Valentine’s Special

Love, of both the erotic and the charitable kinds, has fascinated artists of all disciplines.

Unlike poetry and painting though, most music will stop short of calling itself specifically “love music”, apart from those that are sung to poetry, which we call “love songs”.

So how do we actually define or identify love in music?

To find out, we’ve put together a programme of music by some of the most romantic of composers, including Schumann and Brahms, and also a violin sonata by César Franck that was written as a gift to his wife, and a miniature piece by Gerald Finzi that was reportedly written to deter the romantic advances of a certain girl.