Florence Nightingale and the dangers of piano music
There’s a heartening story from the BBC today about how the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College, London has been able to hire a composer-in-residence. The…
Musical surprises #25: A bit of Tooting history
Happy Christmas! Today’s revelation is not strictly a musical surprise, except that it vaguely concerns me and I’m a musician. But it’s quite surprising all the same, and I love…
Musical surprises #24: What Rumanian dances sound like without the Bartók
I love Bartók’s Rumanian Dances, and indeed, I’ve just recorded them with the violinist Gillon Cameron on the album After Class 2. But I was gobsmacked when I heard my…
Musical surprises #23: Vauxhall, Strauss & Tchaikovsky
Although the light and popular dance rhythms of Johann Strauss II seem a sociocultural world away from the ‘classical’ Tchaikovsky, they’re not. It’s our own snobbery that obscures the connections…
Musical surprises #22: There’s a psychopomp in my barcarole
Next time you get to a slow bit of a ballet where there’s something a bit wafty and barcarole-ish in 6/8, look out for a psychopomp. A psychopomp, explains the…
Musical surprises #21: If you want to play for children’s ballet, study semiotics
Thanks to the musical semiotician Raymond Monelle and his wonderful book The Sense of Music, I am happily aware that there is a concept in music of a horse which…