BBC Music Magazine

BBC Music Magazine is a must for anyone with a passion for classical music. Classical music connoisseurs and new enthusiast alike will enjoy the fascinating features and reviews of over 120 new works in every issue.

Please Note: Our digital edition does not include the cover mount items or supplements you would normally find with printed copies

Welcome

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

BBC Music Magazine

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Alison Balsom calls time on career • Last Night of the Proms to be trumpeter’s final concert

Grave occasions reveal an unexpected taste

Finnish conductor to start at the Centre

Einstein’s fiddle set for sale

Ravel’s Boléro, a ballet with ‘no music’, takes to the stage

Also in November 1928…

Music to my ears • The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites…

Concert Heaven Concert Hell • Top artists recall their best and worst performances

MyHero

An environmental force

FAREWELL TO…

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN • Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles selects some of the best examples of British orchestral repertoire

Richard Morrison • There’s much that Europe and UK festivals can learn from each other

Dark fascination • 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 music of Iceland • From choral music to concert halls

Northern voices • Five further Icelandic composers

A passage to Indonesia • Hearing the Javanese gamelan at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris introduced Debussy to a new world, explains Simon Broughton

Indonesian gamelan • A beginner’s guide

Identity crisis • Do national schools of piano playing still exist in 2025, asks Jessica Duchen – and indeed, has the concept ever really been an accurate one?

Man of the world • Pianist Seong-Jin Cho

An American in China • Conductor Kazem Abdullah has built his career on introducing American works to international audiences. Tom Stewart meets him in Beijing

Beijing Music Festival • Highlights from 2025

Rays of light • Multiple studies show that music can do wonders for our mental health. So which pieces do we turn to when times are tough?

Composing therapy • Howells’s heartfelt tribute

Stolen strings • Michael White tells how a violin, cruelly confiscated by the Nazis but now recovered, has inspired a new work by Huw Watkins about its heroic owner

Town that time forgot • Freden and its surrounds

Screen players • 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?

Musical chops • Actors who really can play

Mum’s the word • New motherhood and its effects on the careers of professional musicians is a subject rarely broached. It’s time to break the silence, says Anne Templer

No pregnant pauses • Lidiya Yankovskaya

Trieste Italy • John-Pierre Joyce heads to the very corner of Italy to enjoy the cultural riches of a city whose list of musical visitors is both long and illustrious

Legrand’s style

Michel Legrand • With a portfolio ranging from iconic film scores to jazz standards and even a piano concerto, the versatile Frenchman is hailed by Mervyn Cooke

MICHEL LEGRAND Life & Times

The composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky The Tempest • Jeremy Pound is storm-tossed and then enchanted as he seeks out the best versions of the Russian’s Shakespeare-inspired fantasy-overture

A colourful...