It’s always thrilling to hear a great composer interpret their own music. During the twentieth century, a number of great composers recorded performances of their own works. These recordings reveal their approaches to phrasing, tempo, and colour that simply can’t

For Christmas dinner, the centrepiece of countless dining tables is the unmistakable turkey. Big, golden, and proudly perched on a platter surrounded by sides, this bird is a symbol, a tradition, and for many, the ultimate test of culinary skill.

Frances Nash Watson was a forgotten twentieth-century pianist who suffered unfathomable loss, proved to the world that a wealthy heiress could become a great artist, played chamber music with Einstein, and was so magnetic that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt rescheduled

The story of a pianist often begins not with public triumphs but with quiet rooms, patient teachers, and a town that offers neither glamour nor pressure. Jakub Kuszlik, who celebrates his birthday on 23 December, emerged from such a landscape.

Few contemporary pianists divide opinion quite as sharply as Khatia Buniatishvili. To her admirers, she is a magnetic, instinctive musician whose playing can ignite a hall with its emotional immediacy and fearless colour. To her detractors, she is the product

As December assumes its full hegemony and all the familiar thoughts of Christmas come swirling in, a highlight of my days has been an activity that feels like a kind of daily Christmas present to myself: learning the cello. I

In terms of piano music, Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann dominate Romanticism with grand narratives. These marvellous composers have long shaped both concert life and listening habits. Yet, there is an entire chorus of quieter figures that worked in the margins.

Why do some of the world’s greatest composers stop writing music long before their deaths? In the popular imagination, composers write until their dying breath. Everyone who has seen the movie Amadeus remembers the scene where Mozart is on his