Tag: Classical Connections
Classical Connections: Intimate voices
There was a time when music was much quieter than it is today. Before the eleventh century most music consisted of a single unaccompanied...
Classical Connections: Motorola magic
A good many years ago when I was living back in The Cold Country, I decided to buy a new car radio. I chose...
Classical Connections: One hit wonders
The other day I was reminded about the old joke about a Yorkshire band-master who asks one of the young brass players, “Aye lad,...
Classical Connections: The other Bachs
One of the most common words in the Welsh language is “bach”. It means “small” and it’s sometimes used as a term of endearment....
Classical Connections: The Sound of Silence
The other night, having nothing much to do, I was looking through the orchestral score of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony – his last one. He...
Classical Connections: You play the what?
A recent concert given by the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra included an unusual work for alpenhorn – an unwieldy thing about eight feet long that...
Delights from a small country
Long ago, when I was a small boy and the world seemed a different place, I used to listen to a science-fiction programme on...
Classical Connections: Turning the clock back
One day, during my time as an impoverished music student in London, I was ferreting through the records in a second-hand music shop and...
Classical Connections: A cause for celebration
If you type the words “festival overture” into the search panel of your web browser it will probably come up with the three most...
Classical Connections: Small diversions
You might be surprised to know that apart from all his symphonies, concertos and operas, Mozart also wrote quite a lot of what we’d...