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

Since its founding in 2001, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute (Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina) in Warsaw has grown into one of the world’s leading centres for Chopin scholarship and performance. It is unique in combining research, publishing, education, museum curation, historically

Are there still works by great composers that are practically unknown? Let’s take Robert Schumann, for example, and I wonder if professional pianists really know every single work he has written for the instrument. Professionals probably do, but as an

The sacred cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach are among the most profound and enduring works in the Western musical canon. They serve as both spiritual mediations and virtuosic displays of Baroque craftsmanship. Many of Bach’s cantatas are prefaced by sinfonias,

What is the most iconic work by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)? That’s easy, as just about everybody knows his Four Seasons. What makes these four concertos special is the accompanying descriptive sonnets, which provide the poetic narrative. Yet, beyond the composition

The string quartets by Antonín Dvořák are a treasure trove of Bohemian spirit and deeply felt universal emotion. What started as eighteen love songs under the title Cypresses in 1865 became a string quartet cycle of twelve miniature movements twenty-two