Minimalism as a musical genre originated in the USA in the 1960s. It involves stripping music down to its bare essentials, to focus on pure sonic power, pulse and the internal processes of the music, without narrative or a defined

What alchemy produces the unique sounds of a symphony orchestra? When approximately 100 musicians play together the resultant fusion reverberates into our souls.

One of my favorite pieces to perform is Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances. It is full of infectious rhythms, melancholy melodies, and subtle effects. János Starker performs it in the cello rendition.

The piano has undergone all sorts of innovations and embellishments since its invention by Bartolomeo Cristofori in the early 1700s. The most significant advances in the piano’s design were in response to demands from pianists and composers for a sturdier

Dedicated to Clara Schumann, Brahms’ Klavierstücke Op.118 were written in 1893 again at Bad Ischl during his summer sojourn and are probably his most well-known opus nowadays. Julius August Philipp Spitta, a German musicologist, wrote to Brahms after receiving the

We are so used to attending concerts in specially-designed large halls that it is easy to forget that until about 1850, most music was experienced in people’s homes, churches, small intimate venues or ‘salons’. The Salon Concert was particularly popular

Minimalism, a musical style which developed in the US in 1960s, was a revolt against the all-pervasive atonality and fashionable “crazy creepy music” (Philip Glass) of the avant-garde, which, in its myriad forms and sub-genres, had dominated classical music since

André Previn, the remarkably versatile German-American pianist, composer, conductor, jazz musician and presenter, who died on 28 February 2019 at the age of 89, was an iconic figure in the national consciousness, and significant to me personally in my own