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

Everyone knows that the most famous violins in the world were built by Antonio Stradivari. He was a violin maker from Cremona, Italy, who lived from 1644 to 1737. However, you may not know that although Stradivari’s workshop produced over

Erwin Schulhoff is one of the most tragic, fascinating figures in twentieth century music. His promising career was halted by the rise of the Nazis, and he died in the Holocaust in 1942, before he could fulfill his true musical

The COVID lockdown of 2020–2022 affected composers and performers in many different ways. Some reported that, at least for the first few months, all of their activity stopped while the world reassessed itself. Many people found that their future lives

A group of classical musicians performing together is called an ensemble. Some ensembles consist entirely of instrumentalists, while others consist of singers. Of course, there are also ensembles where instrumentalists and singers perform together. A variety of ensembles appear in

For a number of commentators, the pianist Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) was considered a bridge, the most important link, “between the two distinct factions of the celebrated Russian school of pianism, which pitted Scriabin’s mystical, sexual, opiate music against Prokofiev’s dynamism

Music lovers have always been fascinated by a good composer’s death story. Beethoven supposedly raised his arm in defiance of a thunderstorm while on his deathbed. An entire mythology arose surrounding Mozart’s final illness (“was he poisoned?”). Bach’s Art of