The oud is one of the world's oldest string instruments, dating back as much as 4,000 years. It spread around the world with Islam, and was the precursor of the European lute — and, by extension, the ...

Last month, volatile little Composer Ernest Bloch gave Portland, Ore. music lovers his best advice on how to behave at a concert (TIME, March 7). “Don’t be inhibited,” he hollered happily from the ...

The lute is the most intimately expressive of musical instruments. A descendant of the lyre with which Orpheus mythically tamed the wild beasts, the lute returned to Europe more than a millennium ago ...

What do you get when you mix Renaissance and Baroque music from Europe with Carnatic and Hindustani music from the Indian ...

Apart from Renaissance fairs and Sting albums, the lute makes relatively few public appearances these days. And when it does grace a concert stage, it's generally in the service of centuries-old ...

A rare, melodious twang was heard this week on U.S. airwaves. The twangs came from an instrument which legend says was invented by a son of Methuselah—the lute, an instrument resembling an archaic ...