At age 22, Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was appointed piano teacher at the conservatory of Helsingfors, then part of the Russian Empire, today known as the Finnish capital Helsinki. Stable employment and income aside, Busoni could not speak a word of

I went to a concert the other night – dynamic conductor, electrifying soloist, enthusiastic audience that cheered as each piece was announced and often sang along with the melodies – and yet the programme consisted of music that you hear,

She was described as “a tiny little person, perfectly proportioned and extremely graceful, with lively expression and half-closed eyes, which suggested the wit and malice of a ‘petit diable bleu… She also possessed a coquettish magnetism, which attracted men towards

“Minors of the Majors” invites you to discover compositions by the great classical composers that for one reason or another have not reached the musical mainstream. Please enjoy, and keep listening!

At the 2016 Grammy® Awards, the winner for Choral Performance was for a work that was written a mere century ago. Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, written in January and February 1915, received its premiere on 10 March 1915. When you consider

It’s one of those things – you come up with a great project, you get a lot of people involved, they give you brilliant stuff and then one person comes along and trumps everything. And so it was with Anton

And now for something extremely painful! Imagine waking up with a severe toothache in the middle of the 19th century. In many cases, you might have to wait a couple of month before an itinerant practitioner of the dental trade

There are various reasons for composers, musicians and artist to leave their respective homelands. Some are displaced by war or social unrest, while others follow employment opportunities. In the 15th and early 16 centuries, whole generations of composers from the