There’s a special poignancy to Schumann’s Geistervariationen (“Ghost Variations”). Dedicated to his beloved wife Clara, they were written just a few weeks before he was committed to a lunatic asylum at Endenich, and were the last piece of music he

It was on a day in April—it was actually the 17th of April—when someone told me that Jörg Demus had passed away. In the Internet era, news spreads like wildfire. But the source of all this commotion came from Wikipedia,

‘From the outset all manner of unacceptable behaviour, whether manifesting itself emotionally in false rapture or facial grimace, the stamping of feet to mark the rhythm, accompanied by an all-embracing unsightly body movement, the shaking and nodding of the head

Some consider him one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II, while others declare him to be “preposterously over-rated.” Whatever the case may be, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) was a leading member of

People are exquisitely attuned to sound from our very beginnings, through our mother’s soft cooing voice, which leads to language. Music has had a special place in the hearts and minds of virtually all cultures across time. The discovery of

Are you threatened by the music you like? We’ve seen it all too often, a composer or popular musician is found out to have a dark side. Does this change how much their music once meant to you? For most

Liszt’s B-minor piano sonata is regarded by many as his ultimate masterpiece and it ranks alongside other “greats” in the pantheon of piano repertoire. This was not always the case, however, and in the nineteenth century it was met with

Nikhil Sardana explores the strangely uncelebrated story of an Indian maharaja’s invaluable contribution to Western classical music. The year was 1948. Europe was limping back to normalcy after seven terrible years of a world war. Richard Strauss had managed to