The Royal Opera House delivered a remarkably gripping new production of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci by Damiano Michieletto. The Italian directorial wunderkind unified the verismo double bill, setting the operas in the same Mezzogiorno village where some characters from both

Johann Sebastian Bach simply had no time for incompetence! In one famous anecdote he pulled off his wig and threw it at another musician with the words, “You should have been a cobbler!” And we all know the anecdote where

Kurt Masur had a comparatively simple philosophy on music and musical performances. “Conductors,” he once wrote, “should only conduct those pieces where they feel they have something special to say; then people will accept it.” Although Masur has not shied

The armistice of 1953, although never signed by South Korea, mercifully ended an extended civil war on the Korean peninsular. A heavily fortified demilitarized zone kept the warring factions apart, but since no peace treaty was ever signed, the two

“Minors of the Majors” invites you to discover compositions by the great classical composers that for one reason or another have not reached the musical mainstream. Please enjoy, and keep listening! Arnold Wehner was director of music at Göttingen, an

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a Swiss-German painter with a unique style sometimes humorous, sometimes childlike, and always able to draw us into his work. Of all the composers we’ve looked at in this series, it is Klee who has inspired

The shenanigans of Sir John Falstaff, one of William Shakespeare’s great comic characters, is next in our ten-part series of Shakespeare and music. The portly, vain character appears in Henry IV part 1 and Henry IV part 2 and Merry

“Minors of the Majors” invites you to discover compositions by the great classical composers that for one reason or another have not reached the musical mainstream. Please enjoy, and keep listening! Robert and Clara Schumann had eight children, all born