Olga Maria Elisabeth Frederike Schwarzkopf was born in Jarocin near Poznán, then Germany, now Poland, on 9 December 1915. She was to become the pre-eminent female lieder singer of the post-war decades and an operatic artist “in whom personal beauty,

In the years preceding World War II, Bohuslav Martinů was a much-respected composer experimenting with jazz, folk, and avant-garde creations in Paris. Forced to flee to the United States in 1940, he soon became the living composer whose works were

Among the crowning glories of German and Italian opera are The Magic Flute, Tristan and Isolde, La Traviata, Tosca, Norma, and Aida; English opera has Balfe’s “Bohemian Girl” which is barely ever performed, Britten’s “Peter Grimes” whose chief attributes are

When Johannes Brahms first met Richard Wagner in 1863 he played his Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 for the prophet of the “Artwork of the Future.” The work sounds like an impressive catalogue of variation

Krystian Zimerman is one of the rare cult figures among pianists today. In fact, there are not enough superlatives to describe his pianism, or what he calls “the art of organising emotions in time.” Anything he touches reveals infinite expressive

Preserving our natural world has become vital for many of us but we sometimes are at a loss as to how we as individuals can make an impact. Italian cellist and composer Riccardo Pes had a visceral reaction when the

Scott Joplin was the pre-eminent composer of piano ragtime. In fact, one of his first and most popular pieces, the “Maple Leaf Rag,” became one of the genre’s most influential mega hits. Joplin considered the ragtime a form of classical

Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos, better known as Maria Callas, was born on 2 December 1923 in New York City. She was the daughter of Greek immigrant parents, and her father shortened his surname to “Kakos” and subsequently to “Callas,”