The 88-Key world

Chopin had come to Britain at the invitation of Jane Stirling, a spirited member of an old and wealthy Scottish family, who, with her widowed sister, Katherine Erskine, first met the composer in 1840 in Paris, where Jane became at first a promising pupil of Chopin's, then a devoted friend and patron. 

Her admiration for the composer almost certainly blossomed – on her part at least – into something more, and …

The maturity and originality of concepts found in this Sonata really give birth to a new moment in the piano literature: Schubert puts himself here on a level of universality that transcends gender. 

The Sonata Op. 143 should be placed chronologically between the works Alfonso and Estrella and Fierebras. It is not clear why Schubert composed a Sonata for piano when he was in the middle of two Operas: not because …

Among the works of the happy summer of 1825 is the luminous Sonata in D major Op. 53 D 850, written whilst the composer was staying in the spa town of Bad Gastein. 

It is not necessary to know or to hypothesize the real motivations that pushed an author to compose a certain passage, but to enter the spirit of the work.

The attack of Chopin's Second Piano and Orchestra Concerto begins with a seventh chord on the second grade of minor, a rare chord that Chopin also uses elsewhere, for example in the attack and in the final cadence of the first Scherzo. 

It …

For Mozart, improvising was the most natural way of making music. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Salzburg, 27 January 1756 - Vienna, 5 December 1791) spent much of his youth touring Europe with his family. 

He would often give performances with his sister Nannerl for the royal crowd. 

When Wolfgang was just eight years old, the family visited London for the first time. 

There, Wolfgang met Johann Sebastian Bach youngest son, Johann Christian Bach, the man …