Tag: Classical Connections

I played Max Bruch’s first violin concerto when I was fourteen.  Not the solo violin part you understand, because I cannot play the violin....

Until yesterday, I always thought that a quintet was either a group of five musicians, or a piece of music written for them.  It...

“A river,” wrote Laura Gilpin, “seems a magic thing … a magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself.”  Now Laura Gilpin you...

A few days ago, having nothing much of importance to do, I read a short story by the 19th century master of the genre,...

As a young teenager, I invariably used to listen to Bach’s music first thing in the morning before going to school.  A fix of...

As a music student, I often used visit the 100 Club in London’s Oxford Street.  It was a smoky, seedy sort of place in...

On Thursday, 11th September 1591 John Baldwin added the finishing touches to his elegantly hand-written collection of keyboard music, entitled My Ladye Nevells Booke. Baldwin...

Near the beginning of almost every piece of printed music there are two numbers, one above the other, like a fraction. It’s called a...

This evocative phrase was created by the eighteenth century English composer Benjamin Cooke, who was organist at Westminster Abbey and master of the Abbey’s...