Go tell the congregation

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

You have the universe in your hair and the stars on your brow. I would wrap you up in heaven’s rainbow cloak, But I am a poor man. My only currency is hope. You are like an orchard abundant with fruit

The precocious poetry of Charlotte Brontë

The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the ...

Search for “bog” in this new edition of Seamus Heaney’s poems and you will find the word some 60 times; the 1,200 tissue-thin pages are mulchy with “the squelch and slap of soggy peat”. There is the o

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