No, we don’t mean that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a century old, it’s that this new recording is celebrating the centenary of his birth. Born on 28 May 1926 in Berlin, the lyric baritone and conductor who seemingly covered the entire

Both Edward Elgar (1857–1934) and Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) had only one successful string quartet. They were written some 8 years apart and both were in the key of E minor. Elgar had tried writing string quartets since 1888 (destroyed), in

What are the odds of hearing the entire cycle of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues performed live in one evening? That is precisely what pianist Hannes Minnaar presented for his Hong Kong debut. Inspired by Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Shostakovich employed

The second opera of Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, Die Walküre, is the most frequently performed of the cycle and contains some of the best-known music. Nevertheless, it demands directorial genius, musical finesse, as well as top-tier singers to bring

In a new Deutsche Grammophon recording, pianist Yuja Wang presents the two piano concertos of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) along with selections from his Preludes for piano. The concerts are with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons. When you consider

It’s almost ten years since French pianist Bertrand Chamayou recorded Ravel’s complete piano works, and now, in this the 150th anniversary year of Ravel’s birth, he has released an album which he calls “a modest contribution” to the “anniversary celebrations

When John Corigliano was awarded the 1999 Oscar for Best Original Score for The Red Violin, he said, “You can write all the notes you want, but if someone doesn’t play them like a god they’ll never sound that way.

The 30-year friendship of Dmitri Shostakovich and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich started in 1943 when Rostropovich was at the Moscow Conservatory. Shostakovich had recently joined the Conservatory, and Rostropovich was part of his orchestration class. The Shostakovich family had left their