Welcome to BBC Music Magazine's December 2025 issue!
This issue we salute the drama and majesty of Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt. Celebrating its 150th birthday this year, Grieg's incidental accompaniment to Henrik Ibsen’s nationalistic play remains some of the most recognisable music ever composed, heard everywhere from adverts to pop covers. On page 24, Terry Blain tells the story of Peer Gynt’s composition, and analyses its musical themes and impact.
Another master of melody was Sergei Rachmaninov – for years dismissed as too lyrical and populist to be taken seriously, but today appreciated for his romantic genius. In perhaps no other work are these qualities more apparent than the Second Piano Concerto, which he began composing 125 years ago. Still as fresh and vivid today as at its premiere in 1901, the work is the subject of this month’s Building a Library by Jessica Duchen on page 68.
Elsewhere this issue, pianist Mariam Batsashvili talks to Michael Church about Beethoven, artistic freedom... and teaching via social media. And we revisit the gflory of Haydn's London Symphonies: Clifford Hall recounts the composer's huge successes in the English capital, a far cry from his hard-up days in a freezing Vienna garret.
We also investigate 15 pieces of music whose most popular bits have gone on to enjoy a life of their own, from Puccini's 'Nessun Dorma' to Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee' (and also featuring works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Khachaturian and many others).
How do you bring an illustrious stage career to an end? Andrew Green muses on the art of the well-timed farewell, from Paganini to Joan Sutherrland and beyond. And for Composer of the Month, Stephen Johnson salutes Schubert’s ability to switch seamlessly between states of mind from angst to acceptance.
This month's cover CD stays with the Grieg theme, featuring a radiant performance by pianist Paul Lewis of the composer's supremely Romantic Piano Concerto, with its famously bravura opening. The CD also features the lush nostalgia of Grieg's Holberg Suite.
Click here or on the image to see the track details for this month's cover CD.
