Felix Mendelssohn is credited with creating a new genre of music for the piano: the short lyrical pieces known as the Lieder ohne Worte, the Songs Without Words. It was common in the Romantic period to have short lyrical piano

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a revolutionary in German music and in opera. For opera-goers, the advent of Wagner onto their stages was cause for comment, particularly in the caricature sections. In images, the cartoonists could take aim at all they

I will never forget a concert I attended in the mid-1980s in a tiny Medieval church in Zadar, a small seaside town in former Yugoslavia. Amidst the ancient stone pillars and arches, a string quartet played music by Beethoven and

If you ask music lovers to name a composer who died too young, many will think of Mozart, who died just a month before his 36th birthday, in the midst of composing his Requiem. Of course, the loss of Mozart

Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890–1974) wrote across all genres but is known for his works for an unusual instrument. Where his 1944 work, Petite symphonie concertante, uses the instrument in conjunction with harp and piano, his 1951–1952 work, Concerto for

In popular culture, King Henry VIII (1491–1547) is primarily remembered for his six wives and countless mistresses. His private life was summarized in a popular rhyme. King Henry VIII, To six wives he was wedded. One died, one survived, Two

Austrian composer and conductor Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871–1942) was in the middle of the innovations of the Second Viennese School, with Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) as his pupil. However, despite their common location and close age, Zemlinsky was not the revolutionary

One of the most-maligned wives in classical music history is Antonina Miliukova. She married Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1877, and their union was a disaster from the beginning. She has often been portrayed as a madwoman intent on ruining her