Counterpoint - BBC Culture

Loading

Counterpoint

West Side Story (Credit: United Artists)

Why West Side Story is so timely now

By Clemency Burton-Hill

The emergence of legal streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music has blown open the door to all types of music (Credit: Getty)

Can classical music change your life?

By Clemency Burton-Hill

‘It was love at first sight’

By Clemency Burton-Hill

(Credit: Wikipedia)

What makes a great music teacher?

By Clemency Burton-Hill

(Credit: Alamy)

How to learn an instrument in six weeks

By Clemency Burton-Hill

A caricaturist records the audience’s rapturous reception to Liszt in concert (Credit: De Agostini/Getty Images)

The world’s first musical ‘superstar’

By Clemency Burton-Hill

Florence Foster Jenkins’ extraordinary story has long held a fascination for writers, directors and musicians (Credit: Alamy)

The worst singer in the world

By Clemency Burton-Hill

Many of these opera roles would have originally been written in the 17th and 18th Century for the legendary castrato Carlo Broschi – known as Farinelli (Credit: Alamy)

The men who sang like women

By Clemency Burton-Hill

(Credit: Alamy)

The strange story of The Nutcracker

By Clemency Burton-Hill

What makes the perfect Bond song?

By Clemency Burton-Hill

Pianist Gergely Bogányi – who has objected to the poor quality of concert hall pianos – commissioned this instrument to correct pianos’ design flaws (Credit: Lázsló Járai)

Is this the future of the piano?

By Clemency Burton-Hill

Dimitri Shostakovich (Credit: Corbis)

The composer who was almost purged

By Clemency Burton-Hill

Ring a Ring o Roses is just one of many juvenile ditties thought to have less-than-child-friendly origins (Credit: Getty Images)

The dark side of nursery rhymes

By Clemency Burton-Hill

Alma Deutscher, who has been called 'Little Miss Mozart' (Credit: Keshet Eilon)

‘Little Miss Mozart’

By Clemency Burton-Hill

(Credit: Getty Images)

Five classical controversies

By Clemency Burton-Hill

(Credit: MONAD Studio / Eric Goldemberg / Veronica Zalcberg)

The weirdest musical instruments

By Clemency Burton-Hill