In an earlier episode, I told the story that Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799) planned on writing a total of 15 symphonies based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He presented the Viennese publisher Artaria with a detailed outline of his grand design.

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799) was a highly respected violin virtuoso and prolific composer. It might be difficult to imagine today, but his popularity was said to have rivalled Haydn, Gluck, and Mozart. I think that might be a little

Leonard Bernstein contributed a modest but significant group of compositions for solo piano. As a noted pianist suggested, “the Bernstein works for solo pianos are a viable addition to present-day keyboard literature, and should not be underestimated.” Among his works

I love a good story, and I love it even more if that story is being told in music. And that’s particularly true of instrumental art music with an explicitly narrative content. I suppose that music always conveys or evokes

The seven images memorialized in Recuerdos de viaje (Memories of Travel) by Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) take us around Spain from the sea to the Alhambra. His use of his melodies that sound like Spanish folksong was a large part of

In her 64 years as the reigning monarch of the British Empire, Queen Victoria oversaw a prolific era of cultural, industrial, and political change. Even more remarkable was the fact that music occupied a central place in the lives of

Leopold van der Pals (1884–1966) took a different approach to the music of the planets in his 1931/1956 work Sphere-Music to the Dramatic Poem Mönch Wanderer, Op. 84. His Monk Wanderer was originally intended as a stage piece for actors,

The Austrian dramatist Franz Xaver Told (1793–1849) had a home on the stage of the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, producing a large number of plays for the theatre. He was talented, but worked so quickly that most of