As a child, Frank Zappa played with mercury—an anecdote as bizarre as it is true. His father, a chemist in the defence industry, would bring home used lab equipment, passing it to his pre-adolescent ...

When John Cage knocked on Pierre Boulez’s Paris door in 1949, he could hardly have expected to find not only a great friend but also a composer whose rigorous musical curiosity matched his own – at ...

For a man who preached about love and peace so much, though, John Lennon could be cutthroat when he wanted to as well, and Frank Zappa was less than thrilled looking back on everything they did ...

THERE are many adjectives you could apply to the late, great guru of the avant garde Pierre Boulez, not all of them endorsements. But “formidable” is one that sticks. And as this year is his centenary ...