The love story between Robert and Clara Schumann is often regarded as one of the most romantic in classical music history. Happily for historians, many of their love letters survive. They document their inner thoughts and emotions, as well as
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“Dying is just the way I composed it”
Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs June 26th, 2016Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Most people go to the grave with a song still in them.” A good number of famous composers throughout the ages have gone to their graves with a lot of songs in them! Take for -
Music à la “Mode”
Phrygian Gates June 25th, 2016In the world of the ancient Greece philosophers, music could greatly affect the mood and character of an individual. In fact, this “ethos of music,” as it was called, even made a person more or less fit for a particular -
How You Should Feel in the Key of A flat minor June 24th, 2016 In our earlier series on C major and minor, G major and minor, and D major and minor, and A major and minor, E major and minor, B major and minor, F sharp major and minor, and C sharp major -
Sibelius Academy June 23rd, 2016 What springs to mind when you think of Europe’s great music colleges? Germany? Britain? Austria? Take a leap north-east, and you’ll come across Sibelius Academy, unassumingly nestled in Helsinki’s University of the Arts, ranking at number 7 in the QS -
Celebrating Young Talent – the BBC Young Musician competition June 22nd, 2016 Bartok may have declared that competitions were “for horses”, but this year’s prestigious BBC Young Musician competition, which has just reached its thrilling conclusion with the prize being awarded to cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, proved above all that music brings joy -
A Musical Language Beyond Words: An Interview with Anne Queffélec June 22nd, 2016 Pianist Anne Queffélec (b. 1948) entered the Paris Conservatoire at age 16, winning the first prize for piano in 1965 and the first prize for chamber music in 1965, and those two fields have been the core of her performing -
A Symphony of Life, Love, and the World June 21st, 2016 Requiring a large orchestra and with 10 movements, the first symphony written by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a monumental achievement. Commissioned by Sergey Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it took Messiaen 2 years to write it, completing it in -
Minors of the Majors
Georges Bizet: Chants du Rhin June 20th, 2016“Minors of the Majors” invites you to discover compositions by the great classical composers that for one reason or another have not reached the musical mainstream. Please enjoy, and keep listening!