Playlists

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10 more Dazzling and Awe-Inspiring Piano Quintets
In my initial blog on the 10 most beautiful piano quintets in classical music, I featured incredible masterworks for the combination of the string quartet with the piano. This type of scoring essentially started with Robert Schumann, and from around
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Past & Present: Overtures for the Concert Hall
William Shakespeare, the immortal “Bard of Avon”, is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He has given us 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and two narrative poems alongside other verses of uncertain
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Sigurd Raschèr: King of Sax
In the 1840s, the Parisian instrument builder Adolphe Sax provided a welcome addition to the family of woodwind instruments. Named after its inventor, the saxophone features a single reed mouthpiece like the clarinet, a conical brass body like the ophicleide,
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14 Pieces of Classical Music About the Sky
Whenever people are looking for inspiration, they often look up into the sky. Classical composers are no exception. We’ve gathered fourteen pieces of classical music that encourage us to take a breath, go outside, and look up. Franz Liszt: Nuages
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Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
An Anniversary Cello Tribute
On 4 November 2024, we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Gabriel Fauré. He might well have been the greatest master of French songs, with his settings achieving a beautiful balance of prosody, melody, harmony, and polyphony. In
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15 Pieces of Classical Music About Trees
No matter how many of us end up moving into towns and cities, human beings are still irresistibly drawn to forests, woodlands, and trees. Classical composers are no exception. In fact, a huge percentage of them were great nature lovers
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The 10 Most Beautiful Piano Quintets in Classical Music
A piano quintet is generally a composition for piano and four other instruments. Composers throughout the ages have combined a variety of instruments to play along with the piano, but the standardised form of instrumentation features the string quartet. Interestingly,
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More Overtures for the Concert Hall
Concert Overtures proved highly popular with 19th-century audiences. They frequently served, and still do, as musical appetisers for an evening of symphonic splendour. Concert Overtures are self-contained and communicate and carry meanings explained in the titles. As with all program
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