Beethoven‘s symphonies – and recordings of his symphonies – are ubiquitous in the classical music world, so of course many musicians and music lovers have made lists of their favourites. Have you ever wondered if there’s a slightly more objective

As soon as Richard Wagner had put the finishing touches on Lohengrin on 28 April 1848, he became embroiled in the stirrings of the 1848 Revolutions. He delivered a fiery speech, denouncing the evils of money and speculation, which he

Today, Sara Itzig Levy is probably best known as the great-aunt of Felix Mendelssohn. However, she was so much more than that. She was also one of the brightest lights of Berlin salon culture, a patron of some of the

I. A Peasant’s Ambition in the Eternal City When Antonio Vivaldi arrived in Rome for the 1724 Carnival season, he was a composer determined to conquer the prestigious and notoriously fickle Roman opera market. His weapon of choice was Il

Heinz Holliger, born on 21 May 1939 in Langenthal, in the canton of Berne, is one of the most versatile musical personalities of our time. A conductor, composer, oboist, and pianist, Holliger has never stopped searching for the limits of

In Frankfurt, Grigory Sokolov’s Schubert D960 did not sound like a work looking back. It sounded like a work leaving. That distinction matters. Many performances of Schubert’s last B-flat major sonata are shaped by memory: they invite the listener into

It is never easy to be the child of a great composer. Many children wilt under the pressure of being related to a genius: look at what happened to Mozart‘s failed composer son, Franz Xaver, or Robert and Clara Schumann‘s

When the poet Friedrich Rückert wrote his Liebesfrühling (Love’s Springtime) in 1821, he was courting his future wife, Luise Wiethaus-Fischer. This complete collection of four hundred poems was first published in 1834, and from this most successful cycle of love