When Antonín Dvořák was a young man, he gave piano lessons to make ends meet. One of his students was a young woman named Josefína Čermáková. She was very beautiful and talented and would become one of the best-known theatre

Turkish pianist Fazıl Say, born on 14 January 1970 in Ankara, has compiled a discography notable not only for its impressive range of classical repertoire but also for his own compositions. His ability to blend traditional Turkish sounds with classical

Robert Russell Bennett, a serious composer but better known for his orchestration of over 300 Broadway and West End musicals, including Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma and South Pacific, rose to a challenge issued by violinist Louis Kaufman. Kaufman thought that

Johannes Brahms had trouble with women. He objectified most of them, thought of them as either Madonnas or whores, and heartily agreed with prevailing social attitudes that they should concentrate on Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church), to quote a

I have listened to a lot of music by Sergei Prokofiev, and to my ears, four distinct elements are nearly always present. There seems to be a lyrical, classical, innovative, and a strong motoric or toccata element that shapes his

The Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin, born on 6 January 1872 in Moscow, had a distinct flair for the dramatic and the mystical. Initially inspired by Chopin, he soon broke away from tradition, creating music that was intensely emotional,

Lebanese pianist Walid Akl (1945-1997) made his career in France, moving there at age 17 and studying at the Marguerite Long Academy. He did further study at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieure de Musique de Paris, working with Germaine Mounier, Yvonne

In last week’s article, ‘Music and Graphics,’ we dove into the exciting realms of possibility opened up by “graphic scores” – musical compositions that are notated in nontraditional, visually expressive ways. After a whistlestop tour through the nascence of graphic