For conductor Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski, born on 4 April 1972, classical music is not simply an article of consumption. “The Arts should oblige people to think and ask questions and maybe fundamentally change people’s perceptions. It doesn’t mean we give

Very recently, I attended a recital by a rather well known pianist. After the programme proper had concluded, it was time for the encore ritual. Audience members were clapping furiously, cheering, standing up from their seats, and demanding that the

During his time at the Leipzig Conservatory, Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) heard Clara Schumann perform her husband’s Piano Concerto. As he later recalled, the work continued to signify a deeply musical experience lasting for decades. “Inspired from beginning to end,” he

The love story of Robert and Clara Schumann is one of the most famous in classical music history. Over the course of their marriage, Clara carried eight pregnancies to term. Today we’re looking at the remarkable stories of those children,

During his teenage years in Bonn, Ludwig van Beethoven sketched an incomplete draft for a passionate symphonic movement in C minor. Dating from between 1790 and 1792, the draft was never brought to fruition, and it took Beethoven almost another

Opera is a unique mixture of music and theatre; singing and acting each plays an important role in the success of a production. One of the most testing roles is that of the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor. In

Amongst 20th-century pianists, Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950) has achieved almost mythical status. Conductor Herbert von Karajan repeatedly said, “It was no longer piano playing, it was music, released from all earthly weight, music in its purest form, in a harmony that

I admit it, I’m a fervent auto-didact, a “self-teacher” whose answer to “how do I do that?” is to either reach for a book or more likely these days, look it up on Google or YouTube. For me, self-teaching goes