Bartók laboured on this glittering masterpiece at the Adirondack Cottage sanatorium by Lake Saranac in upstate New York. Her publications include a survey on the Medieval composer Hildegard of Bingen, a collection of interviews with Harrison Birtwistle, an anthology of 100 pieces recommended pieces, a guide to 20th-century classical music, and a study on Sergei Rachmaninoff's life outside of his native Russia. His music is sensual and atmospheric, using harmony as colour in the French “spectral” style and drawing on the sounds of temple bells he discovered on travels in Bali.

Fiona Maddocks | Faber Fiona Maddocks | Faber

Reich, a pioneer American minimalist of restless invention, says this 1994 version is similar to pieces he wrote decades earlier but with a difference: this is far harder and needs two virtuoso players. I saved my meagre earnings each month to pay for it, and watched as, over two or more years, seasoned white wood turned to varnished gold and became an instrument. President Roosevelt sent a note of congratulations: “It comes at a time when the world needs nothing so much as a better mutual understanding of the peoples of the earth.

Two fellow Hungarian immigrants – the violinist Joseph Szigeti and the conductor Fritz Reiner – persuaded the great Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky to commission him. These 31 pieces might lead you to aural pleasures as well as greater confidence in following your enthusiasms.

Music for life : 100 works to carry you through : Maddocks

In this personal selection of "music to see you through", Fiona Maddocks, music critic of The Observer, gives succinct thoughts on the emotional import of works ranging from the evident to the surprising, in categories ranging from humour to mourning. Her delicate Havanaise, based on the Spanish-Cuban habanera dance, dripping with vocal ornament and technical challenge, indicates Viardot’s own skills as a singer. The Song of the Sea merges gentle arpeggios with a wash of rising chords and a plaintive song waving and weaving through all. Canebrakes (thickets of cane found in the marshy lands of the deep south) had to be cleared for cultivating cotton – hard labour for enslaved Black people.Born in the French Basque region, described by one observer as looking like a well-dressed jockey, he was a perfectionist, his output small, each work a masterpiece. To help narrow the field, I laid down a few guidelines: no operas, as they have their own narrative already (though one or two overtures have crept in). This side of his enigmatic personality, playful, at times ridiculous, is touchingly revealed in home movies. It is long since I remember being so moved by a depth of pain in words and music,” Clara wrote, as if full realisation had just dawned. Myth and intrigue surround the writing of Mozart’s Requiem: a mysterious visitor, an anonymous commission, an unsigned letter, the composer’s own fear – according to a report in a Salzburg newspaper published a month after his death – that he was working “with tears in his eyes” on what he believed would be his own requiem.

BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Rachmaninov on Lake Lucerne BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Rachmaninov on Lake Lucerne

She wrote Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle for Faber, to coincide with his 80th birthday in 2014. was a dramatised monologue about a journey on the metro in which the narrator is attracted to a young man. Chief Music Critic of The Observer, Fiona’s Hildegard of Bingen (2001) was a great critical success when published by Headline and Doubleday (US) and has now been re-issued by Faber. She is the author of Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age (Faber) and Harrison Birtwistle: Wild Tracks - A Conversation Diary with Fiona Maddocks (Faber).If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Throughout her career, Maddocks had a central role in the founding of three media organizations, a TV station, Newspaper and Magazine. We build and maintain all our own systems, but we don’t charge for access, sell user information, or run ads. The two players, on two pianos, share the opening, bold statement then joyfully interweave and alternate, as if playing chasing games with each other.

Music Life 100 Works by Maddocks Fiona - AbeBooks Music Life 100 Works by Maddocks Fiona - AbeBooks

She is the author of 'Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age' (Faber), 'Harrison Birtwistle: Wild Tracks – A Conversation Diary with Fiona Maddocks' (Faber) and 'Music for Life: 100 Works to Carry You Through. Despite his success and celebrity, he felt divorced from the act of composition that had for so long been his core activity. Dett was born in Canada into a Methodist family descended from escaped slaves, but grew up in America. He suffered family tragedy, as well as a second exile – from Switzerland in August 1939, on the eve of the second world war. Bach wrote the motet as part of the Lutheran liturgy for New Year’s Day 1724, his first at the Thomaskirche, Leipzig.

At the end of each session, I had to take the dog outside (“make sure it does its business”), making me late for my next lesson elsewhere in the large building.