Every year on 21 September, the world pauses, or at least pretends to pause, for the International Day of Peace. It’s a day where we’re supposed to hold hands, sing Kumbaya, and imagine a world where everyone gets along. Sounds

When you enter a gallery adorned with Francisco González Gamarra’s monumental canvases, time seems to stand still. Paintings such as “The Foundation of Lima” or “The Spanish Foundation of Cusco” do not merely depict history; they revive it by evoking

Imagine a dapper Spaniard with a meticulously trimmed moustache, a Stradivarius violin tucked under his chin, and a flair for making audiences swoon with every flick of his bow. That’s Pablo de Sarasate, the 19th-century violinist and composer whose music

As summer winds down and the weather gets reasonable, what kind of music would you use to signal the end of the long days of play (or work) and the new days with that crisp of a light chill? At

The 2025 season of BBC Proms, “the world’s greatest classical music festival”, has finished for another year, but the memories live on, in reviews, social media posts, on the BBC’s Listen Again service – and in Andy Lewis’ Marathon Proms

Sometimes musical compositions aren’t the only creative works that composers leave behind. Some wrote memoirs (or works such as letters or diaries that can be collected and read as memoirs). These pieces of writing often provide fascinating insights into composers’

Over the past few weeks, rehearsals have been well underway for the chamber opera Hidden Lovers, composed by Janet Oates. Opening the Tête-à-Tête opera festival at the Cockpit Theatre in London, the opera’s musical forces consist of a string trio,

Franz Xaver Mozart, the son of the great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, had a long-term love affair with a wealthy married woman named Josephine von Baroni-Cavalcabò. Josephine was a talented musician, and Franz taught her daughter Julie. Julie went on