Robert Schumann’s solo piano music is primarily remembered and celebrated for its shorter character pieces. Carnaval and Kreisleriana beautifully encapsulate his gift for miniature forms and programmatic imagery. While revered by musicologists and pianists for their emotional depth and innovative

Stage fright: it’s the bane of most every performing musicians’ existence. And when we say most every, we really do mean most every. In fact, many of the greatest figures in classical music history struggled with stage fright in one

The 1945 film A Song to Remember offers a romanticised (some would say bastardised) portrayal of the life of Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin, and, as of early 2025, it’s available for free on YouTube. A Song To Remember

John Singer Sargent is famous for his psychologically probing portraits of wealthy and socially prominent people from the turn of the century. However, Sargent was also fascinated with music, and he painted many portraits of some of the most talented

Summer is here! School’s out, weekends never seem long enough if you’ve been at work all week, and the outdoors becomes the place to be. We’ll look at summer through sound, and a few pieces of music, and see how

Celebrated Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and his wife Aino were married for sixty-five years, from 1892 to 1957. It was one of the longest marriages in classical music history. Between 1903 and 1904, the couple famously built a rustic house

You need to get ready to sprinkle some pixie dust and celebrate International Fairy Day, a magical moment on June 24 when we honour the whimsical world of fairies. Just think of tiny, glowing creatures flitting through enchanted forests, their

Alfred Brendel, who passed away at the age of 94 in June 2025, was not merely a pianist but a towering figure in classical music whose intellectual depth, technical mastery, and poetic sensibility left an indelible mark on the world.