One October evening in 1898, having returned home after a long day teaching, Edward Elgar lit a cigar and began to improvise at the piano. Elgar recalls, “I began to play, and suddenly my wife interrupted by saying: ‘Edward, that’s

Antonín Rejcha, later Antoine or Anton Reicha (1770-1836) came from a hard childhood. His father, Simon, the town piper of Prague, died when he was 10 months old and at age 11, he ran away from his mother who couldn’t

Charles Gounod, born on 17 June 1818 in Paris, is primarily remembered as the composer of the opera Faust and an Ave Maria descant to the first prelude of J.S. Bach’s C-major prelude from the WTC. Yet in his day,

We have a variety of images of Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547). The majority of them come from late in his life, when he was overweight and suffering from a sequential wife problem. Or maybe it was a sequence

When it comes to collaborations between clarinetists and composer we quickly think of Mozart and Stadler, Weber and Baermann, and Brahms and Mühlfeld. In my opinion, these pairing should also include Louis Spohr and Johann Simon Hermstedt. Hermstedt was born

Bergen is Norway’s second-largest city, picturesquely located on the west coast of the country. It is known as “the city of seven mountains,” and the birthplace of Edvard Hagerup Grieg. He was born on 15 June 1843 to Alexander Grieg

There can be no denying the fact that Lang Lang is China’s first crossover classical superstar pianist. He has conquered the classical world with dazzling technique and charisma, “displaying flair and great communicative power.” He has played for presidents, on

Carl Maria von Weber garnered international fame by composing Der Freischütz (The Marksman), the first German Romantic opera in 1821. However, his compositional acumen had long been established before he made his name as an opera composer. In fact, his