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In episode three of this four part series, Miles Hoffman describes how tempo markings are left to the interpretation of the conductor or musician and then…

For about a hundred years, roughly from 1650 to 1750, the principal type of aria in opera, and also in the oratorios and cantatas of such composers as…

Have you ever wondered how the violin came to play such an important role in the history of classical music? Well, it starts with singing. The invention…

Host Miles Hoffman discusses why some people call a flute player a floutist, while most of the flute players with whom he is friends call themselves…

Claude Debussy in 1903 wrote about the importance of giving his imagination free rein. Five years later Debussy expanded on the theme in a published…

When “classical” public radio stations surveyed their audiences some years back, the most common answer to the question, “Why do you listen to classical…

The composer Ernest Bloch once wrote that it’s only by plunging one’s roots to the depths of one’s own people that one finds the common ground of all…

Many composers over the years have tried to express in writing what the music of Mozart has meant to them—and to the world. Here are a couple of examples…

Performers are always seeking the most effective and compelling ways to bring a composer’s musical ideas to life. I stress the plural, “ways,” because…

A scientist I know was talking about great works of literature the other day, and she said that what characterized them was the “density of brilliance.”…