classical music

From our agony aunt’s mailbag: Dear Alma, My string quartet is not in a good place. The founding violinist is fairly distant with the rest of us, who came in to replace her original partners […]

We have been notified of the death, aged 90, of the distinguished composer Siegfried Thiele, a man who maintained a successful career under both Communism and capitalism. Born in Chemnitz, he initially combined composing for […]

Musicians in the Munich Symphony Orchestra, ranking fourth in the city’s hierarchy, have discovered that they are paid 800 Euros a month less than the lowest paid in the other orchestra. They have published an […]

Berlin’s Konzarthaus has called off its Projections festival in February due to the effects of budget cuts amounting to 1.8 million Euros. The Konzerthaus said: ‘This cancellation makes the far-reaching effects of the current cuts […]

A concert at the Teatro Maggio Musicale to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini’s death was cancelled due to a general strike of public workers across Italy. Politics came first. The post Florence dishonours […]

The musicians picked  their moment to blank the centernary of Puccini’s death. What should have been a recital with orchestra by Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Netrebko was called off at five minutes past eight on […]

La forza del destino is an opera from Verdi’s heyday. Premiered four years after Un ballo in maschera, a very special moment in his production, it coincides with the prevailing taste for the exoticism of other worlds. Only […]

Two very rare videos from our archives. Watch here. Today is the 70th anniversary of his death and no orchestra that he worked with – Berlin, Vienna, Philharmonia – has bothered to commemorate it. Listen […]