Composer of the Month: Olivier Messiaen
Whether providing respite from captivity, or depicting a forest thronged with birds, a sense of place and colour is key to Olivier Messiaen’s music.
January 1, 2014
Composer of the Month: Jacques Offenbach
No-one captured the spirit of 19th-century Paris better than Offenbach, whose mastery went far beyond his famous operettas.
October 1, 2013
Composer of the Month: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was admired by Elgar, likened to Mahler in the US and fêted as one of Britain’s top composers. But this was no rags-to-riches tale.
September 1, 2013
Composer of the Month: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Has the formal beauty of Palestrina’s music blinded us to its true meaning?
August 1, 2013
Composer of the Month: Antonio Salieri
Take a look beyond the myths of Mozarticide and discover a badly maligned operatic master once hailed as the worthy heir of Gluck.
July 1, 2013
Composer of the Month: Orlando Gibbons
The finest keyboard player of the Tudor age, Gibbons was also the creator of wonderfully idiosyncratic music.
June 1, 2013
Composer of the Month: Aram Khachaturian
The Stalin-approved Armenian composer’s music ranges from the celebrated ballet Spartacus to a little-known piece about his poodle.
May 1, 2013
Composer of the Month: Modest Mussorgsky
Once thought merely an inspired primitive by even his closest colleagues, Mussorgsky has proven to be a giant of Russian music.
March 1, 2013