Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia (1885-1950) best-known for an iconic painting by Augustus John —a chestnut, luminescent cello, a beautiful woman in a dazzling, red gown, bow-arm outstretched, head upturned—was one of the first professional female solo cellists. The mystique surrounding

Before the age of recording, devotion to music was a full-time commitment. Composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875) would say: “Ah, Music! What a beautiful art – but what a wretched profession!”

The musical Fantasy (or Fantasia or Fantasie) has its roots in improvisation and rarely follows a strict musical structure (such as Sonata or Ternary form). In this respect the Fantasy is related to the Impromptu. The term was first applied

In 2015, a student coming up to her A-level exams looked at the composers assigned for the music syllabus. 63 composers and all male. Jessy McCabe brought this to the attention of the Edexcel program and a month later, Ms.

[Opera is] more than entertainment. Opera offers an insight into the complexities of the human psyche – it is a metaphor for, or an exposition, even, of our own personal dreams and nightmares… – Kevin Volans, composer Last week my

If you listen to the distinguished Italian cellist Antonio Janigro, and his pure, resonant sound in the Bach Suites, you’ll encounter a master of depth and perception. Such beautiful playing. One of the great artists of the twentieth century, cellist,

They all die at the end, those poor opera women. Madama Butterfly kills herself, Tosca dies off the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo, and Carmen has a face-off with her former soldier lover.

“What do you actually do?” and “What is your day job?” are all-too familiar questions to musicians. People are also endlessly fascinated about practising – “so how much practising do you actually do?” – and imagine we spend most of