Music
BBC Music Magazine
Felix Mendelssohn
Erik Levi basks in the Mediterranean sunshine and sips a limoncello as he enjoys the genial company of this most radiant of orchestral works
6 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A remarkable display of panache and precision
Malcolm Hayes on why this flawless performance by violinist Lea Birringer is definitely one to remember
1 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A beautifully delivered showcase for the viola
Nicholas Kenyon enjoys the marvellous musicality in Timothy Ridout's sonorous survey of solo works for the instrument
2 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A visceral insight into a great musical imagination
Steph Power is left exhilarated by the LPO’s survey of operatic suites by the British composer Thomas Adès
1 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Richard Morrison
Music's power to unlock memories in dementia patients is remarkable
3 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
How to bring listening pleasure to your desktop
Our expert Chris Haslam gives advice on buying the latest hi-fi equipment
3 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Pick a theme... and name your seven favourite examples
3 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Anna Lapwood
Anna Lapwood has given organ music a major boost with her viral TikTok videos and unlikely but brilliant transcriptions for the instrument. The multi-talented British artist, who is soon to turn 30, recently stepped down as music director at Pembroke College, Cambridge, to concentrate on her solo career. Her new album, Firedove, is out on Sony Classical on 30 May.
3 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Queen of arts
Errollyn Wallen is riding high on a year of triumphs that include becoming Master of the King's Music, writes Claire Jackson
3 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Radiant and whimsical Brahms Piano Quartets
Krystian Zimerman and friends deliver a superb performance for this new album, says Jan Smaczny
1 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Jurassic melodies
Come and join a dinosaur choir! That's an invitation that any music-lover would surely want to take up: who could give up the chance to sit next to a velociraptor or T-Rex and put together a Messiah from scratch?
2 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Pieces of 8
There's more to vocal ensemble VOCES8 than its ethereal sound, not least a keen commitment to education, as Amanda Holloway reports
6 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Sonic youth
Korean pianist Yunchan Lim's extraordinary Chopin studio debut offers just a taste of his dazzling musicianship,
10+ min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
All in the mind
The cliché of the ‘mad genius’ has long perpetuated the idea that creativity and mental illness are linked. But, asks Rebecca Franks, how true is that notion?
6 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Left-field learning
Despite an education steeped in the Russian tradition, noted pianist Nikolai Lugansky forged an unusual path to a stellar career,
6 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Great Dame
When flames engulfed Notre-Dame in 2019, the organ miraculously survived. Now cleaned and restored, it is sounding as good as ever,
6 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Perfect peace
The BBC Music team and reviewers on the music they turn to for a sense of calm
4 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Concert Heaven Concert Hell
Top artists recall their best and worst performances
2 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Liszt thunders away on the piano... but Brahms nods off
On the morning of 12 June 1853, a young man with long blond hair entered an opulent reception room at the Altenburg mansion in Weimar, capital city of the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar.
3 min |
June 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A voice for the ages
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's consummate artistry enthralled all who heard him sing. Andrew Green marks 100 years of the celebrated German baritone
7 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
The sound of oppression
In wartime Germany and its occupied countries, music was a carefully controlled part of the Nazi propaganda machine, as Erik Levi explains
6 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Ralph Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem
Rebecca Franks explores a composer's choral plea for peace, written as the dark cloud of fascism moved ominously over a nervous Europe
4 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Sound advice
Canada’s National Arts Centre is serious about education — and its flagship Orchestra is training the next crop of top musicians, writes Charlotte Smith
6 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
A different picture
There’s more to Dame Myra Hess than her morale- boosting National Gallery concerts — not least her formidable piano skills, writes Jessica Duchen
6 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Man on a mission
For American composer Carlos Simon, highlighting injustice and racism through his art is a personal calling, as he tells Clive Paget
6 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Pieces of me
Cellist Matthew Barley's Light Stories project has helped him to work through trauma dating back to a psychotic event in his teens, as he tells Ariane Todes
5 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Jean Sibelius
Can we judge a composer's character from their music? With Sibelius, says Stephen Johnson, this would not necessarily appear to be the case
6 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
KEEP CALM AND COMPOSE
British composers played a vital role in lifting spirits in World War II, sometimes in unlikely ways.
9 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Richard Morrison
From frontline action to opera: my father's musical memories of WWII
3 min |
May 2025
BBC Music Magazine
The fullscore
Our pick of the month's news, views and interviews
4 min |