Recently, we lost a virtuoso violinist, Aaron Rosand—one of the last of a generation of exceptional violinists, which included Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, David Oistrakh, Ida Haendel and others. Rosand had a brilliant performing career, which

As someone who has spent most of his life inside music, I value what music has taught me. The things music has given me and the beauty and pleasure I get from listening to and creating music are beyond almost

The title is a play on his name and the collection of essays in this satisfyingly chunky volume were often “roughed out” by Stephen Hough while travelling between concert engagements, If you think the life of the international concert pianist

Born within a year of one another, female composers Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) and Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) gained little recognition during their own lifetimes and it has only been in recent years that their music has become better known, and deservedly

Chopin of the Créoles Louisiana-born Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) spent most of his life as a touring concert pianist. Son of a Jewish businessman and a Créole mother, the boy was quickly recognized as a musical prodigy and departed for

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was the original 19th-century musical rebel. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1829, he was a music prodigy, making his public debut at age 11. When he was 13, he went to Paris with his father and

Many people, who are not “in the know” – and even some who are! – regard classical music as elitist and its practitioners as either formal and old-fashioned or pretentious so-and-so’s who have set themselves up as demi-gods, garnering praise