Music
BBC Music Magazine
Music to my ears
The BBC Music Magazine team's current favourites...
1 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Pianist Yevgeny Sudbin chooses the most gleefully ghoulish pieces inspired by death and mysticism
3 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Wagner the revolutionary flees Dresden to avoid arrest
The Royal Kapellmeister Richard Wagner is wanted for examination on account of his active participation in the recent rising here, but as yet he has not been found'.
3 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Play it with a smile
The most important film composer of the 20th century and beyond? Williams? Guðnadóttir? Steiner? I have another candidate: Charles Spencer Chaplin.
2 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Look back in anguish
Despite Korngold's denials, there is much to suggest that his Symphony in F sharp is a grim depiction of the dark days of Nazism, argues Jessica Duchen
7 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Come again?
If something is worth hearing once it's worth hearing again, explains Rebecca Franks, who charts a history of the use of echoes in music
6 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Music by women and composers of colour is not a separate set of pieces from the ones we know
6 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A brilliant melting pot of discoverable works
Erik Levi enjoys Patricia Kopatchinskaja and friends' eloquent performances of lesser-known works by exiled composers
2 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Pierre Boulez
Tom Stewart celebrates a composer, conductor and musical iconoclast for whom breaking from tradition was not an option but a must
6 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Vienna's cacophonous concert ends to the sound of slapping
‘Fighting at a Schoenberg concert.
3 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Molto humoroso
Cartoonist and broadcaster Gerard Hoffnung lampooned the world of classical music with splendid affection and wit, writes Andrew Green
7 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
There and back again
With retrospectives on album and in concert this month, Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore reflects on his years in Middle-earth and tells Michael Beek why he has a lot to thank the LPO for...
7 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN Pick a theme... and name your seven favourite examples
Composer-conductor Odaline de la Martinez prizes tempo, swing and bounce in her top rhythmic works
3 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Crystal clear with plenty of punch
The great is, they say, the enemy of the good, and that is certainly the case with David Sanger’s interpretation of Vierne’s Organ Symphony No. 1, which stands head and shoulders above a strong field of alternative versions.
3 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Istanbul Turkey
Charlotte Smith is entranced by a city that straddles east and west, and places an abundance of art, music and culture at the heart of its identity
3 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
BBC muSIC MAGAZINE AWARDS 2025
VOTE NOW and help choose the best classical recordings of the past 12 months
3 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Louis Vierne Organ Symphony No. 1
As Notre-Dame re-opens, Terry Blain names the finest recordings of a spectacular showcase by one of the cathedral’s famous former organists
4 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Frenchpolish
From music of the past to jazz, from Spanish dance to kitchen crockery, Ravel took a remarkable range of influences as his inspiration and turned them into perfectly crafted masterpieces, writes Paul Riley
10+ min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
The 11 best film scores of all time
Together, music and film can create magic, but which have done it best? Michael Beek asks top film and TV composers to vote
7 min |
March 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A way with words
Great operas are inextricably linked with their composer but, asks Jessica Duchen, how often do we acknowledge the important role of the librettist?
7 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN Pick a theme... and name your seven favourite examples
Conductor Domingo Hindoyan nominates the best musical depictions of anger and frustration
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A glittering beacon
Until its destruction in the fire of 1936, the Crystal Palace was one of the world's most exciting music venues, and its legacy still lives on today, writes Tom Service.
2 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Paul Riley traces the wandering existence of a cosmopolitan composer who made it his life's work and ambition to rip up opera's rulebook
7 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
The Awards are upon us once more!
Time to vote for the best recordings of the last 12 months
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
LEADING FROM THE FRONT
From running efficient rehearsals to learning to speak to orchestras with clarity and empathy, an array of exciting courses for conductors has bloomed in recent years, finds Clare Stevens
6 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Kindred spirits
As their second opera takes to the stage, composer Gregory Spears and librettist Tracy K Smith talk to Charlotte Smith about their special partnership
7 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
The censors' refusal to play ball drives Verdi to despair
In the early months of 1857, Verdi had Shakespeare on his mind, and specifically King Lear.
2 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
11 Bed-Hopping Composers
Jeremy Pound lifts the covers off those notorious notesmiths who found the thrill of playing away simply too hard to resist
6 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
André Rieu Violinist, Conductor
King of the Waltz, Dutch musical impresario André Rieu has taken the world by storm with his Johann Strauss Orchestra.
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Late Bloomer
Three hundred years ago, Antonio Vivaldi published The Four Seasons. But despite the work's spectacular popularity today, it was not until the 20th century that it really discovered its true audience, writes Nicholas Kenyon
10 min |