Music

In the past, Estoniabs have literally sung for their freedom. And their capital city remains the crucible of this national pastime. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Estonia presents a forbidding face to the world. The most northerly of the Baltic states, it is a country half covered by forests, fringed with windswept islands and islets. There is […]

Few cities possess as intimate a connection to a musical style as Seville, SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The cultural energy of Seville pulsates to a musical beat. Whether it’s found in the processions of Semana Santa (Holy Week), where religious statues sway through the streets to a sombre accompaniment of brass bands, or the march of […]

A city with a musical pedigree to match any, Sheffield is still producing acts that could not have come from anywhere else, as Sophia Deboick reports Jarvis Cocker, lead singer of English rock band Pulp, performs live on the NME stage at the Glastonbury Festival near Pilton, Somerset on 26th June 1994. Photo: Michael Putland/Getty […]

The spiritual home of white America’s very own music genre, Nashville is country music. But it’s not always been all about rhinestones and 10-gallon hats, as SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Hall Willis, Ginger Willis and Tommy Hill stand next to The Louvin Brothers outside the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images […]

They seem an increasingly unfashionable, unoriginal choice now, but package holidays were once little short of revolutionary. SOPHIA DEBOICK tells the tale of the first ever trip, and its visionary mastermind. Tourists enjoy Majorca in the years before mass tourism. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images More than 160 years after Thomas Cook organised […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK kicks off a new feature, looking at the musical history of a different city each week. First an examination of Berlin’s remarkably creative heritage, from Dietrich to Depeche Mode, with many in between. Depeche Mode, group portrait, Berlin, July 1984, L-R Martin Gore, Dave Gahan, Alan Wilder, Andrew Fletcher. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty […]

The last hurrah for music hall coincided with Britain embracing a new sound, and both had a big year in 1919. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Rarely had the world been in such turmoil as it was 100 years ago. While the June signing of the Treaty of Versailles declared the First World War officially over, the […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back at a significant moment in British history as a new musical culture started to take shape on these shores. Portrait of Pope Gregory I (540-604) known as Saint Gregory the Great. By Pedro Berruguete (1450-1504) Spanish painter. His art is regarded as a transitional style between gothic and Renaissance. Dated 15th […]

As a new decade began, two men were at work, behind the scenes, on projects that would revolutionise music. MEMPHIS, TN – CIRCA 1957: Photo of Sam Phillips (Photo by Colin Escott/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images The wartime decade was finally being left behind as Britain hit mid-century, and the future was […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back to the period in Ancient Greece when music as we know it began. Ancient Greek civilization was at its zenith in the mid-fifth century BC, as was clearly apparent in its art. The sculptor Myron was in the most active phase of his career and created his Discus Thrower, a sculpture […]

From the Die Hard films to the Proms, via Rhodesia and Tiananmen Square, Ode to Joy has been one of the most malleable pieces of music ever written. SOPHIA DEBOICK traces its varied history back to its year of creation As MPs passed through the division lobbies for the Article 50 bill vote in February […]

As baroque peaked, the classical era beckoned. SOPHIE DEBOICK reports on a year of big names and shifting tastes. Portrait of Leopold Mozart (1719-1787). Found in the Collection of Mozarteum (ISM), Salzburg. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images The boundaries of thought and the borders of the known world were […]

The Jazz Age reached full swing, while blues and country were starting to make big sounds. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports on an exciting year where the possibilities seemed endless. The wounds of the recent past were still fresh. As Ypres’ Menin Gate was unveiled in July 1927, Siegfried Sassoon condemned it in verse: “Well might the […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a year in which music was helping to forge state identities on both sides of the Atlantic. Capitalism, colonialism and immigration were transforming the world in 1850. The founding of shipment company American Express, by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, and of the Lehman Brothers dry goods store, by Bavarian immigrants, […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a barnstorming year when female performers took the lead on pop. Despite April’s Good Friday Agreement, the Omagh bombing, war in the Congo and Kosovo and UN weapons inspectors being expelled from Iraq, it was another story that dominated the year. When the Washington Post reported in late January that Bill Clinton […]

Two deaths overshadowed an ominous 12 months for Britain and the planet. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. David Bowie during his concert in West Berlin in front of the Reichstag building on the 6th of June in 1987. Photo: DPA/PA Images – Credit: DPA/PA Images According to a Mayan prophecy, doomsday was set for December 2012. In […]

Fifty years ago saw the most controversial Eurovision Song Contest yet held. SOPHIE DEBOICK looks back to an event that began with intrigue and ended in farce. Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. Photo: Dominique BERRETTY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images – Credit: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Eurovision is rarely without a row, but this year’s contest – […]

While European sounds veered towards the melancholy, and often morose, America was tuning in to something far more effervescent. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The Victorian age was being left behind, but in 1904 the western world was still torn between civilized modernity and brutal primitivism. It was the era of the New Imperialism, and April’s Entente […]

His musical talent and passion might have been overshadowed by other elements of his reign, but Henry VIII deserves his reputation as a king with an ear for a tune, says SOPHIA DEBOICK Henry VIII is known as a musician monarch, but it is a characterisation based on a song he almost certainly didn’t write. […]

While the charts were filled with much that was bland, 1948’s standout hits displayed technical innovation and an inspired slice of weirdness. NEW YORK – CIRCA 1949: Singer Patti Page poses for a portrait circa 1949 in New York City, New York (Photo by James Kriegsmann/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) – Credit: Archant The war may […]

A vintage year for the industry saw the most No.1s ever, as attempts to greet the new millennium with gravitas fell flat. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The Millennium Dome summed up the pricked pomposity of the year 2000. Tony Blair called it ‘a triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness, excellence over mediocrity’. In the […]

Britain – as ever – focused on the twin fascinations of sex and scandal. And did so with a glorious abundance of fun and frivolity. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Actress, dancer and singer Lottie Collins (1866 – 1910) curtseying. She is famous for the song ‘Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay!’ Photo by London Stereoscopic Company/Getty […]

Much remains unclear about the nature of the music produced by the Romans. But, as SOPHIA DEBOICK reports, by piecing together the clues, their creativity can still be heard. After the ravages of the Great Fire of Rome, the reign of Nero, multiple civil wars and the disasters at Pompeii and Herculaneum the previous year, […]

Singers started to unbutton, and America got a taste for adultery. SOPHIA DEBOICK on a saucy year in music (Eingeschr�nkte Rechte f�r bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) Bleriot, Louis – Engineer, Aviator, F *01.07.1872-02.08.1936+ Betheny near Reims: Louis Bleriot during a flight, befor his accident – ca. […]

The year when music came with a sense of optimism, Orientalism – and often surrealism – as pharaohs and fruit provided the inspiration. NEW YORK – CIRCA 1925: Blues singer Bessie Smith poses for a portrait circa 1925 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Edward Elcha/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) – Credit: Archant America […]

The Olympic year represented a high point for a self-confident and outward-looking United Kingdom, says Sophia Deboick. Psy performs at the Washington DC Jingle Ball concert at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia in 2012. Picture: ABACA/Press Association Images – Credit: ABACA/Press Association Images Britain felt like a truly hopeful place in 2012. We were […]

As the Second World War took shape, a big band leader dominated the year. While, from very different quarters, a Disney film and an emerging folk star signalled sounds of the future.SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The year began with a sense of foreboding. Four months on from the Nazi invasion of Poland, Britain faced the start […]

As the Romani brought a gypsy beat from the east, Europe’s greatest musical innovator, Hildegard of Bingen, found a sound that could examine the human condition, as much as praise God. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Not even a century on from the Norman conquest, 1150 found England in the grip of political crisis. Henry I had […]

As a hit new documentary provides Bros with an unlikely comeback, SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back to the eccentric twins’ first embrace 
of fame Tiffany, wearing a black hat and her hand placed on her cheek. (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images) – Credit: Corbis/VCG via Getty Images For Britain, 1988 was a manic year. […]

The castrato singer Farinelli was the undoubted superstar of an era in which musical advances were made not just with compositions, but instruments too. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports In the 1730s Britain was alive with colonial ambition, making power plays for continued dominance in the world abroad, and in possession of thrusting cities at home. The […]

X Factor’s advent was shortly to end the traditional fight for the festive top slot. But it went out with a bang in 2003, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. Comedian Avid Merrion launches his bid for the Christmas number one spot with Bo Selecta single “Proper Crimbo”. Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Christmas […]

A self-confident Britain holds sway, with the Spice Girls and Oasis to the fore. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Los del Río’s Macarena was an unlikely smash hit, but it became the biggest single of 1996. The middle-aged Latin pop duo from Seville had been knocking about since the early 1960s, but when this rumba from an […]