music became a genre, composers were already employing unexpected objects on the concert stage: tools, machines, noisemakers, and more. Here are some of the strangest instruments