Every decade of the 19th century had a pianist who, more than the others, clicked with audiences. This list isn’t about who wrote the greatest music for the instrument. (If it were, Chopin would be on the list, despite the

When Hollywood is looking for star power in terms of piano playing, they call Jean-Yves Thibaudet. His renowned poetic interpretation and technical brilliance, paired with personal charm and cinematic flair, have made him one of the premier pianists for the

On 20 February 1724, Handel’s three-act opera Giulio Cesare (in full, Giulio Cesare in Egitto) received its premiere at the King’s Theatre in London. Exactly 125 years earlier, the same city had witnessed another great drama about Caesar: Shakespeare’s celebrated

In the galaxy of classical music history, Handel was undoubtedly a master at manipulating public emotion. When mentioning his oratorios, most people immediately think of Messiah. Yet in the London of the 1740s, what truly filled Handel’s pockets and drove

Nikolaus Simrock was one of the most important figures in classical music history, lending his name to a storied company that published some of the century’s most important music. One of Simrock’s early clients was Ludwig van Beethoven himself. Decades

The Taiwanese-American violinist Paul Huang, born on 6 September 1990 in Tainan, Taiwan, began as a young prodigy and rapidly rose to global prominence. Known for his captivating artistry and effortless virtuosity, Huang first gained international recognition by stepping in

The Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s concert, performed since 1939, is a beloved holiday tradition for classical music lovers around the world. In 2025, the orchestra programmed the first work by a woman to ever appear on the program of this

This might come as a bit of a surprise. Still, during much of the nineteenth century, particularly between the 1830s and Wagner’s death in 1883, Giacomo Meyerbeer was considered the leading opera composer in central and northern Europe, including England,