The Sorrows of Mary became the theme for the Stabat Mater, or, to give it its full name, Stabat Mater Dolorosa, or The Sorrowful Mother Stood. The sorrowful mother, Mary, standing at the foot of the cross upon which her

Although the madrigal in Italy was an occasion for setting some of the most notable poets of the age, when the madrigal got to England after 1558, it quickly succumbed to the most bawdy of texts. Composers were quick to

In 1951, the researcher Henry Solomon approached his classmate Robert Sarnoff, a rising executive at NBC television, about the phenomenal amount of film that each side in the Second World War had in their stocks. Solomon has been working with

“Minors of the Majors” invites you to discover compositions by the great classical composers that for one reason or another have not reached the musical mainstream. Please enjoy, and keep listening!

The Tragedy of Hamlet is one of the most quoted works in the English language and has had a pervasive influence on virtually every art form—literature, film, stage, screen, art and music. What better play to perform on a two–year

During the Renaissance, lute music was all the rage! A versatile instrument used for accompanying vocal works or for playing short solo dance pieces, it was the most important instrument for secular entertainment. An important aspect of lute performance was

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) spent much of his childhood and youth in the Russian countryside. For the rest of his life, he would vividly remember a childhood resonating with the beautiful and exotic sounds of ringing bells. Rachmaninoff writes in 1913,

On 14 October 1850, Robert and Clara Schumann played host to Mary Potts and her husband John Perkins in Düsseldorf. The visiting couple had married in New York just months early, and was looking to spend their honeymoon in Europe.