Sonata for clarinet and piano (FP 184) Francis Poulenc Francis Poulenc Clarinet Sonata The French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright and filmmaker Jean Cocteau magnanimously announced in 1918, that his principal goal was the elimination of all foreign

At the tender age of 13 and accompanied by his mother, young Richard made his first journey to the city of Prague. They visited his two sisters who were employed as singers at the National Opera. The vibrant cultural and

7 pieces for Goethe’s Faust, Op. 5 No. 6. Gretchen am Spinnrade No. 7. Melodram It is at least conceivable that Leah David’s rejection fueled Richard Wagner’s gradually growing hatred for the Jewish race. It is without doubt, however, that

Milstein and Heifetz are but two violinists comprising the golden age of violinists. A discussion would not be complete without including David Oistrakh, Fritz Kreisler, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern. Heifetz and his teacher Leopold Auer were viewed as traitors

Arnold Schoenberg Brettl-Lieder (excerpts) The French cabaret, around the turn of the 20th century, was much more then a simple place for drinking, dancing and entertainment. It was a gathering place for the artistic and literary elite that also served

It is generally acknowledged that no single operatic composer influenced Richard Wagner as decisively as Carl Maria von Weber. When Richard was nine, Weber came to Dresden to rehearse and conduct his opera Der Freischütz. In his autobiography, Wagner gives

In 1884/85, a wealthy patron of classical music named Jeanette Thurber set out to establish a uniquely American school of classical music composition. To accomplish this ambitious undertaking, she founded in quick succession the National Conservatory of Music of America

In his most renowned psychoanalytic conjecture — appropriately dubbed the “Oedipus complex” — Sigmund Freud suggested that a child’s unconscious mind projects the desire to sexually possess the mother, and kill the father. Freud derived his theory from ancient Greek