Works
Gods, kings and valkyries: 7 epic Wagner opera characters you should know
British soprano Susan Bullock selects the juiciest Wagner roles for singers to get their teeth into
Amahl and the Night Visitors: an iconic US Christmas TV tradition
In the Bleak Midwinter - the world's favourite Christmas carol
Ashutosh Khandekar heads back to a particularly bleak midwinter in the early 20th century, as he traces the chilly history of one of today’s most beloved carols
The 50 best Christmas carols of all time
Here's a list of the best-ever Christmas carols for the festive season, as voted for by 50 top choral experts from across the UK and US. Do you agree with their choices?
Fingers and nerves of steel: the 12 hardest pieces of music to play
Our guide to the 12 most difficult pieces of music to play ever - do you agree with our choices?
Best love songs: 11 enduringly popular odes to love and romance
Our round up of the most popular, most enduring and famous love songs ever...
You know his Cello Concerto. But here's why the Elgar Violin Concerto should be better known
Best piano concertos of all time: 12 incredible works for piano and orchestra
These are some of the greatest piano concertos - the finest works ever written for piano with orchestra
Hardest classical work to memorise: we asked top musicians to reveal the works that test their grey cells
From Beethoven to Glass, three performers choose the work that they've found hardest to commit to memory
Debussy for beginners: 15 great ways into the French composer's inimitable soundworld
Pianist George Lepauw guides us through the Debussy works he thinks any non-classical music fan would enjoy
Bumblebee princes, murderous genies and singing dragons: 15 forgotten operas ripe for rediscovery
Robert Thicknesse names fifteen fabulous but forgotten operas
We asked musicians for their dream and nightmare pieces to perform. The results are fascinating
Which works do orchestral players love to play? And which do they dread? We head round the sections of some of Europe’s finest ensembles to find out
Music's most powerful Requiems: how composers have explored death and the afterlife
From wrathful Verdi to ethereal Fauré, there are many different ways to compose a Requiem, as Jeremy Pound discovers
Best poems of all time: 12 of the most evocative and entrancing poems ever written
From The Tyger to The Lady of Shallot, we pore over 12 of the best loved poems in all of literature
The Lark Ascending: the story of Vaughan Williams's evocative masterpiece, and five great recordings
A guide to The Lark Ascending, Vaughan Williams's much-loved work for violin and orchestra
Music for studying: 15 great works for mental focus and concentration
What is the best music to aid a little learning? These are the best pieces of music for studying and keeping you on task and concentrating when the going gets tough and you're feeling easily distracted
Weirdest works: classical music's 15 most strange and surprising creations
Step forward Ligeti, Stockhausen and, er, Mozart: here are classical music's strangest, craziest and weirdest compositions
Best classical music for kids: 14 wonderful works to start your little ones on an incredible journey into music
From Prokofiev to Britten, there are plenty of composers who wrote music specifically for children. But where best to start? Here is our pick of the best classical music for children
Turandot: a guide to Puccini's bloodthirsty final opera, its famous 'Nessun Dorma' aria, and its best recordings
No-one shall sleep, says Alexandra Wilson, until she has solved the riddle of choosing the best recording of Puccini’s brutal final opera
Darkest nursery rhymes: the eerie, unsettling messages hiding behind our best-loved children's songs
From Jack and Jill to Three Blind Mice, many of our best-loved nursery rhymes have some sinister meanings behind their cheerful lyrics. Read on for our guide to the darkest nursery rhymes of all time
These are 15 cast-iron classical masterpieces. But they all had truly disastrous first nights
John Evans takes a look at the great works that, while much adored and respected today, all got off to a horribly shaky start
Ranked: the ten best cello concertos of all time - and the revelatory recordings you need
Here is our selection of the greatest pieces ever written for cello and orchestra. Do you agree?
'Trivial, noisy and blatant': sometimes even great composers write terrible music
Genius doesn’t guarantee you will create a winner every time, writes Richard Morrison
Happiness, brilliance, pain and fear: the 7 most passionate musical declarations of love
French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca names the musical declarations of love with which he is smitten