Teodorico PedriniViolin Sonata in A Major, Op. 3, No. 1, “Nepridi” My editor keeps reminding me that my quiz questions are just too simple and too easy! “What’s the use of having a quiz if everybody instantly knows the answer?”

First published as “The One Horse Open Sleigh” in 1857, “Jingle Bells” has become one of the most recognized and best-loved Christmas songs. Originally, however, it was neither connected with Christmas nor was it commercially successful. Only after the composer

Concerto Grosso in D Major, Op. 6, No. 1 By all accounts, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni — grandnephew of Pope Alexander VIII —loved “pomp, prodigality and sensual pleasure.” Apparently, portraits of his mistresses disguised as saints, including the angelic Margarita Pio

“But I don’t want to practice scales! They’re boring!” Have you heard this complaint from your students? Or perhaps you have said it yourself? When I was a young student I became enamored of playing them — really! I knew

The Italian ensemble sonata — in the mold established by Arcangelo Corelli — took Europe by storm. It was soon imitated and adapted by composers far and wide, and Corelli himself brought the genre to England. John Jenkins, Henry Purcell

One would be hard pressed not to agree with the assessment of a contemporary music critic, who described the Viennese Waltz as a direct expression of sensuality. In the hands of Johann Strauss II, known as the “Waltz King,” this

The famed violinmakers of Cremona — Nicolò Amati, Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Bartolomeo Guarneri — initiated a golden age of string music in Italy. Various important centers of violin making, performing and composition began to emerge around 1650, with the