For one reason or another, the name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has become a marketing cliché, selling everything from alcohol to chocolates. Perfectly sane and healthy people swoon at the mere mention of his name, and he is habitually referred to

Leonard Slatkin conducts Shostakovich and Beethoven: 2 Ninth SymphoniesOrchestre National de Lyon, The Gulbenkian Choir, Manuela Uhl, Bea Robein,Christian Elner, Morten Frank Larsen29 June 2012, Auditorium de Lyon Watch the concert Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, “Choral”

By 1843, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was at the pinnacle of his career. He was almost universally acknowledged as an exceptional composer, conductor and educator. He had just founded the Leipzig Conservatory, and hired Ignaz Moscheles, Robert Schumann, Ferdinand David, Joseph

Paulus (St. Paul), Op. 36 (1836) On 4 May 1836, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) happily conducted the chorus of the Frankfurt Cäcilienverein, substituting for an indisposed colleague. Although he was certainly concentrating on the music, his eyes got distracted by a

On 17 March 1907, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) resigned the Artistic Directorship of the Vienna Court Opera. For years on end, discontent over his lavish salary, his extended musical tours promoting his own works, and persistent anti-Semitic attacks had finally taken

Towards the end of a highly successful performing and publishing career, the great Spanish guitarist Fernando Sor (1778-1839) — also known as Joseph Fernando Macari Sors, Josep Ferran Sorts I Muntades, Ferran Sor, Ferdinand Sor and Ferdinando Sor — vented

Jean-Delphin Alard’s motivation for uttering the immortal words “marry your violin, my son, never a woman” to his most famous charge, the teenage violinist Pablo de Sarasate, might have been twofold. For one, he was rather unhappily married to the

In April 1883, Rosina Jordana Lagarriga — daughter of the industrious businessman S. Simon Jordana, who lived and operated in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona — went to a local music store to look for sheet music by the sensational