Did you know that the smallest member of the lute family is known as the mandolin? The mandolin is a plucked string instrument with a neck and round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening

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Symphonic composers are convinced that what they have to say is important. They have to be. Not only are these composers spending months or years preparing a score during the composition process, they’re also asking a room of a hundred

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When I was a little girl, I heard Gabriel Fauré’s famous Pavane in an arrangement for two pianos on a classical music compilation disc. From the very first notes, I was taken by its elegant restraint. I listened to the

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Ever since Beethoven redefined what a symphony could be, composers have been, by turn, inspired and intimidated by the genre. Today we look at the stories of how five very different composers dealt with the pressure and weight of expectation