Beethoven’s ode to peace

Music cannot work a magic spell. It can, however, do wonderful things. In recent issues of BBC Music Magazine, we have explored the benefits to mental health of listening and playing music, not least

Just two decades after the premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, the Soviet Union paid a New York opera company to stage performances there. The year was 1956 and the Cold War was well underwa

Is there a special sorcery in Seoul? Cunning creativity in Canada? Preternatural pizzazz in Paris? Oh, why do so many great pianists come from this or that country? We even have some in Britain; is th

Trumpeter Alison Balsom has revealed that her recent appearance at the 2025 Last Night of the Proms was her final public performance. During an interview for BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life shortly b

Sir Donald Runnicles studied at the University of Edinburgh and St John’s College, Cambridge, before beginning his career as a singers’ coach and assistant conductor in Mannheim, Germany. He has been

Had Tchaikovsky had his way, his The Tempest might not actually have had a tempest in it at all. As he first pondered his Shakespearean fantasy-overture in early 1873, the Russian composer considered