In 1923, Eugène Ysaÿe attended a performance by the great violinist Joseph Szigeti. The entire concert was dedicated to Ysaÿe’s favorite composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. Deeply moved and inspired, Ysaÿe went to work and over the course of twenty-four hours

Maria Theresia Paradis (1759-1824) was the daughter of the Imperial Secretary of Commerce and Court Councilor to Empress Maria Theresa. She lost her eyesight at the age of 4, and although she initially responded to treatment, she relapsed into her

In 2021 we celebrate the 225th passing of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. He died on the morning of 21 July 1796 at the age of 37, and he had been a practicing poet throughout his life. Famous for his

When Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) set out to reform opera, he knowingly provided the spark for a full-out culture war. Gluck believed that the principal Italian operatic genres—opera buffa and opera seria—had become unnatural. Characters seemed nothing more than empty

Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was not only one of the greatest violinists of his time, but he was also a composer, conductor, and teacher. And what is more, great composers inspired him, and in turn, his exceptional artistry inspired them to

Recently, Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) has gotten some seriously bad PR. But we need to be clear about the fact that he did not cause Mozart’s death. Salieri was a serious and steady man, but there is also mention of him

In the summer of 1680, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) started to experiment with an older musical form, the fantasia. The basic structure of a fantasia is the construction of several musical phrases, or points, each of which is given a contrapuntal

In the preface to his L’art du chant appliqué au piano, the distinguished virtuoso pianist and composer Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871) states that he took voice lessons from a famous singer in his youth. That famous singer turned out to be