The Schooling of Johann Sebastian Bach
The ubiquitous portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, painted by court portraitist Elias Haussmann, adorns book covers, music school...
Know Your Composer
The Court Battle Over the Royalties to Ravel’s Boléro
It has been said that a performance of Ravel’s Boléro begins every 10 minutes somewhere in the world. The Russian dancer...
Mapping the Musical Genome: The Stamitz Family
When families migrate across linguistic borders, their names frequently undergo a number of significant changes. Just take the...
The Ferment of Life: Schubert’s Last Piano Sonatas II
Alfred Brendel describes Schubert as “a sleepwalker”, yet in his final three sonatas, we see Schubert’s innate sense...
The Ferment of Life: Schubert’s Last Piano Sonatas
Ignored for years, their composer regarded as Beethoven‘s poor relation, Schubert‘s last three piano sonatas now enjoy a...
Great Music Is Gender-blind
Historically, the works of many women composers did not quite make it into the canon. It is perhaps...
Man of Many Firsts
Cited as the first composer to rethink every parameter of his music, Franz Liszt was an inveterate boundary-pusher,...
A Tour of Spain: Albéniz’ Suite Española
In 1887, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz brought together a number of works for solo piano that he’d written...
