Richard Strauss’ tone poem Don Quixote, subtitled “Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character,” was premiered in Cologne on 8 March 1898. It musically dramatizes Miguel de Cervantes’ famous novel of 1605, describing the adventures of the anti-hero Don

Beethoven had started to work on his String Quartet Op. 127 in 1822, but it was not premiered until 6 March 1825. Tickets for a first hearing had actually been sold for the end of February, but the quartet wasn’t

George Bizet (1838-1875) was greatly optimistic about the premiere performance of his opera Carmen on 3 March 1875 at the “Opéra Comique” in Paris. Final rehearsals had gone very well, and on the very same day Bizet was appointed as

The pleasures and rituals of home listening There is nothing quite like the excitement and atmosphere of hearing music performed live in a concert hall, but immense pleasure can be gained from listening at home, in the privacy of one’s

What a winter! —record-breaking snowfalls, gargantuan icicles, and freezing temperatures. Musicians go to great lengths to protect their instruments from the elements and winter does wreak havoc on them. Irwin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet (Aviv Quartet) Just this

What do you call the massacre of thousands of Huguenot Protestants by Catholic forces on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572? In artistic terms, you’d have to call it the most successful opera of the 19th century. When Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots premiered

“There isn’t a day when I sit down to play the piano that I don’t think of him, in my mind hearing what he said when I played certain pieces” – Sarah Beth Briggs, British concert pianist

“perhaps the most impassioned music I have ever written.”Robert Schumann writing to Clara Wieck, March 1838 Never one for disguising his emotions, Robert Schumann wore his heart on his sleeve and his music reflects his joy at being alive –