Why did Rachmaninov spend decades revising his Piano Concerto No. 4 when there was nothing wrong with the original?

Ahead of his Australian debut, the pianist opens up about injury, depression and why jazz musos "shame" their classical colleagues.

Concert performances of The Flying Dutchman and a guest appearance by Barry Humphries are just two of many highlights in SSO 2013 Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The winner of the 2012 Sydney International Piano Competition recounts his journey, round by gruelling round. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The new assistant maestro says she is “thrilled to accept the post”. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

None of the five Australian candidates have progressed to the last stage of the Sydney International Piano Competition.

Delving into the “maestro myth”: why are our best conductors overlooked? Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Holst’s blockbuster The Planets is a perennial concert favourite, yet its astrological message remains obscure.

The festival teams the world’s hottest bands with orchestras and innovative composers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The American maestro takes over from Ashkenazy in 2014. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The SSO Fellowship is a baptism of fire for young musicians that includes a trip to jail.

Here is a compendium of four British rhapsodies for lost worlds. Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending is a sublime expression of pure joy, as violin soars against orchestra to weave its line of melody against the sky. Michael Dauth and the SSO combine with lyrical delicacy in a work that demands surrender to its idyllic beauty. More attention is needed for the song cycle On Wenlock Edge, Vaughan Williams’s settings of A E Housman taken from A Shropshire Lad  – rural poems of love and grief as soldiers went to die on foreign soil. Tenor Steve Davislim with Benjamin Martin on piano and the Hamer Quartet find quiet beauty in the sadness of these poems, and the fine audio experience provided by the SACD format makes for a profoundly moving experience. Vaughan Williams’s work for viola, chorus and orchestra Flos Campi is performed perhaps better than it deserves to be. The work always sounds to me like the soundtrack to a portentous 1950s sci-fi movie.  Amid these pieces is a solitary symphonic work by Benjamin Britten, his Sinfonia da Requiem, a supposedly celebratory piece commissioned by the Japanese Government shortly before that country entered into… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…