The interaction between classical and pop music can often be an extended exercise in looking at old material in a new way. We don’t mind when Barry Manilow uses a bit of Frédéric Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor, Op. 28/2

It’s difficult for me to add much to the many tributes to Claudio Abbado that have appeared since his death. As well as obituaries detailing his life and achievements, there have been statements from those who worked with him, who

‘Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.’ ‘To educate somebody, you should start from poems, emphasise on ceremonies, and finish with music.’ Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC) There have recently been a number of

I recently came across an extraordinary image. Many police services combine images of a suspect to create a general photo-fit image. But the federal police in Berlin recently combined a number of portraits of a man who died in the

“Are soloists nice?” audiences ask. “Not all of them,” I’d reply cautiously. (One doesn’t want to taint the concert experience, after all.) Some soloists can be self-centered; others reserved. There are soloists who stand out as genuine, warm and wonderful

For many people across the world, tuning in to the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve signals the arrival of Christmas. The sound of a solo treble intoning ‘Once in Royal David’s City’

If there’s one thing that divides opinions almost as equally as it divides beats per minute, it’s the metronome. Its controversy began right since its inception in the early 19th century, and remains a highly contentious topic for many musicians.

When I walk into my music studio I see Zoltán Kodály’s Sonata for Cello and Piano. It is prominently displayed and beautifully framed with Kodály’s signature splashed across the title page. Kodály was an important figure in our house. He