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Could Music Disappear One Day?
This is the Italian composer Giovanni Sollima playing one of his creations. What is it about music that moves us so? Where else can you see a person react to anything like this, except through music? Look at how this
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Schumann’s Final Piece: The ‘Ghost’ Variations
There’s a special poignancy to Schumann’s Geistervariationen (“Ghost Variations”). Dedicated to his beloved wife Clara, they were written just a few weeks before he was committed to a lunatic asylum at Endenich, and were the last piece of music he
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My Two Encounters with Pianist Jörg Demus
It was on a day in April—it was actually the 17th of April—when someone told me that Jörg Demus had passed away. In the Internet era, news spreads like wildfire. But the source of all this commotion came from Wikipedia,
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Pianists Behaving Badly
‘From the outset all manner of unacceptable behaviour, whether manifesting itself emotionally in false rapture or facial grimace, the stamping of feet to mark the rhythm, accompanied by an all-embracing unsightly body movement, the shaking and nodding of the head
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Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969)
“Behind Every Work of Art Lies an Uncommitted Crime”
Some consider him one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II, while others declare him to be “preposterously over-rated.” Whatever the case may be, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) was a leading member of
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Playing Music Is It for Everyone?
People are exquisitely attuned to sound from our very beginnings, through our mother’s soft cooing voice, which leads to language. Music has had a special place in the hearts and minds of virtually all cultures across time. The discovery of
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Music’s Dark Side
Are you threatened by the music you like? We’ve seen it all too often, a composer or popular musician is found out to have a dark side. Does this change how much their music once meant to you? For most
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Liszt’s Ultimate Masterpiece – the B Minor Piano Sonata
Liszt’s B-minor piano sonata is regarded by many as his ultimate masterpiece and it ranks alongside other “greats” in the pantheon of piano repertoire. This was not always the case, however, and in the nineteenth century it was met with
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