Only months after the horrendous atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch (1911-91) penned his theatrical play “The Chinese Wall.” It is in equal parts tragedy, comedy, history and satire that address the possibility

Joseph von Eichendorff’s poetry addresses a number of basic concepts, including the passing of time and nostalgia. Time for Eichendorff “is not just a natural phenomenon but each day and each of our nights have a metaphysical dimension.” The morning,

At what must be regarded as one of the most well-known painting exhibitions in music, Modest Mussorgsky’s 1874 piano work Pictures at an Exhibition takes the listener around a gallery of his late friend Viktor Hartmann’s paintings. Hartman died in

Anna Netrebko, one of today’s best-known sopranos has never shied away from speaking her mind. When she was asked about allegations of sexual assault against high profile conductors, including James Levine and Charles Dutoit, she publically stated “Any of this

The poet, novelist, translator, and playwright Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857) might not be a household name today. Yet, his poetry was set to music approximately 5,000 times, rivaling if not surpassing the number of musical settings of Goethe and Heine.

Éric Montalbetti started to make his music public in 2015, following 20 years at the Philharmonic Orchestra of France as Artistic Director. He had started composing at the age of 11 and did his studies at IRCAM and the Collège

Conductors are the only musical performers that do not produce sound. Rather, they operate at the tip of a long chain of non-verbal communication from the composer to the audience. But conductors are hardly silent. Since conducting has always been

While it has been fashionable to separate the art from the artist—just think of Caravaggio, Woody Allen, Benjamin Britten, Richard Wagner and countless others—music and politics have always been intricately connected and entwined. As the great Isaac Stern famously said,