Have you ever browsed a classical music program and wondered what all those cryptic numbers mean? BWV 988? K. 550? Sz. 106? Well, you’re not alone. Many music lovers don’t know what they mean! But these catalogue numbers are more

The opening song of Taylor Swift’s 2020 album Folklore contains the lyric “You know the greatest films of all time were never made.” Sometimes I wonder if the greatest classical music was never made. Every classical music lover is going

Today, Franz Schubert is one of the most beloved composers of all time, famous for works like Ave Maria, the Trout Quintet, and his “Unfinished Symphony.” But when Schubert died in 1828 at the age of 31, much of his

Every November, on the third Thursday of the month, humanity takes a collective pause to celebrate something it has been doing since the dawn of time. UNESCO calls it World Philosophy Day, and it recognises the noble art of wondering

In 1906, just thirteen years after Tchaikovsky’s sudden, shocking death, British musicologist Rosa Newmarch wrote the first full-length biography of the Russian composer. In it, she includes a number of evocative details about his childhood. Today, we’re looking at some

I hate to say it, but classical music still suffers from an image problem; an image crisis, in fact. Despite the best efforts of performers, promoters, venues and music lovers, the art form is perceived by many as elitist and

I can’t remember when I first heard this piece, but it was almost certainly on BBC Radio Three’s Breakfast programme, and, as is often the way, the piece caught my attention and I decided to find out more about it.

The great classical music composers never wrote their music in a vacuum. The people around them always influenced what did – or didn’t – get composed. During their careers, some of these great composers were in romantic relationships that shaped