Every now and then the Salzburg Festival puts on a performance of such perfection, we are reminded how this festival became the leading operatic summer event in Europe. This year’s new production of Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro)

Laments continued to be very special works – rarely written and always filled with a very high emotional intensity. Elegies, on the other hand, were more of a late-19th-century phenomenon. Rather than heart-felt cries of despair, they were more like

Every year on August 6, Japan becomes a nation of mourning. Seventy years ago, the city of Hiroshima was incinerated by an atomic bomb nicknamed “Little Boy.” Three days later the utter destruction of Nagasaki followed. At the human cost

A highlight of this year’s Salzburg Festival was a new production of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. It was largely deemed a vehicle to show off leading German tenor Jonas Kaufmann at his vocal and artistic zenith. And indeed, he did

Though not yet 30 years old, Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen already has an impressive list of awards and prizes to her name – the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Kirsten Flagstad Award, 2014 three prizes at the 2015 Beveldere Competition and,

Isabelle Vengerova. Her students would wait in fearful anticipation dreading her bitingly acerbic pronouncements—to name a few—Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Lucas Foss, Gary Graffman, Abby Simon, Gilbert Kalish, Lillian Kallir and Menahem Pressler, an illustrious group of musicians, pianists and

Claude Debussy’s entire musical outlook changed after he experienced the subtle and graceful arts of Japan. As a contrast to the filled and busy impressionist paintings that surrounded him, many of the Japanese woodcuts he admired were just as filled

It’s not really known who wrote the Toy Symphony, and it’s credited to both Joseph Haydn and Leopold Mozart. One problem is that the work didn’t appear in print until 1820, long after the death of either composer. The original