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.

“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!

We all know about Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, and Schubert’s Trout, but what other animals lurk in the musical forests?

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!