It was one of those memorable evenings in the history of music. Joseph Haydn had come to London at the age of 62 on a second concert tour arranged by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon. And on 2 February 1795,

Concert going is a social as well as a cultural activity and one of the great pleasures is the after-concert discussion with friends – and occasionally strangers who linger in the auditorium or foyer – keen to share their thoughts

Romantic artists have long been fascinated with the Orient. Paradoxically, this attraction became even more powerful because it concerned essentially unknown territory. Guided by a more or less imagined Orient, a good deal of music was motivated by the picturesque.

Béla Bartók’s first ballet, The Wooden Prince (1916) takes us to the story land of princes and princesses, and, of course, evil fairies. But, to get it on stage, Bartók had to contend first with the evil management of the

Christmas has long attracted musical contributions from composers in various vocal and choral genres. In purely instrumental terms, however, the subject of Christmas appears limited to a concerto grosso by Corelli and some pastoral symphonies in Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s