From the author of 'Ma'am Darling' and other hoots, a ragbag of tales and thoughts about the Beatles and their circle which somehow adds up to a wonderful account of their charisma and influ... read more
The first full biography (with access to his papers given by his family) to this Indian cultural icon and significant C20th musician, who influenced the Beatles, Coltrane, Glass, Menuhin.
The marvellous Attlee takes us on the journey, through space and time, of one violin, whose voice "was powerful enough to unbuckle joints". Cremona, Russia, Venice, Alpine forests... (Her la... read more
An entertaining and affecting memoir of the great pianist's youth and early training, which began in a suburb of post-war Liverpool. Told with candour and simplicity.
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
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
There are seven exceptionally talented siblings in this family of musicians, and they went to a state comprehensive in Nottingham before all moving to the Royal Academy of Music. This is the... read more
The stupendous and vaulting 'Symphony of a Thousand', first performed in Munich in 1910 to huge acclaim, and its effect on those around the composer: Berg and Schoenberg, Korngold, Bruno Wal... read more
In this magnificently madcap adventure, SR pursues rumours of old pianos into all corners of Siberia: Arctic, Altai, Kamchatka, Princess Volkonsky in Irkutsk... She writes well, has a lovely... 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
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