The king of the waltz

For many critics and fans alike, Alfred Brendel was the ‘thinking man’s pianist’. A truly iconic figure, the man with inquisitive eyes and a secret smile peered out from the covers of CD-box sets by B

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

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

In 1984, a truncated version of Maurice Ravel’s orchestral piece Boléro was used to accompany a routine by British ice-dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. The p

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

What Italian opera signified to the Habsburg court