Master of the Queen’s Music To commemorate the musical achievements of Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (1891-1975) a noted musicologist suggested, “Of the smaller stars that shone in the ample firmament of twentieth-century English music, the light that coruscated with

After writing two sets of Images for piano, it seems that a third set was called for, but this time Debussy orchestrated it, and in doing so, broadened the timbre of his palate. The first Image, Gigues, originally had the

An attitude still prevails today that classical musicians, and perhaps mostly especially pianists, exist in some kind of gilded cage or ivory tower, where, separated from the humdrum demands of everyday life, they hone their art and craft in glorious

Sadly the viola has been unjustly maligned. The following five consummate violists have put the viola on the map as a solo instrument, and without them we wouldn’t have the outstanding world-renown players we hear today.

When the Nobel Prize for Literature was given out in 2016, music to everyone’s surprise, it went to a writer who was not only known all over the world but also was given to someone for whom almost everyone probably

In Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, we are introduced to the ever-enterprising Figaro. He solves Count Almaviva’s courting problem with Rosina by thwarting her guardian’s marriage intentions. Count Almaviva and Rosina appear again with Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro,