BBC Music Magazine

BBC Music Magazine is a must for anyone with a passion for classical music. Classical music connoisseurs and new enthusiast alike will enjoy the fascinating features and reviews of over 120 new works in every issue.

Please Note: Our digital edition does not include the cover mount items or supplements you would normally find with printed copies

Welcome

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

BBC Music Magazine

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The full score • Our pick of the month’s news, views and interviews

Vienna’s cacophonous concert ends to the sound of slapping

Also in March 1913…

Music to my ears • The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites…

Concert Heaven Concert Hell • Top artists recall their best and worst performances

My Hero

Lend me your years…

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN • Pick a theme… and name your seven favourite examples

Richard Morrison • Did Mendelssohn peak at the age of just 16 with his magnificent Octet?

BBC music MAGAZINE Awards 2025 • VOTE NOW and help choose the best classical recordings of the past 12 months

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Frenchpolish • From music of the past to jazz, from Spanish dance to kitchen crockery, Ravel took a remarkable range of influences as his inspiration and turned them into perfectly crafted masterpieces, writes Paul Riley

Gold medals and sex kittens • Ravel’s music in popular culture

A hometown celebration • Ciboure’s annual Festival Ravel

‘Music by women and composers of colour is not a separate set of pieces from the ones we know’ • THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

Homage to Britten • Errollyn Wallen’s new opera

The 11 best film scores of all time • Together, music and film can create magic, but which have done it best? Michael Beek asks top film and TV composers to vote

There and back again • With retrospectives on album and in concert this month, Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore reflects on his years in Middle-earth and tells Michael Beek why he has a lot to thank the LPO for…

Academy anniversary • 90 years of musical Oscars

Look back in anguish • Despite Korngold’s denials, there is much to suggest that his Symphony in F sharp is a grim depiction of the dark days of Nazism, argues Jessica Duchen

Hope and despair • A guide to the Symphony

Come again? • If something is worth hearing once it’s worth hearing again, explains Rebecca Franks, who charts a history of the use of echoes in music

In the record books • The world’s longest echo

Molto humoroso • Cartoonist and broadcaster Gerard Hoffnung lampooned the world of classical music with splendid affection and wit, writes Andrew Green

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Hoffnung’s influence • Brian Kay, King’s Singers

Istanbul Turkey • Charlotte Smith is entranced by a city that straddles east and west, and places an abundance of art, music and culture at the heart of its identity

Pierre Boulez • Tom Stewart celebrates a composer, conductor and musical iconoclast for whom breaking from tradition was not an option but a must

Boulez’s style

BOULEZ Life&Times

Louis Vierne Organ Symphony No. 1 • As Notre-Dame re-opens, Terry Blain names the finest recordings of a spectacular showcase by one of the cathedral’s famous former organists

Crystal clear with plenty of punch

Continue the journey… • We suggest five works to explore after Vierne’s Organ Symphony No. 1

Reviews • Recordings and books rated by expert...