The love story between Robert and Clara Schumann is often regarded as one of the most romantic in classical music history. Happily for historians, many of their love letters survive. They document their inner thoughts and emotions, as well as
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On This Day
18 July: Kurt Masur Was Born July 18th, 2022For well over three decades, Kurt Masur was one of the world’s most celebrated conductors, having established an international reputation as “a sensitive and innovative interpreter of the Classical and Romantic repertoire, specifically Mendelssohn, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.” He was also -
Cutting a Swathe through Vivaldi
Max Richter’s The Four Seasons (after A. Vivaldi) July 17th, 2022We’ve said it before – some music you can just hear too much. For a while, you couldn’t move on American public radio without being assaulted by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Every once in a while, though, a performance has the -
Reduced to Anonymity:
Ukrainian Composer Dmitri Klebanov July 16th, 2022Another prodigiously talented composer is being resurrected from obscurity. Dmitri Klebanov (1907-1987) had two strikes against him during the Soviet era of cultural suppression. He was Ukrainian and Jewish, and his music has been largely unknown. Somehow, he evaded capture, -
Influencers: Hungarian Violinists and Sisters, Jelly and Adila d’Aranyi July 16th, 2022 The D’Aranyi Sisters Play Spohr’s Duo in D minor 1927 Two sisters and outstanding violinists inspired several great musical works of the 20th century. Born in Budapest, Adila (1886) and Jelly d’Aranyi (1893) possessed royal musical blood. Their great-uncle was -
The Baschet Brothers and Their Instruments July 15th, 2022 You want to travel with your guitar, but your luggage just won’t let you. How do you manage? The French inventor François Baschet ran into that problem when he wanted to travel after WWII. His guitar proving too big to -
On This Day
15 July: Carl Czerny Died July 15th, 2022Carl Czerny, unquestionably one of the towering figures in the history of nineteenth-century pianism, died on 15 July 1857 at the age of 66. As a contemporary publication notes, “The death of Carl Czerny, although it cannot be said to -
A Theme of His, Dedicated to Her, Written by a Third
Brahms’ 16 Variations on a Theme by R. Schumann, Op. 9 July 14th, 2022The relationship between Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Johannes Brahms started out as student comes to work with mentor but evolves into something more complex. Brahms had been introduced to the Schumanns in October 1853 with a letter of introduction -
Musicians and Artists: Mascagni and Bernini July 13th, 2022 Pietro Mascagni: Visione lirica In 1921, Italian composer Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), having finished his latest verismo opera, Il piccolo Marat, he shut himself away to fight the modernism that seemed to be taking over opera. He stopped writing almost entirely