Keys To Music often used anniversaries as a rationale for some of the topics I chose, and, to be honest, they were often an excuse for me...

Keys To Music often used anniversaries as a rationale for some of the topics I chose, and, to be honest, they were often an excuse for me...

Keys To Music often used anniversaries as a rationale for some of the topics I chose, and, to be honest, they were often an excuse for me...

This music was written by one of the true individuals in music history, someone who has his fanatical admirers and his...

The writing and performing of church cantatas was central to so much of Johann Sebastian Bach's professional life. There is much we don't...

One of the things which keeps popping up as I study history, and the history of music in particular, is that the people who stand out are...

When I was starting out in this business, as a schoolboy trying to fathom the wonders of music, I found myself lumping composers together...

I am always fascinated by the human need for music. Walk down most streets these days, or take any form of public transport, and chances...

Christoph Willibald Gluck, born 2 July 1714, is one of those composers we always hear about when we study music history. Gluck...

In our previous post I explored the sequence of four different overtures written by Beethoven for his only opera, Fidelio. Each time the...

The word "overture" is used to describe a piece of music which is played at the start of something, usually an opera. The word itself...

This music was written by a man who inspired many other composers; indeed one writer calls him the most influential composer of the 19th...

When I was working at the ABC, one of my colleagues asked me if I could name any opera by Camille Saint-Saëns other than Samson and...

In this post we're going to explore an enormous span of European music history, looking at how composers have set one particular text to...

This music [listen] sounds a lot like it could have composed by Handel, and indeed it was written in England during Handel's lifetime....

Our story today starts in Seville, both the real one and the theatrical one. It starts with the Spanish tenor Manuel García, who created...

It will come as no surprise to you that I'm obsessed with the history of music. In terms of my general historical knowledge though my...

We live in an insanely busy world, with an over-supply of information, entertainment, advertising, news and pseudo-news, with more music...

Let's start by listening to this. [listen] Over the fifteen years I spent making Keys To Music for the ABC I received many suggestions...

How ironic that Handel, the greatest opera composer of the early 18th century, should have so decisively abandoned the artform which had...