When Elfriede Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2004, the committee praised ‘her musical flow of voices and counter-voices’, which ‘reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating ...
Karl Baedeker wrote in his 1868 guide to Venice that when sitting outside the twin cafés of Quadri and Florian in St Mark’s Square, ‘strangers have here to submit to, with the best grace they can, the ...
A t a canteen in Leningrad in December 1941, a man queued for two hours, handed over his ration card, received a bowl of soup and a bowl of porridge, ate the soup and died. A crowd formed around him ...
Anyone who plays an instrument – or has shared a house with a musician – will be familiar with the maddening nature of repetitive practice. Many piano players have bought Charles-Louis Hanon’s The ...
A standard English textbook in China asks students to compose a letter from someone called Li Hua to their British friend Allen, inviting him to a music festival. When the US ban on TikTok briefly ...