Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: ‘I want to be nothing in the world except what I am – a musician.’

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor quoted in Norwood News (7 Sept. 1912). Samuel Coleridge-Taylor © Alamy Interview with Dr Catherine Carr, conducted by Fiona Stubbings Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was one of the most eminent composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in 1875, with mixed Sierra Leonean and English…

SIVORI IS DEAD! VIVA SIVORI! The haunting recorded legacy of Paganini’s only pupil, Part 2

PART 2 Part 2 of a guest blog by Andrew O. Krastins. Part 1 can be found here. We continue our exploration of the British Library’s Mystery Cylinders. And, the author can attest, mysterious they indeed are – equal parts Rubik’s Cube, Voynich manuscript and chest of drawers seen in…

Join us for the Oral History Festival on Saturday 6 July 2024 in the British Library Knowledge Centre

Beyond the Bassline events at the British Library, June

Our events programme to coincide with the Beyond the Bassline exhibition continues into June. Many tickets include entry to the exhibition after hours. Here’s what you can book for this month: Sound System Culture Day Sunday 2 June, 12:30 – 18:00 Piazza, British Library Join us for an afternoon at…

SIVORI IS DEAD! VIVA SIVORI! The haunting recorded legacy of Paganini’s only pupil

Guest blog by Andrew O. Krastins ‘Now he is dead. And the most bitter regret that, of so much artistic value, there remains only a memory, such being, unfortunately, the fate of the great performers: to survive only by the virtue of tradition, also fallacious and dying.’ – Supplemento al…