From glam to punk, prog to soul, the 1970s defined the album era – here are the decade’s standout releases, year by year.

Bands breaking apart, creativity under strain, brilliance and bitterness tangled together – 15 albums where you can hear the ...

From Hendrix’s feedback to Tom Verlaine’s angular lines, these 15 iconic guitarists crafted unique tones, phrasing, and ...

Eleven albums recorded with endings in mind – by death or breakup – where farewell, reflection, and urgency quietly shape ...

'Tallis is dead, and music dies’. Emotive stuff, no? This moving send-off is in fact the final line of Ye sacred muses, a song composed by the British Tudor composer William Byrd to mourn the passing ...

Born in the rural village of Rohrau in lower Austria, the son of a wheelwright, Joseph Haydn was a country boy at heart. This can be heard even in the last and grandest of his symphonies, the ‘London’ ...

Compiling a list of the world’s best orchestras is no simple task. With countless modern ensembles and period bands making their mark across the globe, the orchestral landscape is constantly ...

Michael is the Reviews Editor of BBC Music Magazine. He looks after the 26 pages of recording and book reviews in the magazine each month, deciding what will be reviewed – no easy task with so much ...

Celebrating the best new classical music recordings, this year’s edition of the BBC Music Magazine Awards sees dazzling debuts competing against bold new reframings of classics ...

Bach Mass in B minor: a guide to this monumental sacred masterpiece and its best recordings ...

Tritone: the 'devil in music' once thought so dangerous that it was banned outright ...