In 1936, the French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) wrote incidental music for Le médécin volant (The Flying Doctor), a play by Charles Vildrac based on Molière’s play of the same name, which uses Italian commedia dell’arte characters. The title of

We were listening to a bit of Bill Evans the other day and something struck us as very familiar about it. We heard, of all things, an odd bass line, played very slow – descending. And then the trumpets came

Conceived of and finished during the global COVID-19 pandemic, The Planets and Humanity is Sri-Lankan–British composer Tanya Ekanayaka’s reflections on ancient music in a modern world. She says ‘I see a uniquely powerful and delicate congruence between ancient music which

The year of the Tiger is coming! Tigers are courageous and competitive. According to the Chinese zodiac, tiger people have strong personalities who like to fight for themselves, but they can also be friendly and generous. How about classical music

Written in an unusual small format, and with only three movements, the Chamber Symphonies of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) are perfect pocket symphonies. Begun while he was in Brazil in 1917, while he was serving as the secretary to Paul Claudel,

Although we associate ragtime music with composers such as Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb, we rarely consider what effect this new musical style might have had internationally. Through performers such as Jelly Roll Morton and band leaders such as W.C.

In the twelve-year cycle of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac, the mighty tiger surprisingly only comes in as number three. When the Jade Emperor invited all the animals of the world to take part in a race, the

How does a composer look at himself? In these works, covering some 400 years, we’ll see composers’ self-portraits in music and try to discern how they saw themselves. Seeing himself in an allemande rhythm, the French composer François Couperin (1668-1733)