June, 2014

34 Posts
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Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vols. 5 & 6 (Kristian Bezuidenhout – Fortepiano)
Mozart: Sonata in C major, K.309 III. Rondeau: Allegretto grazioso From Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vols. 5 & 6 (Kristian Bezuidenhout – Fortepiano) (2014) Released by Harmonia Mundi Mozart: Sonata in C major, K.309 – III. Rondeau: Allegretto grazioso“Few players coax
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The Kronberg Academy
Perhaps the most exclusive of all our institutions interviewed so far, the Kronberg Academy is based in Germany, in the small town of Kronberg in Taunus. The size of the town reflects the size of the student body, devoted solely
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Masterclass in the morning
Menahem Pressler at Wigmore Hall
As I stand waiting for the doors to open to the auditorium at Wigmore Hall, I take a moment to glance around the entrance. One of the first things I see, among images of Gerald Finley and Julian Bliss, and
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Divine Intervention!
Christoph Willibald Gluck and Maria Anna Bergin
Christoph Willibald Gluck: Ezio, “Va, ma tremo” He was 36, an internationally acclaimed but impoverished composer of opera. She was 18, daughter of a wealthy merchant and banker, and a member of the circle of ladies in waiting who surrounded
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In touch with Menahem Pressler
Very few musicians can boast a career as long or distinguished as that of Menahem Pressler. Born in 1923, he fled Nazi Germany in the 30s, and emigrated to Palestine. By the end of the 40s had already made his
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The Eccentric Knight
Richard Strauss: Don Quixote op. 35
Few characters have captured our imagination than Don Quixote, the befuddled knight—a pathetic, aging oddball who dreams of righting the world’s wrongs. The knight is the protagonist of Miguel Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote or ‘The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of
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Alma Schindler
Muse, Femme Fatale, Composer Her admirers described Alma Schindler as pathologically cruel, anti-Semitic, exceedingly vain, prone to excessive drinking, and utterly obsessed by a sense of entitlement that the world owed her something in return for her brilliance and beauty.
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Forster, K.: Vanitas vanitatum / Sonata a 3 (Il Tempo)
Kaspar Forster: Vanitas vanitatum From Forster, K.: Vanitas vanitatum / Sonata a 3 (Il Tempo) (1999) Released by CD Accord / Naxos Kaspar Forster: Vanitas vanitatumKaspar Förster (1616−1673), of Gdańsk, was a distinguished vocalist and composer of exceptional individuality, who
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