One of the most-maligned wives in classical music history is Antonina Miliukova. She married Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1877, and their union was a disaster from the beginning. She has often been portrayed as a madwoman intent on ruining her

Renowned British pianist and pedagogue Penelope Roskell believes that technique should be taught from the outset and her new series of books aimed at children turn learning technique into an enjoyable and stimulating series of exercises, games/quizzes, and imaginative original

In the 19th century, a time of the travelling virtuoso, to find a virtuoso who wanted to stay home and have a solid playing position was rare, but that was the case with cello virtuoso Georg Goltermann (1824–1898). Goltermann was

The German classical pianist and violinist Julia Fischer was born on 15 June 1983 in Munich. Her parents Viera Krenková and Frank-Michael Fischer, a mathematician from East Germany, met as students in Prague. Julia started playing the violin around the

Giuseppe Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes premiered at the Paris Opéra on 13 June 1855. It was well received, and even the notoriously difficult Hector Berlioz found much to admire, praising “the penetrating intensity of the melodic expressiveness, the sumptuous, wise

Teresa Carreño was one of the most famous pianists of her generation. She traveled the world from Europe to America to Africa to Australia and lived a life full of accomplishment and adventure. Franz Liszt: Annees de pelerinage, 2nd year,

We all know George Gershwin (1898–1937) and his Rhapsody in Blue, his 1924 composition that, beginning with an extended clarinet glissando, firmly issued jazz into the world of classical music. The work was commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman and received

When a marital disagreement between the king and queen of fairies spills into the human realm, it creates a tangle of misdirected spells and misplaced love affairs. With the fairies spreading accidental chaos far and wide, nothing is what it