Transcriptions of Bach’s Famous Repertoire — Goldberg Variations Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, hold a special place in music history. Written for Count Kaiserlingk, former Russian ambassador to the court of Saxony, who needed something for those sleepness nights when

We look up at the orb that hangs in our sky and know that it’s been an inspiration for artists of all sorts: authors, poets, painters, and composers. It can be an inspiration for love and for madness – lunacy,

From the weird and wacky world of musical instruments comes a story that will make your stomach turn and your blood curdle. Warning, the reading of this article might cause serious discomfort to some sensitive readers. If you are an

Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730), not to be confused with his more famous countryman Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was an Italian opera composer active in the city of Naples. He became an overnight success at age 29 with his comic opera in

As a young critic, Robert Schumann famously introduced Frédéric Chopin to European audiences with the words, “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!” In a later review on the Chopin piano concertos, Schumann suggested, “If the autonomous, mighty monarch of the North

When Stefi Geyer rejected Béla Bartók’s proposal of marriage, the composer fell into a deep depression. Unable to sleep, he lost his appetite and obsessed with not being able to attain something he truly desired. And for many years to

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) was one of the most influential figures in the history of classical music. Composer, performer, educator, and ethnomusicologist, Bartók’s powerfully shaped the way subsequent generations approached and listened to music. Born near the Hungarian city of Nagyszentmiklós,

One of the essential things about music is how it’s so hard to pin down, so hard to fix in time, and so hard to be definitive about. In looking at cadenzas, those virtuosic flourishes that appear in concertos, we