Blogs

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Ludwig van Beethoven: Five of His Most Famous Feuds
Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the greatest composers who ever lived, but he was also a human being, and one who was famously prickly. Friends, rivals, patrons, and even family members often found themselves embroiled in sundry fights and
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The Enduring Melody: The Significance of Childhood Piano Memories
Do you remember the first piece of music you learnt as a child? The journey of learning to play the piano is a great deal more than the acquisition of a skill; it’s a wonderful voyage of memory and emotion.
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George Lloyd: The Shellshocked Soldier Who Kept Composing
British composer George Lloyd had one of the most striking biographies of any classical musician of the twentieth century. He began his career as a promising up-and-coming English composer. But when Britain went to war in 1939, Lloyd put that
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Deaf-Blind Pianist Helen May Martin: How She Became a Professional Musician
Nineteenth-century piano giant Jan Paderewski called her “the most wonderful musician in the world.” Helen Keller called her “the most accomplished deaf and blind person in the world.” She was, to our knowledge, the first blind-deaf person to make a
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The Seven Most Popular Piano Sonata Videos on YouTube
YouTube is full of brilliant performances of all kinds of piano sonatas. A few of those brilliant performances have garnered millions and millions of views. Today, we’re looking at which seven piano sonata videos are the most popular as of
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If You Like Schumann, You Might Like Piotr Anderszewski
Robert Schumann, one of the quintessential composers of the Romantic era, is renowned for his deeply expressive piano music, lieder, and orchestral works that embody the emotional intensity, poetic sensibility, and structural innovation of the 19th century. His compositions are
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Ranking the Impact of the Most Influential Classical Music Families
In classical music, it’s rare enough for one composer to become famous, let alone an entire family. However, there have been a handful of families over the past few centuries who together have had major impacts on the art. Today,
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Hear the Voices of the Great British Composers: Britten, Vaughan Williams, Clarke, and More
What happens when the greatest English composers sit down for a chat in front of a microphone? The answer: expressions of dry British wit, surprising candour, and a long list of insights into the wider world of classical music. In
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