For most pianists, practising occupies far more time than performing. Indeed, for many amateur musicians, public performance may be relatively infrequent or not particularly important at all. Our musical lives are lived largely in private: at the piano, alone with

Opera Rara’s 56th season begins on 4 October 2026. While best known for restoring and reviving bel canto operas and the exceptional “Donizetti Song Project,” the company has also championed the music of Jacques Offenbach since its founding in 1970.

Nowadays, the music of violinist Niccolò Paganini has largely fallen out of fashion, save among violin nerds. But Paganini was one of the earliest icons of the Romantic Era, and he lived a colourful life to prove it. In 1946,

When we look at the modern orchestra, we assume that those instruments have been there unchanged for centuries. Yet, like all things in the world, they’re subject to change, to alterations, and even experimentation. In their search for new or

Mozart‘s love life was as dramatic as any opera he ever wrote. He carried on a raucous correspondence with his cousin, fell hard for a teenage soprano who rejected him, and married his first love’s younger sister. Some music lovers

The Paris Conservatoire was founded in 1795 after the French Revolution. Since then, many of classical music’s greatest figures have passed through its doors. Initially, women weren’t allowed to benefit from the Conservatoire’s rigorous education. In fact, women weren’t admitted

In our last episode on forgotten Romantic piano concertos, we discovered unexpected and wonderful music by Balakirev, Rubinstein, Arensky, Glazunov, and Medtner. These much-neglected nineteenth- and early twentieth-century piano concertos and concertante works have been brought to light in 87

“Clair de Lune” is one of the most popular pieces in all of classical music, and there are countless versions on YouTube alone. But which ones have actually captured the most listeners there? And which one is the most watched