Dr Justin Wildridge

For the purposes of this article, I will broadly agree that the Romantic period of Western Classical Music runs from 1830 until the early 20th … Read more

Live recording of Symphony No.2 A complete score is available here. In so many ways Gustav Mahler epitomises the Romantic composer. Born on the 7th … Read more

The Magic Flute was the last opera that Mozart composed. It was an extremely busy and demanding year for Mozart who worked extensively on the … Read more

Even if you claim not to like the music of Mozart, after a single hearing of this sublime piece, I doubt whether anyone would remain … Read more

This delightful work originally had five movements. Its title translates as A Little Night Music, although it is really called Serenade number thirteen and was … Read more

Following the immense success of Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus” (1979), and later the film (1984), Mozart’s Requiem began to be perceived by many in a … Read more

Before Pachelbel’s Canon in D is dismissed or eternally embraced, I propose we examine the work and its context a little closer. Johann Pachelbel was … Read more

When listening to the beautiful music that the composer Rachmaninov has written it is difficult perhaps to imagine the suffering that surrounded many of his … Read more

As I look through articles on the Great Baroque, Classical and Romantic composers on the world wide web, there are increasingly more questions and queries … Read more

If you speak the name of Schumann it is almost one hundred percent certain that the conversation will swerve towards Robert Schumann; that troubled musical … Read more

It might at first seem odd to begin to review Haydn’s impressive symphonic oeuvre beginning with his final work, but starting at the end of … Read more