Fans of the Royal Family were once again over the moon in May 2019. Enthusiasts around the world celebrated the birth of the newest Royal Baby named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. The son of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and

Carl Loewe was strongly attracted to poetry reflecting an oriental influence. And he took a particular liking to a collection of books by the German writer Heinrich Wilhelm Stieglitz (1801-1849). The son of a wealthy Jewish merchant, Stieglitz had published

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber on 4 August 1782. Their courtship had not been smooth, as the couple briefly broke up in April 1782. Apparently, Constanze had permitted a young man to measure her calves in a parlor game,

Glenn Gould catapulted to international stardom and iconic fame with his inventive and energetic interpretations of Bach But when he did his Beethoven crossovers, his idiosyncratic and sometimes outlandish interpretations were considered “questionable.” For Gould, “Beethoven always sounded like the

When Carl Loewe (1796-1869) moved to Halle to further his musical education, he quickly became involved in the local “Singakademie.” Founded by Johann Friedrich Naue—a student of Carl Friedrich Zelter—in 1814, this large choral society was established to study and

During Mozart’s time—and some would say it is still true today—Salzburg was a small provincial town. Mozart was working for the Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo as a musical servant, and he had nothing good to say about his hometown. “I

In 1887, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz brought together a number of works for solo piano that he’d written the previous year and created his Suite Española No. 1, Op. 47. The works take the entire country for their inspiration, with

Composers tend to be a peculiar lot, particularly as it pertains to the best and most conducive circumstances in which they compose their best music. Of course, reports of that nature tend to be highly anecdotal, but more often then