I found an incredible book of Spanish folk-songs recently, which agonizingly only gives the English of most of the songs. However, here...

I'll never forget that Hammerklavier recording, which introduced me to late Beethoven. And still less this , which, by pure coincidence,...

and came across one of these Shakespeare lines which casually sweeps you off your feet (highlighted by AC Bradley in his commentary,...

This is by no means a uniformly brilliant recording, but there are some standout moments I wish to highlight -Easily the best part is the...

Thinking about this strangely moving section at the end, when Bach suddenly breaks off from learned discourse to play- in the...

Everyone knows the famous slow movement from the D959 sonata. But in my perhaps controversial opinion, the most extraordinary aspect of...

I was reading, this morning, the poetry of Lady Sarashina- the name given to an anonymous Heian-era writer of exquisitely sensitive yet...

The pianist whose style I most identify with- humble, heartfelt, raw. His seminal 62 recording of Ballade 4 has probably been on this...

https://youtu.be/1suVkY8lI4A?si=766IiXebYGlsGkeH

Starting at 14:15 in this video (the whole of which is well worth a listen), is one of the greatest performances of Chopin Concerto 1 Mov...

For those of you who don't know him, one of the greatest singers of the canzona napulitana. Murolo's voice, so utterly unaffected yet...

I've been re-reading Sir Gawain over the past week. A flawed little man gallivants across (modern-day) Wales and northern England to keep...

More exciting than visiting somewhere new, is visiting it in the footsteps of someone whose work you admire. Just before leaving for...

Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets, filling one another, The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other...

74 years ago today we lost the exceptionally gifted Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti. For those of you who don't know him, Lipatti's playing...

When translating poetry, notes the scholar AK Ramanujan, you must recreate not so much the literal sense of the original, as the effect...

Two superb recordings of the Liszt classic. Cziffra's is all about that glorious high melody- some of the best cantabile playing I've...

Today marks 175 years since the death of Fryderyk Chopin. A good opportunity to remember that at twenty-one, the composer wrote one of...

Just a quick post to celebrate what would have been the 98th birthday of the great German keyboardist Karl Richter, the man who changed...

I was watching, last week, a lovely video of Horowitz performing a Bach transcription. Lovely not only because of the playing, but...