The series of piano concertos Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed during his years in Vienna is undoubtedly his greatest achievement in instrumental music. The dozen piano concertos composed between February 1784 and December 1786 are works of the highest quality and

Marcel Proust wrote to Gabriel Fauré in 1897, “Monsieur, I not only love, admire and venerate your music, I have been, still am, in love with it.” In our first episode on the magnificent nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré we found

It might come as a surprise, but Franz Schubert wrote almost as much piano music for four hands as for two. His thirty-four compositions in this medium range from his earliest surviving music, the Fantasie D. 48, to his Rondo

In previous blogs we listened to a number of beautiful piano quintets scored for piano and a string quartet. Robert Schumann came up with this arrangement in 1842, and it became the standardised scoring for much of the 19th century

A good number of instrumental works, specifically pieces written for piano solo in the 19th and 20th-century, carry the title “Nocturne.” The word comes from the French, meaning “nocturnal” or “night”, and it suggests the magical atmosphere of peace and

The Polish-born American violinist Samuel Dushkin (1891-1976) is widely known for his extensive collaborations with Igor Stravinsky. The two men were compatible friends from the very beginning and eventually embarked on a concert tour through Europe and the United States,

Claude Debussy is one of the most beloved composers in the classical music canon. Several qualities make his work especially unique: Use of colour and texture. Debussy was a master at using unusual combinations of instruments to create unique sounds.

In my initial blog on the 10 most beautiful piano quintets in classical music, I featured incredible masterworks for the combination of the string quartet with the piano. This type of scoring essentially started with Robert Schumann, and from around