The Alec Cobbe collection, housed at Hatchlands Park, near Guildford, Surrey, England, holds pianos owned by a number of different composers, such as Haydn’s Longman & Brodrip piano; Mahler’s 1836 Graf piano; Elgar’s 1844 Broadwood piano; Chopin’s 1848 Pleyel, used

Now that your little grey cells are all warmed up, are you ready for a more complicated puzzle canon from Bach’s Musical Offering? If so, the 4th canon will probably give you a very good workout, indeed. Bach inscribed this

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1875) Even at the best of times, the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine has been somewhat troubled. Although they share much of their early history, the Mongol

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the undisputed rock star of the 18th century! Incredibly gifted as a musician yet nevertheless prone to long periods of self-doubt and professional jealousy, he made a lot of money but spent it just as quickly.

Although the brain is technically not a muscle, the old saying “use it or loose it” still applies. And when musicians and composers get together to exercise the little grey cells, they generally look towards puzzle canons for a brainy

Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) The tango developed as a distinctive dance around 1880 in the poorer districts of the city of Buenos Aires. Because it emerged from an economically marginal and semi-criminal social milieu, the dance was long rejected by Argentine’s

“Carlos Gardel and Isabel del Valle” In the years before the First World War the Argentinian tango swept like wildfire throughout the world. And Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) was the one authentic superstar of his time. Gardel was the greatest singer

Beside various occasional pieces for violin and piano and several scores for strings along, Taneyev’s chamber music catalogue contains three large-scale works with piano. All three dates from the late stages of his career and almost excessively focus on musical