Articles
Public voting opens for the RPS Inspiration Award 2026
Awarded annually at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, the Inspiration prize recognises UK amateur music making
Peer Gynt: a guide to Edvard Grieg's popular masterpiece
When asked to write music for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, Grieg thought he was facing an impossible challenge. But, as Terry Blain relates, the composer’s perseverance resulted in a masterpiece
of matchless character and colour
The best headphones to help you listen while you work
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Music is helping prisoners turn away from crime. Here's how
Organisations providing musical opportunities in prisons do much to preserve dignity and encourage rehabilitation, discovers Abigail Frymann Rouch
What can musicians do to help tackle climate change?
Delia Stevens from percussion and harmonica/melodeon duo Stevens & Pound writes about her relationship with music and the climate
When is the right time for musicians to retire?
Put bluntly, age and experience used to be venerated much more than they are now, writes Richard Morrison
'The famous bit': 15 popular classical music moments… But can you identify them?
We take a look at the arias, movements, songs and dances whose fame has outshone the larger works in which they first appeared
7 neglected piano concertos that we all should know better
Pianist Clare Hammond selects unfairly overlooked piano concertos that deserve to be performed more often
Murder, brawling and threesomes: music's 15 worst-behaved composers, ranked
From Mozart to Peter Warlock, here are 15 composers who stepped out of line - socially, sexually, or just with too much motorbike-based nudity
Music has the power to save the planet. Here’s how
As he relives a memorable evening at the BBC Proms, Tom Service ponders how music might make us reconsider our relationship with the world around us
Meet Hildur Guðnadóttir – the star composer of Joker and Chernobyl
Cellist and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir has forged a career spanning classical, film and electronics – but she’s always been drawn to unsettling themes, as she tells Claire Jackson
The best value bookshelf speakers for £500 or less
Anne Dudley, Debbie Wiseman and Anoushka Shankar among the winners at Ivors Classical Awards 2025
Screen actors playing musicians: the best and worst examples
Actors ‘playing’ instruments on screen can be the stuff of nightmares. But, asks Michael Beek, to what lengths have they gone to make it look convincing?
Winners of the 2025 Aga Khan Music Awards announced
Music to help us through difficult times
Multiple studies show that music can do wonders for our mental health. So which pieces do we turn to when times are tough?
Fear, control, violence: the darkness behind Phil Spector's legendary 'Wall of Sound'
His dazzling ‘Wall of Sound’ recording technique brought widescreen drama to pop music. But Phil Spector’s personal life was music’s darkest, most violent psychodrama
Who was Ivor Novello? The Welsh songwriter and operetta composer who inspired The Ivors
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer appears on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions
Chaos, death, black magic: 13 legendary rock addresses with dark pasts
From mansions with ghostly histories to studios steeped in sin, these are the haunted homes of rock ’n’ roll.
Élisabeth Pion wins 2025 Honens International Piano Competition
'Nebraska': how Springsteen forged beauty from America's dark underbelly
Quite unlike anything else from 1982, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska is a stripped-back, confessional masterpiece capturing America’s forgotten lives with haunting, intimate storytelling and timeless, darkly compelling narratives
Shock impact and religious zeal: how historically informed performance revolutionised classical music
Scandal, fraud and worse: rock's 19 most infamous managers, ranked
From manipulation and financial shenanigans to scandal and ego, these infamous rock managers shaped music – and sometimes ruined lives