Introducing Tchaikovsky the merry scamp
Rescuing the composer from his tortured image, Simon Morrison presents him as a sort of Till Eulenspiegel character, laughing and pranking his way through life
Discordant times
Exiled from Russia and often denigrated in America, Rachmaninoff lived in a fug of unbearable, impenetrable sadness, says Paul Kildea
The making of a composer
‘My dear young man: don’t take it too hard,’ Joseph II counsels a puppyish Mozart, the colour of his hair…
Playing by his own rules
There’s a scene early on in A Song to Remember — Charles Vidor’s clunky Technicolor film of 1945 — in…
Obscure objects of desire
In the world of classic cars, barn-finds sometimes do occur. An old Mercedes Gullwing might be discovered under tarps and…
Bach helped me survive Bergen-Belsen
One of the great joys of the 18th-century novella La petite maison is the way Jean-François de Bastide matches the…
Handel’s greatest hits — the glorious London decades
England has been home to three great composer-entrepreneurs since 1700: Benjamin Britten in the 20th century; Arthur Sullivan in the…
