Celebrating Rachel Cheung (Born 27 September 1991) From Prodigy to Poet

 by Georg Predota 

Rachel Cheung, born on 27 September 1991, in Hong Kong, is a classical pianist whose artistry blends poetic finesse with dramatic intensity. From a young age, her talent shone brightly, securing first prize at nine in the Hong Kong regional Steinway and Sons International Youth Piano Competition and a triumphant international debut at 11 in Ukraine at the Vladimir Horowitz Competition.

Rachel Cheung

By 13, her electrifying recital at the 2005 Miami International Piano Festival left audiences in awe, marking the rise of a prodigy destined for global stages. Cheung’s career secured prizes at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod (2002), the Gina Bachauer International Junior Piano Competition (2004), and a historic fifth place at the 2009 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition.

Educated at Yale School of Music under Peter Frankl, she graduated with first-class honours and the Elizabeth Parisot Prize. A 2017 Van Cliburn finalist and Audience Award winner, Cheung’s performances are rich in emotional depth. To celebrate her birthday on 27 September, let’s sample some of her most iconic performances and recordings.   

Reflections

In 2023, Rachel Cheung unveiled her debut international album, “Reflections,” under the Decca Classics label. This deeply personal collection, featuring works by Chopin, Beethoven, and Ravel, is a beautiful testament to her poetic sensitivity and dramatic flair.

Described by Cheung as a “collection of reflections” from her lifelong repertoire, the album weaves together works that resonate with her introspective artistry, capturing moments of vulnerability and brilliance. Gramophone noted her ability to “breathe new life into familiar works” through nuanced phrasing and a commanding yet intimate touch.

At the heart of “Reflections” lies Ravel’s Miroirs, a five-movement suite that Cheung transforms into a kaleidoscope of colour and emotion. Cheung’s interpretation is both meticulous and evocative, balancing Ravel’s delicate textures with bold, virtuosic flourishes.

The Dallas Morning News described her Ravel as “a mesmerising interplay of light and shadow.”

A Romance with Chopin

For Rachel Cheung, the music of Frédéric Chopin is a cornerstone of her repertoire, as she balances poetic lyricism with fiery virtuosity. In her performances, she reveals a profound connection to the composer’s introspective and turbulent world.

Cheung approaches each prelude as a miniature universe, with Gramophone praising her “singing tone and narrative clarity.” Particularly in her live performances, Cheung electrifies audiences with her elegance and passion.

Embodying Chopin’s blend of Romantic fervour and structural precision, Cheung evokes a delicate melancholy that critics have called “heartbreakingly vivid.” Although she radiates spontaneity, with her phrases breathing as if improvised, her performances are very much grounded in meticulous craftsmanship.  

Dancing with the Devil

In her performance of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1, Rachel Cheung showcases her virtuosic command and electrifying stage presence. She certainly captures the diabolical allure and frenzied energy of the composer’s devilish masterpiece.

Known for her ability to balance technical brilliance with narrative depth, Cheung infuses this fiendishly demanding work with a thrilling blend of demonic exuberance and seductive lyricism.

Critics have marvelled at her “dazzling dexterity and fiery intensity,” noting her ability to “conjure the waltz’s wild, otherworldly spirit” as if channelling Liszt’s own audacious flair. Cheung’s rendition transforms the piece into a vivid musical narrative, evoking the infernal dance with both precision and reckless abandon.   

Transcendent Talent

Let’s conclude our birthday tribute with a trip down memory lane. At the age of 15, Rachel Cheung boldly stepped into the orchestral arena with heroic poise and unbridled passion in a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Supported by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Edo de Waart, Cheung navigated the turbulent drama and lyrical expanses of the music with a maturity far beyond her years.

This collaboration highlighted Cheung’s innate musicality and technical assurance, forging a dynamic partnership that elevated the work’s classical rigour into a deeply personal narrative.

Critics and audiences alike were struck by her “commanding presence and emotional depth,” as she channelled Beethoven’s revolutionary spirit into a vivid sonic odyssey. Today, Rachel Cheung continues to captivate global audiences with her transcendent artistry, blending virtuosic brilliance and emotional depth while nurturing the next generation through her Rachel Cheung Music Academy.

Violin Concerto of Renewed Passion Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Yosif Kotek II

by Georg Predota

  

Story Behind Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major Op.35

Tchaikovsky © torrentsland.com

Following his separation from his wife Antonina Miliukova, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) hastily fled to the town of Clarens. This small and peaceful Swiss resort village on the shores of Lake Geneva not only allowed him to mentally recover from a feeble attempt at suicide, it also saw the reunion with his former student and lover, the violinist Yosif Kotek, who also gave inspirations and advice to Tchaikovsky’s famous violin concerto. Barely a year had past since the lovers had unceremoniously separated, however, their passion had recently been rekindled.

Travelling with his brother Modest, Tchaikovsky met Kotek in Vienna in November 1877, and the merry threesome happily undertook some scenic travels throughout Europe. Still in the midst of a personal identity crisis that reflected the dialectical irony of homosexuality itself—how to reconcile the need for passive submission towards his male friends that was simultaneously contradicted by competitive aggression towards them—Tchaikovsky eventually summoned Kotek from Berlin to join him in Switzerland. Amongst a good deal of comforting, music making and other pleasantries, their renewed association quickly gave Tchaikovsky the idea of composing a violin concerto.

Violin score of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto © violinsheetmusic.org

Yosif Kotek, ever so willing, provided his technical expertise and hands-on experience and within a month, the concerto was finished. Writing to his brother Anatoly, the composer rejoiced, “how lovingly [Kotek] busies himself with my concerto! It goes without saying that I would have been able to do nothing without him. He plays it marvellously!” Initially, Tchaikovsky wanted to dedicate the new violin composition to Kotek but feared that it would somehow draw attention to the true nature of his relationship with the violinist. By eventually dedicating the work to Leopold Auer—surely also a gesture of passive aggression towards his philandering lover—Tchaikovsky caused a permanent rift in the relationship.

Kotek hastily departed, and Tchaikovsky continued to complain about Kotek’s “unbelievable womanizing”. Kotek never forgave Tchaikovsky for changing the dedication, and when the composer approached him with a peace offering—formally asking him to publicly perform their concerto—he flatly refused. Although they would occasionally meet, love had clearly turned into contempt, and they found each other’s company “more unpleasant than pleasant,” and more “tiresome than attractive”. As it happens, contempt turned into pity when Kotek contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Switzerland for treatment. Tchaikovsky rushed to the bedside of his estranged and ailing lover, and dispensed various spiritual and physical comforts for six days. Kotek died, aged 29, and Tchaikovsky was charged with informing Kotek’s parents of their son’s untimely passing.

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10 pieces of classical music that will 100% change your life

10 pieces of classical music that will change your life (pictured: Romanian Athenaeum). Picture: Alamy

By Classic FM

Hold on to your hats – if you haven’t heard any of these musical works of genius, your life is about to be changed 10 times in a row.

Classical music can calm nerves, fire up the senses and spark creativity. It can also be uniquely life-affirming.

Here are the 10 major works we recommend you devote some time to. With the depths of their passion and beauty, we think they have the power to move everyone – with life never being quite the same afterwards.

1. J.S. Bach: St Matthew Passion

   What is it?
   It’s one of two ‘Passion’ oratorios that have survived since Bach died (he could’ve written up to five), but it’s also become one of his most celebrated pieces. The original title is Passio Domini nostri J.C. secundum Evangelistam Matthæum (the ‘J.C.’ stands for Jesus Christ, which is maybe a bit familiar for someone he hadn’t met… but we’ll let him off).
   
   Why it will change your life:
   If you thought that Baroque music mostly dealt with plinky-plinky harpsichords, the St Matthew Passion will change mind. There are biblical proclamations of impending apocalypse littered throughout, and for each of them, Bach works in some sort of crushing atonality or strange chord, as if he’s wincing with pain each time it happens. This is such a human experience, composed at a time when human experiences weren’t chief among the aims of most Baroque composer composers.

   
   

   

   Bach - St Matthew Passion BWV 244 - Van Veldhoven | Netherlands Bach Society

2. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6

   What is it?
   Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, nicknamed ‘Pathétique’. The premiere performance was given just nine days before the composer died.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   Tchaikovsky was surely one of the most personally troubled of the great composers – and this symphony was essentially the outpouring of many of his issues, in a way. Many initially thought it was a lengthy suicide note, others pointed to the composer’s torment over his suppressed sexuality, while some thought it was just a tragic, sad, glorious and indulgent artistic expression. But the reason it’ll stay with you forever is that all of these contexts work in their own way, but it never detracts from how magisterial the music itself is. It’s a lesson in the very best ways of expressing emotions through music.

   
   

   

   Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, 'Pathetique' | Dresden Philharmonic & Marek Janowski

3. Mahler: Symphony No. 2

   What is it?
   Massive, that’s what it is. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (known as the ’Resurrection’) is a 90-minute attempt to put the whole nature of existence into a piece music. So pretty ambitious.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   If you think any bit of music over three minutes long is a bit indulgent and full of itself, this single piece will convince you that sometimes it’s completely worth spending an hour and a half on one musical concept – even if it is a huge concept. No other composer could’ve made it more entertaining (listen out for death shrieks!), or more rewarding. The epic final few minutes are a stupidly generous reward on their own, but getting there is half the fun.

   
   

   

   Mahler - Symphony No. 2 'Auferstehung' - Mariss Jansons | Concertgebouworkest

4. Beethoven: Grosse Fuge

   What is it?
   One of the last pieces Beethoven wrote for string quartet, one of his celebrated ‘Late’ quartets. It’s a one-movement experiment in structure that was universally hated when it was first composed.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   It’s proof that not only can critics and audiences get it really, really wrong, but also that it’s all about interpretation. You can actually hear the struggle and the effort it must have taken to compose, which means it’s not always a relaxing listen, but few pieces in history have so nakedly shown how a composer can throw absolutely everything into a single work. And, in the end, it was hugely influential to serialist composers of the 20th century with none other than Igor Stravinsky proclaiming it a miracle of music. How about that for delayed gratification?

   
   

   

   Beethoven: Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 (Danish String Quartet)

5. Mozart: Requiem

   What is it?
   The piece that Mozart wrote on his deathbed, in a furious fever. Well, if the movies are to be believed, anyway.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   From the opening Introitus, the mournful tone is set. It might just be us, but doesn’t it actually sound like Mozart is scared of death here? Aside from being spooky as anything, the Requiem is a haunting patchwork of things. Completed by one of Mozart’s pupils, Franz Süssmayr, it’s become a legendary mystery and the perfect way to end the story of one of history’s most celebrated geniuses – in other words, not end it all. What an enigma.

   
   

   

   Mozart : Requiem (Orchestre national de France / James Gaffigan)

6. Monteverdi: Vespers

   What is it?
   It’s Baroque genius Claudio Monteverdi’s defining work, a gigantic noise that some argue bridged the gap between the Renaissance and the early Baroque periods.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   It makes you realise that just because something’s really old, it doesn’t mean it’s automatically boring, or simply lauded because it was ‘groundbreaking’. Make no mistake about it – Monteverdi’s Vespers are hugely entertaining on their own terms. For starters, it’s simply enormous in scale. If you want to be crude about it (and we do) then you could describe it as Monteverdi taking church music to the opera, with all the drama that implies. Trumpets, drums, massive choruses, florid vocal lines… this really is the greatest hits of the early Baroque.

   

   Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610

7. Elgar: Cello Concerto

   What is it?
   The only cello concerto that Edward Elgar wrote, and one of the most famous concertos of all time.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   It’s proof that intense emotion can come from the most unlikely of people. We don’t want to get all mushy on you, but there’s something spectacularly English about how the ultimate stiff-upper-lipped curmudgeon, Edward Elgar, was able to convey his emotions in music rather than in words or actions. His private life was surprisingly tumultuous (that’s another story), and in pieces like the Cello Concerto it’s as if the gasket has blown and Elgar is finally able to let out all the pent-up emotion in a focused blast.    

8. Wagner: The Ring Cycle

   What is it?
   It is everything.

   Why it will change your life:
   Realising for the first time that the world of opera could actually be this immersive is a very, very special feeling. Wagner’s whole four-opera cycle has a terrible reputation as simply ‘that exhausting long opera’ – but that perception couldn’t be further from the truth. The Ring Cycle is a fundamentally unhinged work of staggering genius, and the peak of operatic indulgence, excess and excellence. Ignore at your peril.

   

   Metropolitan Opera Orchestra – Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries - Ring (Official Video)

9. Max Richter: Vivaldi: Recomposed

   What is it?
   A radical, beautiful re-invention of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos, by modern indie-classical composer Max Richter.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   Listening to Vivaldi: Recomposed is like discovering an old jumper that you used to love has magically, miraculously lost all its bobbly bits and is actually at the height of fashion. What Richter manages to do so incredibly well is to subtly sneak in delightful additions, tweaks and reinventions to a classic you already know extremely well, and freshen it up not just for the modern era, but for the eras to come too.

   

   Recomposed by Max Richter - Vivaldi - The Four Seasons, 1. Spring (Official Video)

10. Gorecki: Symphony No. 3

    What is it?
    Possibly the most emotionally draining piece of music ever written.
    
    Why it will change your life:
    There’s a reason Polish composer Henryck Górecki called his third symphony the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Each movement features a solo soprano singing texts inspired by war and separation, but it’s the second movement that really stands out. The text is taken from the scribblings on the wall of a Gestapo cell during the Second World War and, as you can imagine, it’s pretty harrowing stuff – but Górecki makes it sound so transcendental that it’s hard to believe it was written in such dire circumstances. He said himself that he wanted the soprano line “towering over the orchestra”, and it certainly does that.

    

Hans Zimmer on how he wrote the magical ‘Interstellar’ music

17 September 2025, 17:37

Hans Zimmer on how he composed 'Interstellar' | Classic FM

By Lucy Hicks Beach

Ten years after its release, Hans Zimmer’s score for Interstellar may be more deeply appreciated now than ever. In an exclusive interview for Classic FM, the Oscar-winning composer reflected on how one of his most personal pieces became the emotional foundation for one of the most ambitious science-fiction films of the 21st century.

Zimmer revealed that the score began with a fable. “It all started at a party,” he said, recalling how director Christopher Nolan asked him to write something based on a feeling, not a plot. “Chris said, ‘If you were to write me a letter, and not describe the film, but a fable, what would come to you?’”

What came to Zimmer was an intimate piano theme inspired by his son. Without knowing Interstellar was a film about space, time, and black holes, he composed a delicate piece about love, parenthood, and connection. “It was very small, very heartfelt,” Zimmer said. When he played it to Nolan, the director responded: “I suppose I better go make the movie.”

  

Hans Zimmer reflects on Interstellar ten years on. Picture: Alamy/Classic FM

Zimmer and Nolan agreed early on that they wanted to do something that hadn’t already been used to score space epics. “We’d done the big drums. We’d done the brass. We’d done the ostinatos. So Chris said, ‘You know, we’ve never tried a pipe organ.’”

Zimmer’s first reaction was to laugh, associating the sound of an organ with films like Dracula and Frankenstein. But the more he considered it, the more the king of instruments revealed itself as an expressive living and breathing instrument that connected naturally to the film’s themes of space and humanity.

They chose Temple Church in London as the recording location for its acoustics and quiet surroundings free from traffic noise, as well as its visual symbolism. “The other thing is, if you look at the pump, the big pipes, the 32 or the 64 footers, they look like rockets,” Zimmer noted. “They work with air pressure and they breathe. They don’t make a sound unless you let them breathe. So that sense of a human element in that machine I thought was interesting.”

Zimmer credits much of the score’s success to organist Roger Sayer, whose virtuosity brought the music to life. “Had it not been for Roger, I might have had to give up,” he admitted. “He saved my life.”  

Together, they created something unique: a non-religious use of the organ that still carried spiritual weight. This instrument that is traditionally associated with the divine was instead used to explore something more personal and existential.

Anna Lapwood - Hans Zimmer 'Interstellar' LIVE | Classic FM

Despite the film’s grand scale, Zimmer kept the score harmonically simple. “It all resolves within three chords,” he said. That cycle, always returning home, only to lose it again, mirrored the emotional journey of the film’s characters. “Every 12 seconds, you felt you were home, just to be ripped away again.”

That emotional pattern, Zimmer says, was the core of the film. “The idea of scrabbling, struggling constantly to find a real home, that felt important. Interstellar was about reaching across time, across galaxies, across distance… and still feeling something.”

Looking back, Zimmer feels the project was an experiment and a labour of love. A decade on, the score that started life as a theme about a child is now a sonic marvel that reminds us of the need for communication.

“We never quite leave the idea that it is actually written for one person to another person, reaches across,” Zimmer concludes, “And sometimes that reaches across vast amounts of distance and you can still feel it.”