Updates from the world's leading classical music label
There’s no doubting the thrill of hearing a pot-bellied orchestra going for climactic points in a score with all its might and dislodging the dust from concert hall rafters. Yet the other end of the textural spectrum can be equally telling. Mozart reminded us that silence is possibly the most powerful element in music. Equally Read More …
Where would we be without our heroes? Well, classical music would certainly be the poorer without the heroic thread that weaves through the catalogue. Works are branded heroic either by their general aura, the mention of the word in the title, or the name of a specific hero on which a piece is built. We Read More …
While each November in America sees the Presidential Thanksgiving Reprieve (an annual symbolic stay of execution for a live turkey by the incumbent US president), June is National Turkey Lovers’ Month, dedicated to one of nature’s less appreciated creatures, but one of the most—how best to put this?—consumed. Casting aside thoughts of roast potatoes and Read More …
“Setting the right tone” is a common enough phrase that’s readily understood and achieved in everyday life. But how does a composer set the right tone in a piece of music? Composition is an increasingly common activity in schools nowadays, so even the youngest students will be able to rattle off for you the tools Read More …
After a hard day’s work, there’s nothing like going into flop mode, a glass of something in one hand, the other gently rifling through ranks of CDs or scrolling through a digital cache of music, finding the escape hatch from office stress into down time. Pity, then, the poor composer who has been struggling all Read More …
The account of the birth of Christianity as depicted through the life of Jesus some 2,000 years ago has been celebrated for centuries through masterpieces of the Western European classical music tradition. Formats include the Passion, the Stabat Mater and the Requiem Mass. Music-lovers will have their own favourites and, no doubt, the CDs to Read More …
While there’s no magic formula for clinching success when two people tie the knot, the old adage of ‘opposites attract’ has proven a winner for many a couple, allowing them to mix and enrich contrasting personas. But, for many musicians, both partners being in the same game has also proved a winning recipe. There have Read More …
A few weeks ago we looked at the capability of instruments to make a variety of changes to their usual timbre. We examined the history of pizzicato and col legno, just a couple of tools in the string department’s box of tricks. String instruments have arguably the greatest range of alternative voices, but they are Read More …
Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, which is a moveable feast, unlike its western counterpart that always falls on 1 January. It also differs in adopting a particular zodiac animal, repeating the association after every 12-year cycle. Today, therefore, marks the Chinese New Year of the Horse, succeeding the Year of the Read More …
Garibaldi’s Red Shirts are marching triumphantly en route to the successful Risorgimento, the establishment in 1861 of a united Italy—though the actual ramifications were complex and true uniting took longer. Lustily they sing, and the song on their lips is none other than Va pensiero, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco (8.571000), Read More …