When I was researching this article I thought of titling it, Is Music Supernatural? But I’ve always known inside me that music is mystical; my research just confirmed it. One of the problems in talking about music as being supernatural

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 (Murray Perahia) The notion of the “canon” of classical music developed about 200 years ago, when the patronage of composers and music by the aristocracy lost its stranglehold on what

No — music is not finished, but when you listen to a piece of music, you are hearing the history of music and the people who have lived and created it. The importance of music cannot be overstated. Yehudi Menuhin

Practice and practising is what musicians do. It’s the bulk of their “work” and must be undertaken with an almost clockwork regularity in order to learn new music, hone skills and keep existing repertoire going. The traditional view is of

Politicians in particular talk a lot about the “weight of history” or of feeling “the hand of history on our shoulders”, especially when faced with a serious national crisis or significant policy decision.

Musicians and composers should be good at puzzles, because music is like an enigma.

Music may not be the oldest profession in the world, but it still hasn’t lost its magic. At five I received a fife as a birthday present. I thought it was a flute, it sounded like one. It gave me

“….never had I had a piano teacher so demanding and tyrannical” – Leonard Bernstein on Isabelle Vengerova The composer Philip Glass described her as somewhere “between intimidating and terrifying” whose lessons invariably left students “shaken and silent”, while Virgil Thomson