In his breakthrough instrumental piece, written in 1899 and given its premiere in 1902, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) set aside all the vocal music he’d been writing to produce a work of true beauty. Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) was based on

Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1750) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) were contemporaries, but they never actually met. While Albinoni was at home on various Italian and international operatic stages, Bach never traveled far away from his native community in North-Germany. We do

The poet, writer and philosopher Dante Alighieri—who died in Ravenna 700 years ago—is widely considered one of the most influential creative minds in Western culture. His “Divine Comedy” is not only one of the most important poems of the Middle

Throughout human consciousness, the great rivers of this world have spiritually highlighted the paradoxical relationship between eternity and change. As metaphors for life itself, they simultaneously underscore all that is timeless and ephemeral in human experience and existence. Because rivers

Named not for the cathedral but for the girls’ school in Hammersmith where he was music master for nearly 30 years, the St Paul’s Suite by Gustav Holst provided the students with a beautiful piece that was all their own.

In the endless universe of classical music it is not surprising to frequently find titles of musical works that use the suffix of Latin origin “-ana.” Various spellings none withstanding, it generally indicates a specific tribute of one composer to

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) was one of the leading Polish composers who brought Polish classical music into the international mainstream. Following the example of fellow-countryman Karol Szymanowski, Bacewicz combined Polish folksong with modernism in music. More so than any other country,

When Antonín Dvořák returned from the US in 1896, he took poetic ballads from the Czech poet Karel Jaromír Erben as the basis for a set of symphonic poems, including The Water Goblin, The Noonday Witch, The Wild Dove, and