In February 1778, Leopold Mozart told his son to go to Paris with his mother, and the pair arrived in the capital city in March 1778. He immediately started to set up his musical networks and wrote to his father

The story of Faust has captured composers’ imaginations for centuries. There was a historical figure, Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540), who made the original deal with the devil at the crossroads when he exchanged his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly

When he finally arrived in Vienna as a permanent resident in 1795, Beethoven fit into an interesting hiatus in the city’s music life. Mozart‘s recent death left a place open for a daring piano virtuoso and composer. In his first

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (1823 –1892) started his musical career as a viola and violinist, studying at the Paris Conservatoire with François Antoine Habeneck, who had founded and led the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire from 1828. After graduation,

The Russian composers of the late 19th century seemed to vie with each other for difficult piano music. Mily Balakirev (1837–1910) was active as both a nationalist composer and encourager of other composers, most importantly Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Balakirev was important

Inspired by the works of the Spanish Romantic painter and printmaker Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), Goyescas by Enrique Granados (1867–1916) was a 6-part suite for piano, written in 1911. In 1915, he transformed the piano works into

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) loved the poetry of Karl Jaromir Erben, particularly his collection of Czech folk ballads, The Garland, published in 1853. Starting in 1896, once he’d finished his nine symphonies and his other major orchestral works, Dvořák used the

Michael Haydn (1737–1806), the younger brother of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), also had a career in music, smoothed by his older brother’s success in Vienna. Like Joseph, he started his career in the choir of St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, at age