Music
BBC Music Magazine
Live choice
Paul Riley picks the month's best concert and opera highlights in the UK
6 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Music that changed me
Simon Callow Actor
3 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
György Ligeti
Ivan Hewett traces the life and career of the great avant-garde composer and investigates what lies at the heart of his enigmatic genius
6 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Sheffield UK
Claire Jackson visits the city's Chamber Music Festival where, at The Crucible, the click clack of snooker balls gives way to intimate harmony
3 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Frenchmaster
Roger Nichols shares his personal recollections of the much esteemed yet reserved French composer Henri Dutilleux, who died ten years ago this month
8 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Beethoven reframed
Gianandrea Noseda's new symphony cycle reevaluates the composer through the music of George Walker and the art of Mo Willems
6 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
From brush to bow
Close friends with leading musicians of his day, the great English painter Thomas Gainsborough was a keen player himself. Michael White visits Gainsborough's House in Suffolk to find out more
7 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
By Royal Invitation
As this year's big moment at Westminster Abbey approaches, Andrew Green meets some of the choristers who sang at the coronation of Elizabeth II back in 1953
7 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Notes from childhood
As pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason releases a new album devoted to the music of youth, she speaks to Jessica Duchen about being a role model, her dedication to self-improvement and growing up in a famously musical family
10 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Sergei Rachmaninov - All-Night Vigil (Vespers)
The composer's love of the music and rituals of the Orthodox Church were distilled in this masterpiece; Daniel Jaffé finds the best recording
3 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Steve Reich
In developing a unique soundworld as he tackles fraught subjects, the American has proved hugely influential, says Claire Jackson
5 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW - Kirill Gerstein
Mine wasn't the archetypal musician's tortured childhood, playing nothing but scales and etudes
6 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
RPS Music Awards 2023
Rebecca Franks meets the founders of Manchester Collective, winners of the Ensemble Award, to learn their recipe for success
3 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Fair competitor gives Percy Grainger some Brigg ideas - APRIL 1905
His ringing voice - one of the loveliest I ever heard - was as fresh as a young man's... His effortless high notes, sturdy rhythms and clear unmistakable intervals were a sheer delight to hear.'
2 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
An orchestral odyssey
In the footsteps of Prokofiev and Britten, with assistance from a sprite and an A-list team, American composer Mason Bates has created a new audiovisual guide to the orchestra; he explains all to Tom Stewart
6 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Call of the Nile
With its pharaohs, hieroglyphs, mummies and gods, Egypt has long fascinated composers, keen to capture its unique allure, says Claire Jackson
6 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Compulsively driven
From the brick-counting Bruckner to Dvořák the avid trainspotter, Steve Wright introduces some of history's most obsessive composers
7 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
East meets west
For Steven Fox, music director of The Clarion Choir, Rachmaninov's anniversary year presents the perfect opportunity to celebrate the composer's often overlooked choral music, as he tells Charlotte Smith
6 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
The HUMAN TOUCH
As we celebrate Rachmaninov's 150th anniversary this month, Andrew Green talks with leading musicians who explain why there's so much more to a composer often derided as nostalgic and melancholic
7 min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Musical destinations – Berlin Germany
Jeremy Pound heads to the German capital’s Philharmonie concert hall to enjoy a late-summer feast of spectacular orchestral playing
4 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
Backstage with... Violinist/director Alexandra Wood
Warming up: ‘We want to give the idea of the music evolving’
2 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
Herbert Howells Requiem
Though Howells wrote his Requiem in contented times, it would go on to become associated with personal tragedy, as Jeremy Pound explains
4 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
Reinhold Glière
Dismissed by some as being stuck in the past, Glière was nonetheless blessed with a rare melodic gift and fine technique, says Erik Levi
7 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
The Sound of Silence
As the conflict in Ukraine prompts the barring of contemporary Russian works and artists from global stages, Erik Levi looks at how Britain similarly censored German composers during World War I
7 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
Playing for her life
Hélène de Montgeroult risked the guillotine during the French Revolution – but there’s far more to this talented composer than her remarkable survival, as pianist Clare Hammond tells Rebecca Franks
6 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
Shining a light
Awarded by composers to composers, The Ivors have propelled a wealth of outstanding British talent to the forefront of musical life during the past two decades, as Kate Wakeling discovers
7 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
And did those feet...?
Since Parry wrote his much-loved setting of Blake’s poem more than a century ago, a wide array of versions of Jerusalem have followed in its famous footsteps, as Jason Whittaker explains
7 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
I like the feeling of falling into a different era, not just in my music but in any music
THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
7 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
To be Franck
César Franck has sometimes been unfairly dismissed by critics as plodding and passé, but as we mark the BelgianFrench composer’s 200th anniversary, Roger Nichols says there is much to admire in his colourful melodic language
9 min |
December 2022
BBC Music Magazine
Whipping up a storm
The sonic extremes of storms, whether physical or cosmic, have attracted composers through the centuries –and with good reason, says Tom Service
2 min |