A small number of pianists have died onstage or collapsed at the keyboard, never to recover. These are not myths or rumours but documented historical events, witnessed by audiences and reported in the press. Here are the stories of five

Don Campbell, a music critic and former student of Nadia Boulanger, writes, “To measure the potency of Nadia Boulanger’s influence is impossible. As a tree is rooted firmly to the earth, she was rooted in the history and grammar of

Clara Schumann’s students came from across Europe and went on to careers that stretched into the second half of the twentieth century. In the first part of our series on Clara Schumann’s students, we met four women who studied with

The Margravial Opera House (Markgräfliches Opernhaus) in the Franconian town of Bayreuth, Germany, stands as one of the world’s most complete and magnificent surviving court theatres from the Baroque era. Recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in 2012,

One of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, Bruno Walter [Schlesinger] detested routine performances and always strove to present a work as if it were receiving its world premiere. He held major positions in Europe and the United States,

Clara Schumann is remembered today as one of the greatest pianists of the nineteenth century – but her influence didn’t end with her own performances. Over the course of her career, she taught hundreds of students, shaping the next generation

The piano as we know it today, an 88-key behemoth in black, is the result of innovation upon innovation since the first invention of the ‘fortepiano’ by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1700. The fortepiano (meaning ‘loud soft’) was the next development

In our previous episode on forgotten Romantic piano concertos, we discovered unexpected and wonderful music by Berwald, Rimsky-Korsakov, Chaminade, Moszkowski and Paderewski. These much-neglected nineteenth- and early twentieth-century piano concertos and concertante works have been brought to light in 87