When the writer, critic, poet, translator, and composer Peter Cornelius (1824-1874) approached his close friend and patron Franz Liszt with the idea of writing an opera based on a story from “The Arabian Nights,” Liszt strongly disapproved. Cornelius had written

How do you take the morning, musically? Bright and brassy alarm bells, a gentle reminder from the buzzer, the shock of morning radio? We decided to survey music for the earliest time of day: Dawn. We’ll start with Mussorgsky’s music

First performed in Munich in 1811, the delightful one-act Singspiel Abu Hassan is based on a famous episode in “The Arabian Nights.” Set to music by Carl Maria von Weber, the opera features Abu Hassan (tenor) and his devoted wife

The Amazon rainforest covers the majority of the Amazon basin in South America. Its region stretches over nine nations and thousands of indigenous territories, and it is said to represent over half of the planet’s remaining rainforests. Well over 30

You can hear it one too many times. It’s the season for every ballet company to line up all their children dancers, get their prima ballerinas primed and put on their annual edition of The Nutcracker. It serves as the

Joseph Marx (1882-1964) enjoyed an esteemed reputation as a major composer and teacher. Nikolay Medtner, one of the most important representatives of the group of composers based in Moscow that included Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin and Alexander Taneyev expressed his

Our incredible planet is in real trouble. Scientists have identified a triple-threat of climate change, biodiversity loss and overpopulation as humanity is racing “towards mass extinctions, health crises and constant climate-induced disruptions to society.” Earth has lost an estimated 50%

American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) only wrote one work for piano and orchestra, his 1926 Piano Concerto. To put this work in context, we need to listen to it not only as a work by the young American composer newly