March 13, 2023
Gustav Mahler and Friedrich Nietzsche are two of the most important figures in twentieth century culture, broadly—to say nothing of their impact on their respective fields of music and philosophy…. READ MORE
March 10, 2023
Why would you want to put a microscope to a score of, say, a Tchaikovsky symphony? Surely you buy the score – that is the musical work, no problem –… READ MORE
February 9, 2023
Some years ago, I was given a battered keyboard instrument – part of the estate of a refugee Catalan composer called Roberto Gerhard who had lived here in Cambridge –… READ MORE
February 7, 2023
This Saturday, 11 February, the University of St Andrews will be hosting a special celebration of the life and musical career of English composer Gerald Finzi (1901-1956). The morning session… READ MORE
January 25, 2023
It seems to have all the ingredients of an epic, if not tragic, film. The young genius, his potential cruelly crushed by an evil regime, a stack of hidden papers… READ MORE
November 29, 2022
The engraving manuscript of Gabriel Fauré’s song ‘L’hiver a cessé’, which dates from February 1894, is one of the more fascinating musical autographs of its era. Its first pages are… READ MORE
October 19, 2022
Writing about Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult has been a labour of love. As a ten-year old boy, the first orchestral concert I ever attended was in March 1967, with… READ MORE
October 11, 2022
As someone who splits his professional time between musical performance and writing, it seems fitting that my latest book, about musical time, wedded the two disciplines. Several years ago, I… READ MORE
April 12, 2022
Treading in Emma Debussy’s footsteps was a deeply satisfying experience. Having first mined the resources in the Centre de Documentation Claude Debussy in Paris, I was thrilled to trace the… READ MORE
March 9, 2022
Patrick Zuk’s new biography draws on a wealth of unexplored sources and offers the first comprehensive critical reappraisal of the life and works of composer Nikolay Myaskovsky (1881-1950). In today’s… READ MORE
Tamesis and the Thames