The comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s most popular works, which has spurred composers’ imaginations, is next in our ten-part series of Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare was a young man when he wrote this fanciful tale—two couples that become

During the opening measures of the famous chorus, members of the audience glanced around anxiously, checking to see who would be first to rise to their feet. Then someone in the balcony stood, and someone else, and suddenly the whole

Charakterskizzen, Op. 40 I Vision From Hofmann: Charakterskizzen / Piano Sonata in F Major / Theme with Variations and Fugue (Yasynskyy) (2015) Released by Grand Piano Hofmann: Charakterskizzen, Op. 40 – I VisionJózef (Josef) Hofmann was one of the greatest

Nikolai Gogol, a dramatist, novelist and short story writer of Ukrainian ethnicity, is considered a seminal figure of Russian literary realism. His fundamental romantic sensibility is marvelously infused with strains of Surrealism and the grotesque. In fact, Gogol established a

“The story of the creation,” Joseph Haydn wrote in 1801 “has always been considered the sublimest and most awe-inspiring image for mankind. To accompany this great work with appropriate music could certainly have no other result than to heighten these

The Catholic prayer called either Ave Maria or the Hail Mary has been a familiar setting in music, coming into favour in the Renaissance and extending to the current day. Mary, the mother of Jesus, holds a particularly beloved place

Delving into the unknown I talk to Nicolas Dautricourt the evening before a performance he’s giving in New York, playing chamber works by Schoenberg, Brahms, and Haydn. Concerts such as these are the staple diet of a touring musician, but