The first violinist of the Takacs Quartet ruminates on the work of Bartók, Britten, Dvořák and Elgar in relation to ideas of home, exile, nostalgia and place, the hope and even dread of r... read more
A short biography of Thomas Linley, the Georgian prodigy who was celebrated - with Mozart - by Burney as "the most promising geniusses of the age". But he died very young.
The late lamented drummer of the Rolling Stones, who died just over a year ago. He was also a jazz fiend, playing and recording with several other musicians. His deadpan demeanour set off hi... read more
The ambitions of the youngest member of a musical family are thwarted by having to play the triangle... But help appears in the form of a cat-ghost, Maestro Gus, who is a magical teacher. A ... read more
From London in the Swinging Sixties to a hippie retreat in the Outer Hebrides: she and her partner travelled - slowly - by horse and wagon. She gave up music, disillusioned with the pop indu... read more
Nellie Melba, the diva from Queensland who transfixed the world for three decades in the roles of Violetta, Juliette, Rosina, Mimi and co... She was adored by gossip columnists and honoured ... read more
The legendary Russian pianist, friend of Pasternak and other greats, who fell from grace to live precariously on the fringes of Soviet society. EW is the author of fine biographies of Shosta... read more
Acute and wide-ranging, these disparate glimpses come together (ha!) to make up a picture not only of the 'Fab Four' but of the new and colourful 1960s' world that they helped to usher in. ... read more
A short but extremely useful guide to help those without prior knowledge of classical music discover ways into wonders that can seem intimidating or closed.
Wolf set the works of thirty-six poets to music. Here the genial professor of lieder at the Royal College of Music translates the poems, introduces the poets and Wolf's connections with them... read more
Raised in Nazi Germany, at 18, Wulff Scherchen was Britten's muse and lover. When the composer went to the USA during the war, Wulff was interned as an enemy alien and transported to Canada,... read more
This magnificent book - which takes its title from a remark of the singer Josephine Baker - gives us the cultural landscape of black genius from the mid C20th to the present. We are in extr... read more
Argues that role of the unruly, the socially outcast, the revolutionary, the disreputable etc have consistently been overlooked in the history of music, which has in effect been bowdlerised... read more
A personal exploration of Indian classical music, its improvisations that flower from well-established short sequences of notes, its subtle evocations of feeling. By a fine writer and vocali... read more