Richard Strauss had reached the ripe old age of 84 when he decided to compose his musical last will and testament. Setting poetry by Joseph von Eichendorff and Hermann Hesse, the Four Last Songs emerged individually. When Strauss died on

On a cold windy night of December 2017, I travelled from Shanghai to Nanjing on a secret mission. I was invited by an anonymous patron who would like me to pay a visit to the just inaugurated Jiangsu Centre for

One of the secondary pleasures of going to live music in concert is “audience watching”. Different artists and repertoire attract different audiences, and I love observing audience behaviour before, during and after a concert. The ritual of concert going and

Like many other young cellists, I encountered Julius Klengel through his books of Technical Exercises in All Keys and his Daily Exercises. I wanted to play concertos not hours fixated on scales, arpeggios, and bowing exercises. But my father insisted,

What do you get when you mix religiosity with sexual passion? Audiences got the answer on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. It was on that date that Pietro Mascagni’s one-act melodrama Cavalleria Rusticana saw its official

Say ‘Mazurka’ and most people will reply ‘Chopin’. Fryderyk Chopin wrote at least 69 pieces in this form: 45 published during his lifetime, 13 published posthumously, and a further 11, which are known but where the manuscripts are in private

Have you ever thought about writing a full-fledged piano concerto in a little less than 3 week? For most of us, this seems an almost impossible task, but it was not a problem for Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). You see, Anton

Just as pianists develop a strong attachment to the instrument they play most regularly so they can also form a very special relationship with the person who looks after that instrument – the piano tuner / technician.