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

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

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

I don’t know if you agree, but The Exorcist (1973) and The Shining (1980) are two of the most iconic horror movies ever to flicker across the silver screen. These are all about scary imagery, ranging from a twisting and

There was great confusion at the premiere of Handel’s “Serse” at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket on 15 April 1738! I know you are asking yourself why that might have been the case? After all, Handel was setting the London stages

Johannes Brahms was highly indifferent to organized religion. Although baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran faith, he considered the bible “a repository of experiences and wisdoms rather than a definition of Christian creed.” It was the death of his beloved

It never fails to amaze that Johann Sebastian Bach was practically unknown during his early days. It took almost a year of negotiation, and the refusal of Georg Friedrich Telemann and Christoph Graupner, before the Kantor position at St. Thomas