The Evolution of the Classical Piano Sonata Say “Piano Sonata” and most people will think of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata (Op. 27/2), a work which bears what is generally considered to be the standard structure of a sonata – a work

Making her Hong Kong debut this month is Chinese soprano Ying Fang, singing in Mahler’s Second Symphony with the HK Phil. Now based in the USA, Ying is a principal soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, and also travels frequently for

When you think of the music of Aaron Copland, you think of light. Open vistas. Cowboys. Cowgirls. Pure Americanisms. But in the early 1920s, Copland was in Paris, starting to write his first orchestral music. He and his roommate, the

While clearing out my piano room ahead of a house move last year, I came upon a box of old concert programmes, some dating back twenty-odd years. Some were dog-eared and scuffed, or covered in scribbled notes from when I

Once a musician feels ready he or she might attempt to land a position in one of the major orchestras—Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Liepzig Gewandhaus, Leningrad Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic;