A passage to indonesia

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Hearing the Javanese gamelan at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris

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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

BBC Music Magazine

Stolen strings

Musical instruments have power, simply as things. They speak. They generate emotion. They tell stories about life, death, happiness and sadness – and about the past, which they can resurrect with curi

BBC Music Magazine

An american in china

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

Artists & Illustrators

Radical harmony

GEORGES SEURAT, GENERALLY ACCEPTED AS THE PIONEER OF NEO-IMPRESSIONISM, once said of his distinctive technique, “Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.” He was referring to a ne

Pianist Magazine

Street level

‘Would you like to go and play the new public piano at St Pancras and write about it?’ asked Erica, the editor of Pianist. ‘Did Liberace like diamonds?’ I replied. ‘I love the idea of public pianos. S

BBC Music Magazine

Michel legrand

‘What Americans call safe music bores me,’ declared Michel Legrand in a 2005 interview, in which he reflected on the high profile he had achieved as one of the world’s leading film composers. ‘If you’

Artists & Illustrators