In classical music, the Romantic Era lasted from around 1810 to around 1910. That century gave us some of the most famous symphonies in the repertoire. Nineteenth-century composers like Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvořák, Schubert, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and others elevated the symphony
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Dance, Dance, Dance: The Saltarello September 16th, 2022 Although the source of the name is clear, the history of the dance itself is not. The Saltarello takes its name from the Italian verb saltare, meaning ‘to jump’, and it was the peculiar jumping step used in the saltarello -
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16 September: Nadia Boulanger Was Born September 16th, 2022A scholar and former student writes, “To measure the potency of Nadia Boulanger’s influence is impossible. As a tree is rooted firmly to the earth, she was rooted in the history and grammar of Western music. She was gifted with -
Musicians and Artists: Leisner and Bellows September 15th, 2022 David Leisner: Dances in the Madhouse American realist painter George Bellows (1882–1925) is best known for his realist paintings of New York City. Before that, while still in his student years in the Midwest, he made a drawing based on -
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15 September: Jessye Norman Was Born September 15th, 2022The incomparable Jessye Mae Norman was born on 15 September 1945 into the segregated American South. As she wrote in her memoirs, “I am the joy and pride of my maternal grandmother, looking out over a front yard overflowing with -
1937: The Year of the Ondes Martenot September 14th, 2022 It was the hot new instrument in town – eventually combining a seemingly traditional keyboard with the modern valve/tube technology developed in the first world war. Maurice Martenot (1898-1980) developed his ‘Ondes Musicales’ (musical waves) instrument in 1928, first as -
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14 September: Tōru Takemitsu’s Fantasma Was Premiered September 14th, 2022Commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, Fantasma/Cantos for clarinet and orchestra first sounded on 14 September 1991 in Cardiff. In this composition, Takemitsu imagined the orchestra as a -
Music to Make You Run Away
L. Frank Baum’s The Patchwork Girl of Oz September 13th, 2022In his 1913 children’s book, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, L. Frank Baum added a bit of music criticism into his text. His characters disapprove of classical music, ragtime, and ‘popular’ music, and, in fact, you sense a slight disapproval -
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13 September: Clara Schumann Was Born September 13th, 2022An eminent scholar writes, “Clara Schumann was the creative partner of three men: Friedrich Wieck, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. Her father was her sole teacher, much maligned for the role he later played in the romance between his daughter