Swooning: A Classical Music Guide to Life, Love, Lust and Other Follies

The orchestra has tuned, the lights in the hall have dimmed, and the conductor’s baton signals the downbeat for the beginning of the romance. Settle back – it’s telling you something…

The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches, poverty, gluttony, nervous breakdowns, bizarre behaviour and terrible, terrible toilet humour (Mozart was the prime exponent of the latter). Classical music –nice? Not at all. It’s the most immediate expre...