Explore

archive-post-image
Joep Beving
Music at the Threshold
“Piano Day” is a vibrant celebration of the piano and its boundless possibilities, founded in 2015 by German pianist, composer, and producer Nils Frahm. Held on the 88th day of the year, this date symbolically reflects the 88 keys of
Read more
archive-post-image
The 20 Most Beautiful Violin Pieces Ever Written
The violin has a way of reaching people who don’t consider themselves classical music listeners. Something about the sound – its closeness to the human voice, its capacity for both ache and joy – cuts through in a way that
Read more
archive-post-image
Difficult Trombone Positions
Credit: NPR Classical on Facebook
Read more
archive-post-image
10 Classical Pieces to Listen to When You’re Anxious or Overwhelmed
Some works of classical music seem almost designed to calm the human nervous system. Across centuries of repertoire, listeners have returned to certain pieces again and again during anxious, reflective, or grief-filled moments – music that slows the heart rate,
Read more
archive-post-image
The Most Hauntingly Slow Pieces in Classical Music
Slow-tempoed classical music can reshape how listeners experience time – stretching it, suspending it, or even making it disappear altogether. Today, we’re going to look at some of the slowest pieces in classical music. The works below aren’t ranked by
Read more
archive-post-image
Obscure Classical Instruments: Test Your Knowledge
Read more
archive-post-image
The Most Emotional Music Brahms Ever Wrote
Johannes Brahms is not usually thought of as a composer who wears his heart on his sleeve. In Brahms, emotion rarely erupts outright. Instead, it appears in subtler forms: with hesitant melodies, restless harmonic shifts, or themes that seem to
Read more
archive-post-image
Why Writing a First Symphony Terrified Even the Greatest Composers
Writing a first symphony has never been a casual undertaking. Throughout the history of classical music, the symphony has stood as the ultimate achievement: a genre tied to ambition, talent, and legitimacy, leading to inevitable comparisons to the past. A
Read more