A number of historical documents preserve an amusing little anecdote about Franz Liszt’s visit to the Ottoman Empire in 1847. It basically reads as follows: “After a 54-hour long trip from Galatz, Liszt had at last reached Constantinople. Here, he

From his extended Italian journey, and after having dodged a serious flu epidemic, Wolfgang Amadeus writes to his sister. “I am still well, and, thank God, in the land of the living. Tell Herr Johannes Hagenauer that the Berlein family

When the British explorer extraordinaire Richard Francis Burton published his translation of the traditional Middle Eastern stories in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night in 1885, he brought the extraordinary wealth of Arabic storytelling to the West.

When Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (The Marksman) was first produced at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin in June 1821, the musical world was stunned. Setting his career as a pianist and critic aside, Weber had created a work that

Towards the end of his long performance career, Franz Liszt finally managed to visit the Ottoman Empire in 1847. Liszt had wanted to visit Istanbul as early as 1838, and wrote to a friend, “… [I have a] desire and

Trying to establish himself in Vienna, Wolfgang Amadeus was incredibly busy as he writes to his sister. “You must not suppose, from my not answering you, that you and your letters are troublesome. I shall always, dearest sister, with the

Louis Marchand (1669-1732) had an extremely colorful and unpredictable personality. While he was lavishly praised for his prodigious keyboard talents and skills, his reputation was not founded on musical abilities alone. In one famous, and documented instance, soon after his

Franz Schubert composed his set of six German Dances in October 1824 for his piano student Countess Caroline Esterházy. Everybody knew that Schubert was deeply in love with his 18-year old student, and a number of compositions were the direct