Why is Mozart the best known and most popular of all the great Western classical composers? As the 250th anniversary of his birth approaches, his reputation sta

The music of J.S.Bach has a unique power and attraction some 300 years after it was written. From annual performances of the great Passions and BBC Radio 3's hu

Joseph Haydn is one of the greatest and most innovative of all composers, yet in some ways he is still curiously misunderstood. This engaging new Pocket Guide a

This new edition of leading opera critic Rupert Christiansen's perennially popular Pocket Guide has between extensively revised, and incorporates many more oper

Richard Wagner remains, almost 130 years after his death, the most controversial composer in the history of music. Creator of huge and hugely ambitious operas,