National Pride: Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances

by Maureen Buja  August 3rd, 2026

In 1878 and 1886, Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) created his Slavonic Dances, Opp. 46 and 72. In this series of 16 dances, Dvořák picked up on the idea from Johannes Brahms‘ Hungarian Dances. Dvořák originally wrote this for piano four-hands, and, at the request of his publisher, they were orchestrated shortly thereafter.

Antonín Dvořák, 1892 (Gallica: btv1b8417521d)

Despite the ‘Slavonic’ title, which would imply dances from anywhere in central, southeastern, or eastern Europe (covering Poland, Croatia, Ukraine, Russia, among many other countries), the style of these dances is solidly Czech. In point of fact, Dvořák was really writing using styles and forms from his native Bohemia. As with so much of his work, he’s not quoting real folk music as much as writing in the style of, capturing Bohemian rhythms and folk-dance structures.

The release of the Slavonic Dances was Dvořák’s introduction to the musical world outside his native land. Dvořák had applied for the Austrian State Prize to support his composing work and won it three times: 1874, 1876, and 1877. Brahms, as one of the award committee members, stepped in and was enormously helpful in bringing Dvořák to the attention of his own publisher, Simrock.

Simrock was impressed with Dvořák’s four-hand Slavonic Dances and requested the orchestral version; both sets were successful and became the start of Dvořák’s international reputation. In the end, it led him to the United States and the founding of the short-lived National Conservatory of Music of America in 1892.

The seventh number of the Op. 72 Slavonic Dances was based on the Bohemian dance called the kolo. This is a chain dance for anywhere from 3 to 15 people, with all dance movements happening with the feet while the body moves little. People may hold hands or hold each other around the waist to form the chain. Dancers move to the left and right with side steps and little hops, gradually moving the line to the left. Each of the South Slavic regions will have its own variation on the kolo dance, and experienced dancers can dress up the steps with syncopation or higher hops. It’s a fast dance!

Paul Kletzki, 1965

This was recorded in 1961 by the National Orchestra of the RTF under the direction of Paul Kletzki. Polish conductor Paul Kletzki (1900–1973) spent WWII avoiding the Nazis, leaving Berlin, where he had conducted the Berlin Philharmonic under the guidance of Wilhelm Furtwängler, for Milan, Italy. Eventually, he fled to Russia to escape Italian antisemitism. In 1946, he returned to Milan for La Scala’s reopening and eventually settled in Switzerland, becoming a Swiss citizen in 1949. He was known for his championing of the works of Gustav Mahler after the war. In 1954, he was appointed chief conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1955, he led the first recordings of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1958 to 1961, he was principal conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and from 1967 to 1970, was the General Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. His death in 1973 came while he was conducting a rehearsal of the Liverpool Philharmonic.

Cats and Composers: Meet the Feline Muses of 15 Musical Geniuses

by Emily E. Hogstad  August 5th, 2026

For centuries, people have loved living with cats. The great composers have been no exception.

Today, to celebrate International Cat Day (August 8th), we’re looking at fifteen great composers who lived and worked with cats…and how those cats may have inspired their music!

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

Pulcinella

Portrait of Scarlatti wearing the Order of Santiago (1738)

We’ll begin with Domenico Scarlatti’s cat Pulcinella.

According to legend, Pulcinella had a habit of walking up and down Scarlatti’s keyboard.

One day, Scarlatti heard the cat pick out a striking theme during her walk. That theme provided the material for this one-movement harpsichord sonata.     

As charming as this story is, it only started appearing in the early nineteenth century, so the story may be embellished or even false.

But it’s a great story, and very well-known, so for the purposes (purr-poses?) of this article, we’re going to choose to believe that Pulcinella really existed!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Daines Barrington was an English lawyer and naturalist who was fascinated by child prodigies.

In the spring of 1764, an eight-year-old Mozart arrived in London with his family. Mozart was so talented that some people – including Barrington – wondered if his father was lying about his age.

However, Barrington was ultimately convinced of Mozart’s age because of a cat.

He wrote:

“I must own that I could not help suspecting his father imposed with regard to the age of the boy, though he had not only a most childish appearance, but likewise had all the actions of that stage of life. For example, whilst he was playing to me, a favourite cat came in, upon which he immediately left his harpsichord, nor could we bring him back for a considerable time.”

Mozart’s desire to play with this “favourite cat” proved to Barrington’s satisfaction that he really was a child prodigy.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Valdeck

Frédéric Chopin

Between the mid-1830s and mid-1840s, composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin and author George Sand were in a romantic relationship.

They both valued having their own space and didn’t always live together, but Chopin did spend a lot of time at Sand’s apartment, and Chopin would compose there.

Apparently Sand’s cat Valdeck sometimes walked or ran across the piano keyboard, much like Pulcinella Scarlatti once had.

According to legend, the scurrying figures halfway through Chopin’s Waltz in F Major, Op. 34, no. 3 were inspired by Valdeck’s paws getting in the way of Chopin’s hands as he played.  

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Madame Esmeralda

Franz Liszt

According to Liszt biographer Alan Walker in his book Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years:

“No account of daily life [in the Liszt household] would be complete without mention of Madame Esmeralda, the family cat, and a guard dog called Rappo, who romped all over the house without restraint and used to bark beneath Liszt’s window while he composed.”    

Madame Esmeralda lived in the period between 1848 and 1861, when Liszt was working as Weimar’s Hofkapellmeister and living with his mistress Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein.

Apparently the cat was named after Esmeralda from Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)

Fisher, Lelong, and others

Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin and his wife never had children, but they did have multiple cats.

Composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in his memoirs about visiting the Borodins. He reported that they would curl up on Borodin’s neck (despite Borodin’s halfhearted protests of “now, this is too much!”) and stroll across the dining room table during mealtime, eating off guests’ plates.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote:

One was called Fisher because he was successful in catching fish through the holes in the frozen river. Another, known as Lelong, had the habit of bringing home kittens in his teeth, which were added to the household.

The Borodins would regale their visitors with stories of their cats’ biographies.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Line (multiples)

Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy kept a series of grey Angora cats who all inherited the same name from one another. According to Time Magazine, that name was Line.

Biographer Victor Seroff wrote:

“[Debussy’s cats] tiptoed, as usual, through a mass of papers on Debussy’s desk, while he was working.”

Another biographer named Eric Jensen wrote:

“[The cats were] permitted to lounge solemnly on the desk and if they so wished, to sow disorder among the pencils.”

Amy Beach (1867-1944)

Hamlet

Amy Beach

American composer Amy Beach was inspired by Scarlatti’s Cat Fugue when she published her own Fantasia Fugata in 1923.

She left a tongue-in-cheek asterisk on the front page of the published score:

“For [the subject] the composer is indebted to ‘Hamlet’, a large black Angora who had been placed on the keyboard with the hope that he might emulate Scarlatti’s cat and improvise a fugue theme.”  

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Zebedee, Foxy, and others

Ralph Vaughan Williams and his cat Foxy

Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was so obsessed with his cats that he wrote letters from their point of view.

One 1953 letter to the family veterinarian contains a boarding request from the perspective of their cat Zebedee, who “very much dislike[s] noise, and vans, and removal men” and wants Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan Williams to “[fix] me up with a fish shop and so on” after the move is over.

Another contains deliberate misspellings, much like a modern-day meme:

“We are very pleased with your prezent, itt made us both purrrrrr…”

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Siamese cats

Maurice Ravel and his cat

Maurice Ravel never married (in fact, there are questions whether he enjoyed a romantic life at all), but he was never lonely in his home, because he always kept several beloved Siamese cats.

It was a great event in the Ravel household when kittens were born. Ravel even declared that his friend violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange (and dedicatee of his famous violin sonata) was their godmother.

In one letter to Jourdan-Morhange, he wrote:

“Your godson is in good shape, but his brother has so gorged himself that he is suffering from gastritis. This doesn’t prevent them from playing jungle on the lawn.”

He signed off with a joke:

“I lick the end of your nose.”  

Väinö Raitio (1891-1945)

Väinö Raitio and his cat

Väinö Raitio brought twentieth-century modernism to Finland…a style that wasn’t particularly appreciated there during his lifetime.

His tone poem “Kuutamo Jupiterissa” (“Moonlight on Jupiter”) dates from 1922-23, and is one of his finest works. He wrote it after having a vivid dream of visiting Jupiter and its moons.    

His dedication to the work was unusual: “I dedicate this tone poem to my cat, who came from Korso. I sent him to Jupiter in October 1922.”

Some people viewed this as a snub of the human beings surrounding him, or as performative eccentricity. But Raitio insisted that the dedication came out of genuine love for his cat. Who are we to second-guess?

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Aaron Copland and his cat

According to BBC Music Magazine, Aaron Copland had several cats throughout his lifetime, but we weren’t able to find any information about their names. And there’s an adorable picture of Copland looking at a cat outside of his home.

He wrote a couple of cat-themed works during his life, including “The Cat and the Mouse” and the song “I Bought Me a Cat.”    

Peter Warlock (1894-1930)

Peter Warlock

British composer Peter Warlock led a troubled and scandalous life. (He once shocked neighbours by riding a motorcycle through town naked.)

In December 1930, he died from coal gas poisoning. There was some question about whether it was murder or suicide. But one fact led people to believe it was the latter: he’d put his cat outside the room, thereby saving its life…something a murderer, perhaps, would be less likely to do.

John Cage (1912-1992)

Skookum and Losa

John Cage

Laura Kuhn, the former executive director of the John Cage Trust, wrote this entry in the trust’s blog on 6 September 2013: https://johncagetrust.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-memory-on-cages-101st.html

John Cage had a very close relationship with his second black cat, Losa. (His first black cat, Skookum, was tragically set loose on the streets of New York by a well-meaning worker on the roof. John was so bereft, Andy Culver told him we were going to have to send him back to Zen School.) One of their favourite games together was for John to put Losa under a cardboard box. Losa would then move around the loft, the box on his back, weirdly animated. I was horrified the first time I saw him do this. “He must be scared!” I cried. John just laughed. He said Losa liked it, and, furthermore, his new name was now Losa Rinpoche Taxi Cab. Of course, Losa would, after a time, simply shrug the box off, look disdainfully at us both, and calmly walk away.

John Tavener (1944-2013)

Mandu, Daisy, Nimrod

John Tavener

John Tavener wrote two cat-related works.

The first was Mandoodles, which depicts various scenes from his cat Mandu’s life: Mandu is born, Mandu plays, Mandu catches a bird, Mandu sleeps, Mandu goes out at night, and Mandu dies.    

His piano work “In Memory of Two Cats” is dedicated to two more of his cats: Daisy and Nimrod.

Jennifer Higdon (1962-)

Beau and Squeak

Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon is a popular Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.

In a 2010 interview with the New York Times, she spoke of her composing anxiety: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/arts/music/22higdon.html

“Starting a piece is the worst, and that can stretch from one day to three weeks of agony. The cats run and hide.”

Final Thoughts

Musicians, tell us about your cats in the comments! And let us know which composer cat name you like best, and which cat-inspired work here is your favourite.

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How Constanze Mozart Saved Mozart’s Music in Her Widowhood

 by Emily E. Hogstad  August 6th, 2026

On the morning of 5 December 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna at the age of 35. He had only been ill for two weeks.

On the morning of 5 December 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna at the age of 35. He had only been ill for two weeks.

His widow Constanze was 29 years old. She had been at his bedside through his illness, nursing him through his final days.

“Words fail me…to describe how his devoted wife in her utter misery threw herself on her knees and implored the Almighty for His aid,” her sister Sophie wrote in a letter years later.

Completely grief-stricken, Constanze was unable to attend his funeral.

Henry Nelson O’Neil: The Last Hours of Mozart, 1860s

The obstacles she’d face in her widowhood would be staggering. Mozart had died with substantial debts. There was no inheritance to speak of, only a chaotic collection of musical manuscripts. Plus, she had two surviving children to care for: Karl Thomas, age seven, and Franz Xaver, just five months old.

It would have been understandable for Constanze to crumble, but she did not. On the contrary, over a period of decades, she would oversee the canonisation of her husband – and ensure that her husband’s music would outlast them both.

Escaping Poverty: Constanze’s Early Widowhood (1791–1797)

Constanze Mozart as portrayed in 1782 by her brother-in-law Joseph Lange © Wikipedia

In an era before reliable social safety nets and few professional opportunities for young widows and mothers, Constanze knew she had to move quickly after Wolfgang’s death to stabilise her finances.

She began by petitioning Emperor Leopold II for a widow’s pension. Granted within weeks, it provided a modest but essential lifeline, thanks to Mozart’s position as imperial chamber composer.

Friends, family members, and admirers also helped out, organising benefit concerts in Vienna and Prague. Constanze’s sister Aloysia – a well-known singer – performed at one, as did a young Ludwig van Beethoven.  

Crucially, Constanze arranged to have Mozart’s Requiem finished quickly – while shaping the narrative around it.

The work had been commissioned by Count Franz von Walsegg, an amateur composer known for passing off commissioned works as his own. To prevent this, Constanze hired composers Joseph von Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr to complete the score. She then presented it as entirely Mozart’s, allowing her to claim the commission fee – and, importantly, block Walsegg from taking credit.

She also circulated the claim that Mozart believed he had been poisoned. Whether she truly believed this or used it as a form of myth-making remains unclear, but the story helped fuel 19th-century fascination with Mozart and continues to shape his legacy today.

At the same time, Constanze recognised the financial value of Mozart’s manuscripts. As their sole custodian, she sold them strategically and negotiated major editions with the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. These editions became foundational to later scholarship and performance.  

A trained soprano, Constanze also returned to the stage. In 1794, she organised benefit performances of La clemenza di Tito in Vienna and elsewhere, singing the role of Vitellia while Aloysia performed Sextus.

In 1795–1796, the sisters undertook an ambitious concert tour of northern Germany, promoting Mozart’s music. The tour proved both artistically and financially successful, helping to enhance his reputation across Europe.

By the late 1790s, thanks to her persistence and strategic thinking, Constanze had stabilised her financial situation.

Meeting the Tenant Who Became Her Husband: Georg Nikolaus von Nissen

Georg Nikolaus Nissen; painting by Ferdinand Jagemann, 1809

Around 1797, in her mid-30s, Constanze began taking in boarders to supplement her income.

One of them was Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, a Danish diplomat and writer with a deep interest in music. The two grew close, and by September 1798 were living together as a couple.

In June 1809, they travelled to Pressburg (modern-day Bratislava) to marry.

Like her first marriage, this one was reportedly happy. Both of Mozart’s sons were fond of Nissen.

In 1810, the couple moved to Copenhagen, where they remained for a decade. After further travels, they settled in Salzburg – Mozart’s birthplace – in 1824. By then, Constanze was in her early sixties.

There, they began work on what would become one of the earliest major Mozart biographies.

How She and Her Second Husband Wrote the Definitive Mozart Biography

Nissen devoted years to the biography, drawing on family letters, interviews with contemporaries, and, above all, Constanze’s firsthand knowledge.

Wolfgang, Nannerl and Leopold Mozart

A key contribution came from Mozart’s sister Nannerl, who provided approximately 400 family letters. Although she and Constanze had not been close during Mozart’s lifetime, they reconnected in later years.

Nissen died on 24 March 1826 before completing the manuscript. Once again, Constanze stepped in – hiring Johann Heinrich Feuerstein to finish the work, much as she had arranged for the completion of the Requiem.

The biography was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig in 1828 and became enormously influential.

Constanze’s Final Years in Wolfgang’s Hometown of Salzburg

Constanze Mozart in 1802, portrait by Hans Hansen © Wikipedia

After Nissen’s death, Constanze remained in Salzburg.

Her sisters Aloysia and Sophie joined her there, and all three Weber sisters ultimately spent their final years as widows in the same city.

In later life, Constanze suffered from severe arthritis and became largely housebound. Even so, she maintained correspondence with her sons, with Nannerl – by then blind – and with the growing network of Mozart scholars seeking her insight.

Before her death, she and her sons donated the family’s collection of manuscripts, letters, and memorabilia to what would become the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg.

That bequest remains one of the most important archives in classical music.

Death and Burial

Tombstone of Constanze Mozart, cemetery of Sebastian Church, Salzburg

Constanze Mozart died on 6 March 1842 in Salzburg at the age of 80.

She was buried beside Georg Nikolaus von Nissen. She could not be buried alongside Mozart, who – like most middle-class Viennese of his time – had been placed in a common grave.

She had survived him by 51 years – and spent those years ensuring his legacy endured.  

The Legacy of Constanze Mozart

Constanze Mozart has long been a controversial figure.

Nineteenth-century biographers, influenced in part by Mozart’s father Leopold – who never fully approved of the marriage – portrayed her as shallow, extravagant, and unreliable.

Modern scholars have pushed back on that characterisation. As feminist musicologist Eva Rieger noted in 1991, the charges levelled against Constanze – that she was a poor housekeeper, that she was flighty or frivolous, that she was too often ill, that Mozart was settling when he married her – dissolve under scrutiny.

A woman who bore six children in eight years, managed an unstable household income, and then rebuilt her life after being widowed at 29 was neither passive nor incompetent.

Today, her achievements are clearer: she preserved Mozart’s manuscripts, shaped his posthumous reputation, and laid the groundwork for modern Mozart scholarship.

If she contributed to certain myths, it was within the constraints of a society hostile to unmarried women – and in service of her family’s survival. At the same time, she safeguarded the very documents that later allowed those myths to be questioned.

The lucrative global legacy of Mozart today – the recordings, performances, scholarship – rests in no small part on decisions Constanze began making in the winter of 1791, when she was 29 years old, newly widowed, and left with little more than her last name and a pile of manuscripts.

Bach’s influence on Jazz

 by Maureen Buja  August 2nd, 2026

Good ‘ol Bach – continuous beat, flowing tunes, and jazz?

Let’s look at his influence not on his contemporaries, not on his students, but on 20th-century composers.

Elias Gottlob Haussmann: Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748 (Leipzig: Bach-Archiv)

Jazz gives us the opportunity to swing a solid beat. And that beat is what Baroque music is known for – what is sometimes called ‘sewing machine’ music – you start it and off it goes until it unwinds at the end. For jazz artists, Baroque music can be a springboard for improvisation (which was also important in Bach’s era, especially for organists) and for bending that rhythmic line.

Henry Brant took the idea of a Baroque toccata (a virtuoso work for keyboard or plucked string instrument) and swings it more than a little bit. One of the earliest of the Bach-meets-Jazz pieces, dating from the 1940s, the Jazz Toccata on a Bach Theme mixes a bit of Bach with a bit of Art Tatum piano style.  

On the classical side of things, French pianist and composer Jacques Loussier (1934–2019) fell in love with Bach as a child. Starting with the Notebook for Anna Magdalena at age 11, he used it as a place to add his ‘own notes, expanding the harmonies, and playing around with that music’. When he started his fusion of jazz and Bach at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1950s, it was unique for its time. According to the story, at a competition at the conservatory, Loussier played a prelude by Bach, and when his memory failed, he improvised. He later said that he only followed a tradition, because musicians of the 18th century—including Bach—were great improvisers. It probably didn’t hurt that he was earning money on the side playing jazz in Paris bars at the time. Loussier, along with string bass player Pierre Michelot (who had played with Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France) and percussionist Christian Garros, formed the Jacques Loussier Trio and took Bach on the road, using his music as a basis for their jazz improvisations.

Jacques Loussier Trio

Bach’s Trio Sonatas for Organ, BWV 525–530, are considered formidable organ works, written as training pieces for Bach’s oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. In the hands of the Trio Michael Spors, Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 2, BWV 526, is taken apart, put back together, improvised on, and generally changed while still being Bach.

Trio Michael Spors

German keyboard player and composer David Timm (b. 1969) formed the JazzDuo Timm/Brockelt with saxophonist Reiko Brockelt in 1991. On their 2004 album Visions, they applied a number of different styles to Bach, including swing and samba adaptations to create a new jazz Bach world.

Their swing adaptation of the monumental Toccata and Fugue in D minor takes Bach to a loose and danceable 1940s feel. It’s an amazing amalgam of two distinct styles, emphasised by the different voices of the organ and saxophone.

JazzDuo Timm/Brockelt

Dutch pianist and composer Lucie de Saint Vincent founded the Collectif Trytone to ‘break down the barriers between styles and traditions’. Their first album, Bach to Bach, was used by de Saint Vincent as a way of posing ‘questions about our humanity, the space between heaven and earth, and the relationship between our concrete existence and the realm of spirituality’. She draws on the idea of improvisation and how it contrasts with the modern idea of the set text. We can’t return to Bach’s sonic world, so why not bring him into ours?

The Collectif Trytone is directed by Lucie de Saint Vincent, with soprano Lucie Chartin, saxophonist Joao Driessen, bassist Mihail Ivanov, and Joan Terol Amigo on drums. Their musical synthesis brings together Baroque, Classical and jazz ideas.

Collectif Trytone

In their 2019 album Bach Today, flautist Stefan Keller and percussionist Beda Ehrensperger ‘play Bach and beyond’, as the cover says. The Bach of the title isn’t just J.S. Bach, but also his son C.P.E. Bach, and the two players create a new world of the ‘Baroque Classical’.

In 1959, a new wave of music came up from Brazil and changed jazz forever. This New Wave, or Bossa Nova sound, credited to Antônio Carlos Jobim (music) and Vinicius de Moraes (words), was based on samba, but without dance steps. It has syncopation but doesn’t swing like American jazz; it is most notable for each voice playing a different rhythm.

On his 1990 album WorldBeat Bach, clarinettist Richard Stoltzman took Bach and placed him in many different international musical styles, including samba, bossa nova, tango, West African, flamenco, calypso, bolero, and gospel. Although the melody is presented in a fairly straightforward manner, it’s always susceptible to that infectious beat below it.

Richard Stoltzman (photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco)

Composer Jeremy Wall takes a familiar work by Bach, Jesu, meine Freude, and gives it a slow tango feel.

American vocalist and jazz man Ward Swingle created his vocal group the Swingle Singers in France in 1962, first as session singers backing pop stars such as Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf, and then they discovered Bach. As a sight-reading exercise, they vocalised Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and discovered Bach’s swing possibilities. Their first album Jazz Sébastien Bach started as a private gift for friends and ended up being awarded the 1964 Grammy for Best Performance by a Chorus and Best New Artist. This was followed 5 years later by Jazz Sébastien Bach Vol. 2. This first group was disbanded when Swingle moved from France to England, and reformed again when Swingle moved to the US in 1984. The group is still active and, with its distinctive sound, has featured in many films and TV shows.

Swingle Singers

Jazz pianist and composer Brad Mehldau (b. 1970) studied jazz and contemporary music in New York at The New School and was a member of saxophonist Joshua Redman’s quartet in the mid-1990s. Following commissions to write music inspired by Bach, he started touring with these in 2015.

In his piece After Bach, Mehldau plays with Bach’s metre: 3/8 time is turned into the infinitely more complex 20/16, and other time signatures. Odd-metre Bach, playing with the established rondo form, and shifts of tonality take Bach firmly into the 21st century.

Brad Mehldau, 2021 (photo by Harald Krichel)

We’ll return to the Swingle Singers for our last bit of Bach. From their 2007 recording Beauty and the Beat Box, the Swingle Singers were joined by beatboxer Shlomo and the beatboxing choir, Vocal Orchestra. This truly takes Bach to the 21st century.

Bach hides in many places and he’s not only confined to classical music. Jazz, pop, rock and every other genre can see a bit of Bach everywhere. Where’s your favourite Bach?