Millenia ago, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile were the body's four fluids that led to the four humours, among them melancholy. But though we tend to think of melancholy today as something ...

The pianist Arthur Rubinstein once found himself invited to dinner in Hollywood with the Rachmaninoffs and the Stravinskys. Russia’s greatest living composers had never met before, and conversation ...

Sergei Rachmaninoff, who died on this day in 1943, was a Russian-born composer and absolutely incredible pianist. As a composer he’s mostly known for his stunning concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of ...

Performing musicians do not like to talk about memory slips, but all of them — even the most apparently confident — fear them. The pianist Arthur Rubinstein used to imagine that the piano awaiting him ...