Many Christmas classics were written amid a Californian summer heatwave
By Richard Bratby
Ralph Vaughan Williams is caricatured as a populist purveyor of ‘folky-wolky’ melodies
By Richard Bratby
Franz Schmidt spent his career trying to escape the suburbs of central European music
By Richard Bratby
The orchestra’s online archive offers an impressive spread of performances, including Rattle conducting Tom and Jerry and a Karajan concert that is appalling and magnificent
By Richard Bratby
The magazine has spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them
By Richard Bratby
Haydn survived smallpox, saw his house burn down (twice) and narrowly escaped castration
By Richard Bratby
