Most musicians don’t know a lot about Fanny Mendelssohn besides the fact that she was Felix’s uber-talented older sister. But she was a hugely important musical figure in her own right. We look at thirteen facts you (probably) didn’t know

Beethoven’s earliest documented contact with the Countess Anna Maria Erdödy dates from the year 1808, however, it is almost certain that he had become acquainted with her much earlier. The Countess was a competent pianist who had been living in

Apologies to author Henry Miller for lifting the title of his novel, but for countless centuries people have gazed at the stars and studied the movements and positions of celestial objects. This particular study is currently known as astrology, and

“Music is as much a science and craft as it is an art” In his unpublished autobiography, probably dictated to his wife Virginie Enaust, Antoine Reicha summarizes his aesthetic outlook on music. He writes, “As I was both composer and

We still don’t know exactly where the idiom “Swansong” actually originated, but presently we use it to mean a last effort or final production coming from someone in a respective field before retirement, or sometimes, death. It is probably most

Many music lovers only know a few things about Clara Wieck Schumann: that her father forbade her from marrying Robert Schumann, for instance, or that Brahms fell in love with her. But she was more than just a daughter, wife,

There are a variety of reasons why the exceptional composer and theorist Antoine Reicha (1770-1836) has been confined to the dusty pages of music history. For one, he brusquely turned his back on the performance and publication of his own

Comforting Stories of Persevering Classical Musicians Despite Hardship and Struggles The common image of the struggling artist started with Mr. Ludwig van B. We all know the story of him overcoming his disability to create some of the most uplifting