J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould) Piano a large keyboard musical instrument with a wooden case enclosing a soundboard and metal strings, which are struck by hammers when the keys are depressed The pianist Ivo Pogorelich is right: the piano

The expression “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” does a great disservice to teachers everywhere. In the sphere of music, teaching is often regarded as a “second best” option for those who have trained as performers, yet for

You might think that this is a crazy question. To quote Wikipedia, Hip Hop is a “stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted”. That doesn’t sound like classical music does it? Of

Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit (Ivo Pogorelich) I will never forget the first time I heard Croatian concert pianist Ivo Pogorelich live in concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The concert, in 2015, had been heavily trailed, hinting that this

The longer I live, and the more music I hear, I become further convinced that the string quartet offers the greatest musical experience. This year, I have been lucky enough to see and hear perhaps the best two string quartets

Classical Music is obsessed with greatness, especially amongst critics, audiences, and pedagogues who constantly seek to define “greatness” in musicians and composers, and there are innumerable lists, rankings and recordings of great composers and artists, concertos, symphonies et al. Schumann:

In the path of Ives, Johns and Kaftka, I alternate my life between music and hospitality; prevention being better than cure. I decided a couple of years ago to pick-up a day job and start a parallel career in hospitality—allowing

Too often it seems that we view learning, studying, practising and performing music as a kind of fight. People talk about “doing battle with Beethoven” or “fighting the fear” (of performing) as if one must take up arms against unseen,