How does a composer look at himself? In these works, covering some 400 years, we’ll see composers’ self-portraits in music and try to discern how they saw themselves. Seeing himself in an allemande rhythm, the French composer François Couperin (1668-1733)

With a title that sounds rather like a children’s story, The Happy Forest by Arnold Bax (1883-1953) sprang from a prose poem by the British theatrical writer Herbert Farjeon. This appeared in the quarterly magazine Orpheus, which was edited by

Chopin did not gain an international reputation as a composer until 1833. And while his reception was generally positive, he certainly had his detractors. The influential editor and critic Ludwig Rellstab writes, “In his dances the author satisfies the passion

Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) is best known to us as the consummate virtuoso violinist. He was the most famous violinist of his day and his name still resonates when speaking of intricately difficult music. In addition to the violin, he was

The Russian composer Sergey Vasilenko (1872-1956) might not be a household name today, but he was considered a master orchestrator during his days as professor at the Moscow Conservatory. He originally studied music theory with Grechaninov, and while studying law

No single instrument served the cult of self-expression more comprehensively than the piano. It could emulate the rising and falling inflections of human speech and the outlines of non-verbal expressions from a sigh to a scream. Frédéric Chopin (1810-49), more

Morning can be a time for a slow start – a reflection on the day to come, a slow sip of a warm beverage, waiting for the sun to make its appearance. We’ll ignore those mornings we used to have

Benjamin Britten was working on the full-length ballet The Prince of the Pagodas when he wrote to Edith Sitwell that he was “on the threshold of a new musical world.” This project, slated for Covent Garden, was set aside for