A shotgun wedding is commonly arranged to avoid embarrassment due to an unplanned pregnancy. As the name suggests, it is based on a supposed scenario that the father of the pregnant daughter must resort to some kind of forceful coercion

The comic opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) became Giovanni Paisiello’s greatest success. Composed and first staged during Paisiello’s tenure at the court in St. Petersburg, the opera swept like wildfire through European theaters. Between 1783 and

“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!

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” Bloodstains cannot be scoured nor erased in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. Intense ambition and a consuming lust for power lead the Scottish general Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth to commit murder and to seize

The fifteenth-century French chanson was not only a popular light vocal genre but a wonderful vehicle for all sorts of lasciviousness. In Josquin des Prez’ song “Faulte d’argent,” the anonymous poet complains that “Lack of money is unparalleled misery….,” but

With Nazi security forces hot on his heels, Kurt Weill crossed the French border on 22 March 1933. For the next two years Weill settled in Paris, and the composer barely managed to make a living. He completed his Symphony

Amid anguish and torment, Lives the contented soul, Chaste love, its only hope! Antonio Vivaldi: Nulla in mundo pax sincera, RV 630 (There is no honest peace in this world) These most powerful lines about the true nature of love

“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!