The psychological and emotional reasons why musicians perform and why we feel a need to connect and communicate with audiences is a broad and complex subject. For many musicians, performing is their raison d’être – the need, the will to

What do you get if one of classical music’s most beloved performers teams up with one of today’s most popular composers? It really is a no brainer, as Azul (the title means blue in Spanish) combines the collective imagination of

Rossini’s last opera, the four-act Guillaume Tell, with a composite French libretto based on Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell, was produced at the Paris Opéra on 3 August 1829. However, within three performances the opera’s length of roughly four hours and

Say “Glenn Gould”, and most people will respond with “Bach”, such is the late great Canadian pianist’s special relationship with the music of J S Bach, and specifically the Goldberg Variations, which Gould recorded at the beginning and the end

When playing in an ensemble, are you in a world of your own or do you create strong perceptive links with your fellow players? It is this world of the imperceptible that Professor Peter Keller of the Western Sydney University

For a great many people, the car is a fantastic place to enjoy music. And predictably this pleasure manifests itself in a variety of musical and cultural practices. It ranges from background eavesdropping during a long commute to turning vehicles

I’m very fortunate, living in London, to have access to a wealth of live classical music, and I could be at a concert every night of the week if I wished. I am also lucky enough to be able to

The “Grande Symphonie funèbre et triomphale,” to use its full title, was Hector Berlioz’s fourth and last symphony. Commissioned by the Minister of the Interior for the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the three-day revolution of July 1830, the