The Essay

Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the...

Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the...

Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the...

Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the...

Phil Hebblethwaite examines five classical musical hoaxes and controversies, from the early twentieth century to the modern day. These are origin stories that have fooled and perplexed some of the greatest experts. In an age of misinformation, when faking it has never been more prevalent, the series unravels the stories of some of the most brazen and confounding composer controversies. What is the...

Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and reconsider their relationship with their instruments. We all know that listening to music can have a positive impact on wellbeing and mental health. But what about the performer? The truth is, for anyone wanting to turn professional, this is a highly competitive and pressurised environment often driven in part by fear...

Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. As principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic for three decades, Ludwig Quandt performed with conductors Claudio Abbado and Sir Simon Rattle until an injury unrelated to performing nearly ended his career. He reveals what being forced to confront silence means for a musician's relationship with...

Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. What does being forced to fall silent mean for a musician's relationship with their instrument? Robin Graham reached her dream as the first woman to earn a principal French horn position in a major American orchestra by audition. She shares her story of how painful injury caused her to leave in 20...

Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and rethink their lives. What does this mean for a musician's relationship with their instrument? Aged 11, Stephen Marquiss was labelled an exemplary piano scholar. Gaining a music specialist place in 1990 Stephen promptly attained the highest ABRSM exam mark in the country and reached the televised semi-final of BBC Youn...

Kate Kennedy meets musicians who, like her, had to stop playing after injury and reshape their lives. What does being forced to fall silent mean for a musician's relationship with their instrument? "My name is Julian Lloyd Webber and I am an ex-cellist". The internationally renowned performer, Julian Lloyd Webber talks for the first time in detail to Kate about the moment he realised his 40-year c...

"Les petites girls Anglaises" was the nickname given by a French journalist to the elaborately costumed and rhythmic Tiller Girls troupe. Adjoa Osei is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and a former performer herself, and she's been exploring the complexities involved in being a dancing girl in 1930s Paris, appearing on stage alongside the likes of Josephine Baker and French nude da...

1574, and a baby girl on board a ship fleeing from France, arrives in London. Esther Inglis went on to become a successful Tudor bookmaker and artist and Eleanor Chan argues that the inclusion of psalm music in the self portraits created by Inglis is a coded way of symbolising belonging at a time of religious strife. The essay draws on research done by New Generation Thinker Eleanor Chan, who has...

"Millons be Free" is a Jacobin song which originally celebrated the idea of the French Revolution, whose tune became the American national anthem. Oskar Jensen sings us the melody and tells us a story involving Alexander Hamilton, the advocate of women's rights Mary Wollstonecraft, Haydn and Hummel at a drinking society, a Liverpool lawyer William Roscoe and William Pirsson, a Chelmsford bookselle...

How musician Robert Hales and a witty song helped Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's counsellor, win back the Queen's favour. Documents show us that Cecil supported many musicians, paid for a full-time consort, and had to temporarily dismiss one player for "lewdness". New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday tells the story and explores what we know about the role of music at the Tudor court. Christina F...

Teresa del Riego's work was a staple of early Prom seasons but the anthem she premiered for the suffrage movement in 1911, at the Criterion restaurant Piccadilly Circus, which had 1,000 copies of the song distributed around the country, has not been heard recently. Naomi Paxton shares her research into the compositions of del Riego (1876-1968) and the music making of the suffrage circle. Singer Lu...

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer. The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this final essay recounts the night of "Beckstival" and how t...

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer. The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. As the evening of the gig approaches Karine begins to understand...

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award-winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer. The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine reflects on the strange purposelessness she...

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer. The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine considers the power of song to transport us...

The multi-award-winning folksinger, songwriter and storyteller, Karine Polwart, crafts an elegy in song for Al Beck, a local legend of rural East Lothian. The songs - were Al's choices for ‘Beckstival' a back garden celebration co-created in the depth of lockdown during June 2020, just weeks before Al's death from cancer. The music ranged from 60s psychedelia and pop classics to a traditional pipe...

A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for music, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn player...

A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for musicals, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn pla...

A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for musicals, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn pla...

A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for musicals, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn pla...

A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for music, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn player...