The St. Thomas Choir is an internationally renowned boys choir from Leipzig in Germany. Singing in the choir is a selfless pursuit requiring artistry and discipline. Or is it? New research suggests all it takes to elicit surreptitious attention-seeking vocal

Reporting from a scientific exhibition in Paris, a musical journal in 1824 wrote, “the astonishment of the hearers was at its height when, after having executed a march with variations by Moscheles, the instrument was left to follow its own

Please don’t shoot at the pianist; he’s doing his best(attributed to Oscar Wilde) I sometimes get the feeling people think musicians are invincible… We engage in a highly complex, technical and artistic activity which requires huge physical and mental agility

Like the German school of cello playing, the French School had a centuries-long impact, which continues today. When we think of French playing, refinement, finesse, and elegance come to mind, but during the 18th Century in Northern Europe the cello

Franz Schreker (1878-1934) is largely forgotten today, but in his time he was Richard Strauss’ main rival for the title of Germany’s leading composer of opera. Schreker wrote complex harmonic scores using advanced chromatic harmonies and large orchestras, yet his

In the nineteenth century Franz Liszt probably did more than any other composer for the genre of the piano transcription. His transcriptions and paraphrases made an important contribution to the development of piano music, with their technical challenges, innovative notation,

Every summer a rather special piano festival takes place at Schloss vor Husum in the remote North German seaside town of Husum in Schleswig-Holstein. It is not a festival which parades its star performers. Rather, its very remoteness and its

Last time, I introduced you to the Columbia Music Typewriter. And rightfully, you must have thought that it really doesn’t look anything like a conventional typewriter or a machine operated via a keyboard. And it certainly looked rather cumbersome to