Fine Music Magazine

Skryabin – 150 years on

Fine Music Magazine

“I am the apotheosis of world creation. I am the aim of aims, the end of ends.” It might be thought appropriate that a man who could give these words to the autobiographical hero of his opera had been born (according to the Julian calendar,

The well-tempered clavier – the great achievement

Fine Music Magazine

Is it possible to write a brief article about Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, a seminal collection of 24 preludes and fugues in every major and minor key, for the 300th anniversary of its completion in 1722? It's like being asked to mention the greatness of Shakespeare or of Van Gogh – the achievement is too great, too multi-faceted and so full of the summit of human genius that it defies adequate description. Surely the very attempt must involve a narrowing of focus, thus diminishing the complexity, richness, and subtlety of the whole? However, if these few words of mine pique the curiosity of even one reader enough to explore these works, that will be enough!

Was Brahms God? Erno Dohnányi thought so

Fine Music Magazine

Born in 1877, it didn’t take too long into Dohnányi’s career for him to realise that he was politically denigrated by the Communists and artistically shunned by the western avant-garde. The truth was that even as a young composer, he was utterly conservative. What he had learnt in the conservatorium was good enough for him; he was no innovator and Brahms was God as far as he was concerned.

The Paganini of the double bass

Fine Music Magazine

First there was Domenico Dragonetti. Though the double bass had been developed before 1600, it took a couple of centuries for a virtuoso on the instrument to make his mark. One observer remarked that “Dragonetti remains supreme and uses his instrument as Jupiter his bolts – now hurling the thunder, and now glancing the innocuous lightnings of heaven – for thus only can we describe the alternate succession of his powerful and delicate execution.”

December issue out now!

Fine Music Magazine

Read the December issue online now!

When Worlds Coalesce

Fine Music Magazine

I cannot have been the only teenager caught between two musical worlds, on the one hand the classical inclinations of my musician father, on the other, the temptations of some vibrant and innovative popular music. Fortunately, there were occasions when we ‘in-betweeners’ were catered for. In London in 1969, the Royal Albert Hall witnessed the premiere of Jon Lord’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra: there, in a concert which advance publicity billed as ‘When two worlds meet!’, Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra started off as stylistic antagonists and ultimately reached some kind of rapprochement.

The World of Beloved Symphony

Fine Music Magazine

The Symphony no 1 of Johannes Brahms is one of the most performed and admired works of orchestral music. My first encounter with it came as a beginner saxophonist, when learning to play the theme from the fourth movement – one of the most difficult exercises in A Tune a Day, an outdated but once ubiquitous book in music teaching studios. Like a lot of Brahms’ music, this theme is deceptive in its difficulty – played by an expert, it sounds simple but to attempt it is to test yourself against the complexity of a masterpiece.

A Life in Music

Fine Music Magazine

"My best performances are when the instrument is just part of me, when I’m still utilizing the mechanics of the box [but it’s just] a stop-gap between what’s inside me and what I want to communicate, when I feel what the music is trying to say.”

Song of his People

Fine Music Magazine

The decision to devise a program of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s music was made quite some time ago but, fittingly, this article is being written in the wake of the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests. Coleridge-Taylor was born on 15 August 1875 in London, the son of an English woman and a Sierra Leonean man. The latter was a medical student who returned to Sierra Leone upon graduating, unaware that he had fathered a child. Coleridge-Taylor was brought up by his mother and her extended family, who recognised his musical talents.

The Language of Jazz

Fine Music Magazine

Ever noticed how jazz has its own vernacular? Bebop, liquorice stick, layin’ down the clams, cool? Ever wondered why Nina Simone wanted ‘sugar‘ in her bowl, or where Beyoncé got the idea that ‘you gotta work your jelly’?