#viola

#viola

Handel's music, like Mozart's, has truly healing properties. It quiets the mind in a hypnotic way, penetrating the psyche of the characters deeply.

The medieval era was very much about church music, partially because that's where a lot of the creativity was happening, and partially because the church was the primary institution, along with universities, dedicated to writing things down.

The first weeks were a roller coaster of pleasure and perplexity. Touching the strings, my fingers started to remember things that I had long forgotten.

Pianist Dr. Gabriela Calderón and violinist Dr. Catalina Barraza celebrate the rich musical heritage of Latin America.

Bomsori Kim is a 36-year-old, South Korean, classical violinist who plays from the soul. In Bomsori's hands, she takes people on a journey to the music of another century.

Fast forward a few decades and John Wilson is still hand-picking musicians and still serving up performances so polished they leave critics scrabbling for superlatives. These days Wilson's main outfit is the Sinfonia of London, and he is as likely to be conducting the symphonic mainstream as showtunes.

When wonderful scores of music have been rediscovered after being forgotten for 350 years, it's akin to finding doubloons that were lost at the bottom of the ocean in a shipwreck. Yet the result of musical rediscovery is much better than finding long-lost gold, because musical treasures can be shared with a world of listeners.

Upon its debut in 1725, The Four Sea­sons stunned lis­ten­ers by telling a sto­ry with­out the help of a human voice. Vival­di drew on four exist­ing son­nets (pos­si­bly of his own prove­nance), using strings to paint a nar­ra­tive filled with spring thun­der­storms, summer's swel­ter, autum­nal hunts and har­vests, and the icy winds of win­ter. The com­pos­er stud­ded his score with pre­cise­ly placed lines from the son­nets, to con­vey his expec­ta­tions that the musi­cians would use their instru­ments to son­i­cal­ly embody the expe­ri­ences being described.

Ben Gunnery, who has toured the world throughout his career, targeted his victims in November, four months after being found guilty of sending the same explicit content to another woman. Gunnery found the women online and within days was sending them unsolicited images of his genitals. This story contains details of sexual harassment some may find upsetting. Gunnery, from Vauxhall, London, previously admitted sending images of his genitals to the two women with the intention of causing distress or humiliation.

"Piano piano" is an old Italian saying that sounds nonsensical, but is actually full of wisdom, especially if you, like me, are finding yourself wishing away these frigid winter days and hoping spring and summer gets here fast. These days, I've found myself rushing from one thing to the next, frustrated at the smallest things, from post office lines to just missing my train. And I'm ready to make a change.

Radulovic plunges in, his audacious attack and intonational high-wire act almost upsetting the applecart in the oompah-pah finale. The same fearless commitment pays dividends elsewhere: in the jaunty Heifetz arrangement of the Gavotte from the Classical Symphony, for example, or in the spiky march from The Love for Three Oranges.

Barbara Strozzi was a true 17th-century revolutionary. The adopted and quite possibly the natural daughter of poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi, she grew up in the bosom of the Venetian intelligentsia, taking part in debates from the age of 15. Her tally of 120 published works for solo voice was unequalled by any of her contemporaries. Despite remaining single, she managed to support four children on the income from her music alone.