The solo violin has long been acknowledged as the perfect instrument to express emotions like love, longing, heartbreak, rapture, and romance. The Romantic era lasted from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century and produced numerous works that
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Tapering and the Craft of Performance Preparation August 16th, 2020 Athletes and experts in peak performance understand very well the concept of “tapering” – a significant reduction in training load in the days before a competition which is, paradoxically, thought to have the effect of optimising performance. This often involves -
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jessie Sarah Fleetwood Walmisley
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” August 15th, 2020On the very last Saturday of 1899, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor married Jessie Sarah Fleetwood Walmisley in a parish church at Selhurst, near Croydon, England. Just a regular wedding ceremony, I hear you say, but in reality it followed some very tense -
Double the Fun?
Auxiliary Instruments and the Strange World of Doubling August 14th, 2020A large aspect of an orchestral wind player’s life can involve playing auxiliary instruments – instruments that you learn alongside your main instrument, for example the bass clarinet, cor anglais, piccolo or contrabassoon. Not everyone specialises on auxiliary instruments: firstly, -
On My Music Desk……
Philip Glass – Wichita Vortex Sutra August 13th, 2020It starts quietly, a haunting nostalgic hymn-like sequence of gentle chords in both hands. A few bars in, the bass accompaniment changes into a gently undulating pattern of broken fourths, anchored by a low F. In this opening section, Glass -
Overtures by Franz von Suppé (1819-1895)
From Popeye to Betty Boop August 12th, 2020You might never have heard of the composer Franz von Suppé (1819-1895), but there is a very good chance that you know some of his music. Suppé composed tantalizing music mainly for the theater, in particular operettas, ballets and comedies. -
My Beethoven by Frank August 11th, 2020 OzymandiasPercy Bysshe Shelly I met a traveler from an antique land,Who said—-“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. … Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinked lip, and sneer -
In Memoriam: Leon Fleisher (1928-2020) August 10th, 2020 “The purpose of music is to communicate from the heart to the heart” He has been called “one of the most refined and transcendent musicians the United States has ever produced.” But Leon Fleisher (1928-2020), who died of cancer at -
Top 10 Pianists (?) August 10th, 2020 A reflection on the obsession with rankings I have to apologise that this is a clickbait. This is not going to be a list of top 10 pianists or anything like that. But before you close this tab, I would