A march, in its most simple definition, is a musical work with a strong rhythmic beat designed to keep soldiers in step. Outside of that very bald declaration, there’s a world of march music. The usual form of a march

If you are looking for perhaps the most famous river journey ever sounded in music, look no further than Bedřich Smetana’s Vltava (The Moldau). The idea of turning the Vltava River into a tone poem occurred to Smetana in August

By the time Gioachino Rossini turned 38 years of age, he had composed 39 operas. He staged his first opera in 1810 in Venice, followed by productions in Bologna and Milan. Tancredi of 1813 established his international reputation, which quickly

Have you ever heard of the Romantic pianist and composer Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952)? He might not be a household name, but he composed beautiful music, especially for the piano. Bortkiewicz was born on 28 February 1877, in Kharkov (now Kharkiv,

Gidon Kremer is considered one of the most original and compelling violinists of his generation. A winner of the Queen Elizabeth, Paganini and Tchaikovsky International Competitions, he has released an astonishing 120 CD albums with music ranging from the early

Pavel Kolesnikov, born on 25 February 1989 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, never expected to become a prize-winning pianist. In fact, he studied both the piano and the violin for ten years before focusing on the piano. He had

One of the leading Italian lirico-spinto sopranos of her day, Renata Scotto was one of the defining voices of the postwar era. She invested her roles with a rare combination of vocal agility and dramatic power, always grounded in her

At the ripe old age of twenty-one, Edward Elgar (1857-1934) was still selling musical wares at his father’s shop in the High Street of Worcester. And in his spare time, he was engaged in all manners of local amateur music-making.