April, 2018

52 Posts
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Salon Culture in St. Petersburg
God Save the Tsar
The city of St. Petersburg, also known as Petrograd, Peterburg and Leningrad stood at the forefront of Russian musical culture. Established in 1703, the city flourished under Peter the Great, and the role of art and music assumed national significance.
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Big Music for Small-Handed Pianists
For years I told myself I couldn’t play Liszt – or Rachmaninoff for that matter – because of the relatively small size of my hands. I can stretch a ninth, just about. Any more and it’s painful – and a
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Puccini: Edgar
Premiered Today in 1889
Here is the trivia question for today. Can you name the Puccini opera that the composer himself desperately wanted to forget? The answer is Edgar, and despite revising it repeatedly, Puccini eventually declared the work irredeemable. Edgar was Puccini’s second
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Forgotten Cellists: Enrico Mainardi
Born in 1897 in Milan, the Italian cellist Enrico Mainardi had a small cello in his hands at the age of three. He astonished everyone by performing one of the Beethoven Cello Sonatas flawlessly just a few years later. Hailed
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Violin and Piano Recital: Howick, Clare / Ekins, John Paul – ELGAR, E. / BRIDGE, F. / DELIUS, F. / SCOTT, C.
Romance: Une lamentation d’amour From Violin and Piano Recital: Howick, Clare / Ekins, John Paul – ELGAR, E. / BRIDGE, F. / DELIUS, F. / SCOTT, C. (2017) Released by Naxos Bridge: Romance: Une lamentation d’amourFramed by Edward Elgar’s deeply
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Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye
Premiered Today in 1910
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) loved children. Although he was not married and did not have children of his own, he always seemed to spend more time with children than with adults. In fact, he never outgrew his ability to see the
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Piano Trios – When Fame Brings Forth Art
The idea of a trio is simple. Three people, three performers, and so on. But the musical trio is something special. We’ll start with the piano trio. At first piano trios were groups that got together and then just as
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Berg: Violin Concerto
Premiered Today in 1936
When Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto premiered at the Palau de la Música Catalana, in Barcelona on 19 April 1936, the composer was no longer alive. Shortly after he had finished the composition he was stung by an insect at the
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