For all his dislike of Italian music, Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) kept returning to Italian subjects. We only need to think of Romeo and Juliette, Harold in Italy, and the opera loosely adapted from the memoirs of the 16th century Florentine

Ferdinand Lukas Schubert (1794-1859)—older brother of Franz Schubert—was a schoolteacher, organist, and composer. He had some compositional talent, but frequently asked for his brother’s help in his daily work. On occasion, he appropriated his brother’s compositions and passed them off

The majority of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756-1791) serious operas were composed for occasions connected to the Austrian ruling house of Habsburg. At the tender age of fourteen, Mozart composed Mitridate, re di Ponto for Milan, a city governed by the

There is considerable debate across the entire scholarly and social spectrum as to what composer was most influential in the field of Western Classical music. It may, or may not surprise you to learn that Glenn Gould considered Arnold Schoenberg

Picturesquely located on the banks of the Danube River, the ecclesiastic basilica at Esztergom is Hungary’s largest church. Stephen I of Hungary erected the foundation of the present building between 1001 and 1010. Various fires and destructions by foreign powers

Visitations by foreign heads of state can be rather lavish affairs. And that was certainly the case when Archduke Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice d’Este, alongside a retinue of well over one hundred servants, visited the former hunting lodge of Prince

An old proverb states, “Traveling leaves you speechless, and then turns you into a storyteller. And that’s what happened to Aaron Copland after his first visit to Mexico City in 1932. His friend Carlos Chávez took him to a colorful

The Birmingham Music Festival was founded in 1768 as a charitable event to raise funds for the city’s recently founded General Hospital. Renamed the “Birmingham Triennial Music Festival” in 1784, it subsequently commissioned works by Arthur Sullivan, Max Bruch, Charles