
Public voting opens for the RPS Inspiration Award 2026
Awarded annually at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, the Inspiration prize recognises UK amateur music making

Peer Gynt: a guide to Edvard Grieg's popular masterpiece
When asked to write music for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, Grieg thought he was facing an impossible challenge. But, as Terry Blain relates, the composer’s perseverance resulted in a masterpiece
of matchless character and colour

Review: Kalevi Aho – Moonlight Concerto, etc
Claire Jackson is mightily impressed by Sharon Bezaly’s mastery of the rare alto flute

Celebrate the future of music with the Festival Academy Budapest
FAB celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2025 with honoured guests and young talent

The best headphones to help you listen while you work

Music is helping prisoners turn away from crime. Here's how
Organisations providing musical opportunities in prisons do much to preserve dignity and encourage rehabilitation, discovers Abigail Frymann Rouch

What can musicians do to help tackle climate change?
Delia Stevens from percussion and harmonica/melodeon duo Stevens & Pound writes about her relationship with music and the climate

Greatest symphonies: the 21 best orchestral masterpieces, ranked
Which is the best-ever symphony? 151 of the world's leading conductors voted for what they thought to be the greatest symphonies ever written

When is the right time for musicians to retire?
Put bluntly, age and experience used to be venerated much more than they are now, writes Richard Morrison

'The famous bit': 15 popular classical music moments… But can you identify them?
We take a look at the arias, movements, songs and dances whose fame has outshone the larger works in which they first appeared

Meet the most fascinating figures from classical music

Shock impact and religious zeal: how historically informed performance revolutionised classical music

From the Middle Ages to Miles Davis, these are the 10 best trumpeters of all time
Leading trumpeter Matilda Lloyd traces the history of her instrument through ten influential players, from the Tudor era to the present day

15 bands whose lyrics we just don't understand (and we love it that way)
Some of rock’s most beloved bands sing in riddles, nonsense, or invented languages — and we love them all the more for it
The great composers
Explore the lives and works of classical music's finest composers

Meet Hildur Guðnadóttir – the star composer of Joker and Chernobyl
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

Sex mad: music's 11 most bed-hopping composers, ranked
Jeremy Pound lifts the covers off those notorious notesmiths who found the thrill of playing away simply too hard to resist

Autism? Tourette's? Top psychiatrists assess Mozart's bizarre, brilliant mind
Using today’s psychoanalytic methods, what can we learn, asks Rebecca Franks, about the mind of Mozart, perhaps the greatest musical genius of all?

This composer's personal life was an enigma. His music is a thing of wonder
We explore the life and work of Maurice Ravel, master craftsman of French music
Greatest Recordings
Our recommendations of essential additions to your listening library

Prog rock 1975: ranking the 17 greatest prog albums turning 50 this year
1975 was a landmark year for progressive rock, delivering groundbreaking albums that pushed musical boundaries and redefined the genre’s scope. Here are the 15 best

Ranked: the 21 greatest country rock albums of all time
When rock met country, magic happened — steel guitars, road songs, and restless hearts. These 21 albums defined that bittersweet crossroads

These 15 stone-cold classic albums were a nightmare to make
From Fleetwood Mac to Tears for Fears: 15 classic rock albums that cost blood, sweat and tears to put together

Genesis: all 15 albums ranked from worst to best (the top 5 were SO tough)
We rank every Genesis studio album, from their early prog masterpieces to the stadium filling pop-rock of the 1980s
Albums of the week
A selection of the best reviewed albums from the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine

Review: Strauss: 'Ein Heldenleben' (Philharmonia / Rouvali)
Sarah Urwin Jones is captivated by Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s take on Strauss

Review: Harry Partch – The Wayward (Partch Ensemble)
Kate Wakeling is captivated by the Partch Ensemble’s compelling realisation of a truly original body of works

Review: Golden Age (Erin Morley, Lawrence Brownlee)
Morley and Brownlee are on sensational form in 19th-century arias and duets, writes George Hall
Rock music
Explore rock music

Here's an underrated classic album from each 1970s year
The 1970s were the age of the Classic Album. But it wasn't all Floyd and Zeppelin. Try these ten underrated Seventies gems for size

Live fast… die young? 15 bulletproof rock legends who cheated the cliché
15 rockers who have somehow managed to combine legendary excess and hedonism with a frankly very respectable time upon this earth

Deviations: the strangest songs by 15 rock icons
Everyone has an off day. Or even just a strange day. Here are the strange tracks that stick out like a sore thumb in the catalogues of the rock demigods
Audio equipment reviews and advice
A selection of the best reviewed albums from the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine


