Popular stories on MusicTales

1. 

   Songwriter

   Hijo de la Luna: meaning of Mecano's tragic legend

   Written by José María Cano, Hijo de la Luna appeared on Mecano's 1986 album Entre el cielo y el suelo and became one of…

   July 11, 2026

2. 

   Violin

   Belated appreciation for the history-making Florence Price

   The modern rediscovery of the little-known African-American composer Florence Price only began in 2009, when a large…

   July 22, 2018

3. 

   Violin

   Anne Dudley's BAFTA winning work is a marriage of pop and the classical

   Composer, arranger, producer and performer, Anne Dudley is a multi-talented musician whose work encompasses pop and…

   March 8, 2018

4. 

   Orchestra

   Sommernacht poem found its composer in a Swiss romantic after a century

   Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) was a remarkable Swiss composer during the first half of the twentieth century. In contrast…

   September 20, 2018

5. 

   Band

   Bird In The Belly: the dark side of old British ballads re-imagined in polyphonic folk songs

   Bird in the Belly is an English folk band that draws their inspiration through collecting little known or forgotten…

   November 20, 2019

6. 

   Classical Guitar

   Swiss-made prelude gifted to Segovia was never played by him

   Andrés Segovia had one of the longest and most distinguished careers in the history of Western music. In his lifetime,…

   May 9, 2018

7. 

   Piano

   Le Tombeau de Couperin: Ravel's only wartime piece shaped by Baroque canons

   The musical output of the leading French impressionist Maurice Ravel was almost completely halted by the arrival of…

   June 11, 2021

8. 

   Recorder

   Fiery dances of Marco Uccellini from Forlimpopoli

   Forlimpopoli is a tiny Italian town located on the Romagna plain, at the foot of the Apennines. Founded by Romans in…

   November 27, 2018

9. 

   Songwriter

   Bandy the Rodeo Clown: country song about bullfighting

   The profession of a rodeo clown is more similar to that of the classic bullfighting matador than the title may…

   April 1, 2023

10. 

    Film

    Orlando's director sang the score's leitmotifs

    Sally Potter’s film Orlando follows the life of an eponymous, time traveling, androgynous nobleman who transforms from…

    June 7, 2018

11. 

    Wind Ensemble

    Mozart's rewritten serenade inspired by street musicians

    The Serenade in E-flat major exists in two versions: a sextet of two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns, and an…

    April 15, 2018

12. 

    Rudra Veena

    Zia Mohiuddin Dagar: the maestro of Dhrupad and Rudra Veena

    Zia Mohiuddin Dagar—a distinguished Hindustani musician—was a master of the Dhrupad genre which dates back to the 15th…

    May 27, 2023

13. 

    Songwriter

    Ellington's classic song established swing as a jazz form

    It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) is a 1931 composition by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Irving Mills,…

    April 23, 2018

14. 

    Collaboration

    Metallica with San Francisco Symphony: fresh & heavy atmosphere of modern opera

    It seemed like Metallica were running out of ideas at the end of the millennium. However, in 1999, they released S&M, a…

    April 6, 2018

15. 

    Technologies

    Starman's mission made possible at last with Musk sending Bowie to the stars

    In February 2018, the 1st Falcon Heavy Rocket was successfully launched, carrying on board a Tesla Roadster car which…

    March 7, 2018

16. 

    Film

    New pragmatic Bond score by Thomas Newman

    Thomas Newman, having never written a proper action score before Skyfall, succeeded in updating Bond's aesthetic with a…

    May 10, 2018

17. 

    Orchestra

    The misty seascape embodied in Mendelssohn's surging overture

    The Hebrides, also called Hebrides Overture or Overture to the Lonely Isle, is an orchestra piece by Felix Mendelssohn,…

    April 21, 2018

18. 

    Film

    Chaiyya Chaiyya: Sufi-inspired lyrics of the Dil Se train scene

    The train-top dance made Chaiyya Chaiyya famous. Beneath that public spectacle sits a lyric image drawn from Sufi…

    June 27, 2026

19. 

    Orchestra

    Dvorak's string serenade is a mirror of his blissful years

    For Antonin Dvořák, 1875 was a grand time for both creative productivity and wholesome family life. The birth of his…

    June 9, 2018

20. 

    Film

    Sicario's desert pulsates in Jóhannsson's score

    Sicario tells the story of an idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) who is enlisted by a government official to…

    July 5, 2018

21. 

    Game

    The quiet adventure in the warm depths of Abzû game scored by Austin Wintory

    American composer Austin Wintory made history after becoming the creator of the first-ever Grammy-nominated videogame…

    March 15, 2019

22. 

    Film

    The classic Morricone flavor in Tarantino's spaghetti western

    The soundtrack for Django Unchained contains both original and existing works, featuring songs Quentin Tarantino…

    May 3, 2018

23. 

    Orchestra

    'Mysterious Mountain' creator was not thrilled with its popularity

    American composer Alan Hovhaness is perhaps most known for his work Mysterious Mountain, or Symphony No.2, which proved…

    July 29, 2018

24. 

    Orchestra

    The instrumental re-imagining of vocal music by Gerald Finzi, a countryside composer and apple grower

    Gerald Finzi was an English composer whose work and lifestyle were immersed in the culture of his country, remaining…

    February 23, 2020

25. 

    Oboe

    The dramatic-abstract of Thea Musgrave's music as influenced by serialism

    Thea Musgrave is a Scottish-American composer whose formative years fell on the mid-1950s when revolutionary musical…

    March 8, 2020

26. 

    Flute

    Forest ranger's son fled home to reform the operatic world

    Christoph Willibald Gluck was a revolutionary who moved the courtly genre of opera to the way beyond the narrow limits…

    August 26, 2018

27. 

    Technologies

    Massive Attack to record anniversary album on genetic code

    Massive Attack is known for their innovative approach to producing and promoting music, and even their modern classic…

    May 7, 2018

28. 

    Lute

    Atmospheric collaboration of medieval and modern underground on Only Lovers Left Alive

    For his post-modern tale of vampires trying to find purpose in their immortal lives, Jim Jarmusch employs his own group…

    April 26, 2018

29. 

    Film

    Cucurrucucú Paloma: the Mexican dove song of love and grief

    Composed by Mexican songwriter Tomás Méndez in 1954, Cucurrucucú Paloma entered popular memory as a huapango-style song…

    July 13, 2026

30. 

    Orchestra

    Modern jazz trumpet for gifted Mozart scholar

    Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837) was an Austrian composer and outstanding virtuoso pianist during the transition…

    July 15, 2018