In classical poetry, an Elegy is a mournful, melancholic, or plaintive poem, sometimes written as a lament for the dead and other times covering sad topics such as war. Elegies to lost love are also part of the genre. Ovid

During the first decade of the 20th century, Sergei Rachmaninoff was the undisputed superstar of the piano circuit. Devoted fans camped outside his house to catch a quick glimpse of their idol, and a more diehard core followed him from

Love is a rather infrequent visitor to the world of sex & drugs & Rock and Roll! Love ballads do constitute an important genre within the repertory of most bands, but reality frequently looks decidedly different. John Lennon, the founder

The musical genre called “Skiffle” originated in African-American culture in the early 20th century. Drawing its influences from jazz, blues, and folk, it usually featured poor musicians using homemade or improvised instruments. Washboards, jugs, cigar-box fiddles and comb-and-paper kazoos accompanied

When William Herschel (1738-1822) peered into the night sky on 13 March 1781, he noticed something rather peculiar. One of the celestial bodies he had been observing through his homemade telescope was moving oddly across the sky, and Herschel initially

Shanghai’s Municipal Orchestra, later to become the Shanghai Symphony, began subscription concerts in 1919. Under the direction of the expatriate Italian virtuoso Mario Paci, the orchestra relied exclusively on foreign players and rarely strayed beyond Shanghai’s colonial settlements. Over time,

For Richard Strauss, music was always capable of telling a good story. In his tone poems, we find a composer “capable of making poetic or narrative content and formal design coalesce with great brilliance.” Strauss’s tone poems—although he preferred to

During his early compositional career, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) exhibited a heightened sense of musical insecurity. He self-consciously responded to criticism, even when leveled by his closest personal friends, by ruthlessly destroying or severely reshaping his compositions. His Piano Quintet in