Pietro Mascagni wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, as well as songs and piano music. Yet, he is best remembered for his 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria Rusticana. Cavalleria Rusticana became the prototype for operatic verismo, and its

Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 – better known as the Kreutzer Sonata – is one of the most famous pieces of chamber music ever written. The history of its reception is long and storied. It

In August 2019, pianist Alice Sara Ott shared the news on Instagram that she’d been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. In that report, she was optimistic that with the advances in medical treatment, people with this central nervous system disease could

In 1972, Jascha Heifetz – widely regarded as the greatest violinist of the 20th century – retired from the concert stage following a shoulder surgery that was only partially successful. He was 71 years old. His career had been one

Classical music anniversaries in August span four centuries of the art form – from the birth of Baroque composer Barbara Strozzi in 1619 to the death of Sviatoslav Richter in 1997. The month includes the anniversaries of the births of

Composer Ethel Smyth was the first woman to have an opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera. She befriended some of the most important composers and authors of the late nineteenth century, and once conducted her own suffragette anthem from a

One of the central and fully integrated pillars of promoting the life and works of Frédéric Chopin is the Chopin Museum, housed in a fortified mansion in the city centre of Warsaw. The mansion was originally constructed by the powerful

The story of composer Robert Schumann’s life contains a number of Romantic archetypes: musical genius, alter egos, literary obsessions, artistic manifestos, mental illness, and a tragic early death. He was also at the centre of classical music’s most famous love