Alexander Lee

Recipes to accompany our monthly history of food.

A children’s opera brought a brief respite from the terrors of the Holocaust.

Ethel Smyth took on the forces of inequality, in both politics and culture, producing highly acclaimed works of music that are now all but forgotten.

Though originally set to music, we almost always encounter the Ancient Greek epics as mute texts. But now their songs can be heard again.

French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was a hero to Beethoven, inspiring a revolutionary symphony. But disillusionment was soon to follow.

Historians set great store by what people heard in the past, but what about those things they misheard? 

While best known as the author of The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli played an important if unlikely role in the history of music. 

As the sounds of the world rattled into the future, so, too, did art and music courtesy of Luigi Russolo and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

The nature of warfare is constantly changing. So are the challenges that composers face in depicting the sound and struggle of battle.

Understanding the period and context in which a piece of music was created can offer great rewards for the listener.