Paul Lewis explains why he’s shifted gears from the piano works of a Classic to a Romantic. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Silence is key to Lewis's masterly Beethoven and Brahms.

The pianist talks about his early passions, the rigours of Alfred Brendel and surviving a Liverpudlian seagull swoop.

Sir Andrew Davis embraces the Bard while a host of starry soloists add to Melbourne’s imaginative line-up. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Vengerov, Lewis, Isserlis, Maisky and a host of great ensembles head Musica Viva's 70th Season.

The September 2011 issue of Limelight Magazine features a 70th-birthday interview with Plàcido Domingo, and we discover which concert hall is Australia's finest.

The British pianist's two-year Schubert world tour is giving him new insights into the composer.

In 1819 the publisher Anton Diabelli asked several composers each to write a single variation on a fairly nondescript waltz of his own. Beethoven set the task aside for four years – possibly the collegiate nature of the commission held little appeal – but eventually returned to Diabelli’s theme, proceeding to de- and re-construct every aspect of it in a monumental set of 33 variations. A major work, it postdates the piano sonatas and was composed at the same time as the Choral Symphony. This is late Beethoven, the deaf and obsessive composer who pushed the envelope and for whom an executant’s stamina was no longer a consideration. The variations display a double dose of virtuosity. For one thing, they stretch the pianist technically: the rapid Variations 17, 25 and 28 are as dazzling and difficult… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in