As soon as an opera hit the London stage in the mid-to-late 19th century and everyone was familiar with the tunes, it immediately became subject of humorous versions. Beethoven’s Fidelio was turned into Pizzarro the Great Tyrant or the Little

The violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) wrote his set of 24 Caprices for Solo Violin between 1802 and 1817. Dedicated by Paganini to ‘all artists’ upon its publication by Ricordi in 1820, his own score carries names of performers and

Metanoia, a change in one’s way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion, can be considered one of the interesting offshoots of the whole COVID period. If we redefine it away from spiritual matters and make it “transformations in

It is not only the essence of music which has evolved over the centuries, but also the manner in which it has and is being created, produced and performed — its medium. As music became more and more complex, its

The word “normal” has shifted in meaning over the past nearly two years of the covid pandemic. For concert halls and opera houses, and other arts venues such as galleries and exhibition spaces, “normal” now has a variety of meanings,

For musicians, trading off stories about conductors is the water-cooler-iest form of water cooler gossip. Tales of incompetence abound, and those who are lucky enough to gain approval are spoken of with respect and appreciation. To an audience, conducting seems

Following my article about Schubert’s Drei Klavierstucke, here is another piano work which I feel is unfairly overlooked and rarely performed, perhaps simply because of its brevity and apparent simplicity. Yet Schubert packs an expressive punch and offers the pianist

If one had to name, from the top of the mind, what the most well-known instruments are, the result would probably be the following: the piano, the guitar and the violin. I have already written about how the piano and