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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Night and Day and Delius June 2nd, 2022 Frederick Delius: Summer Night on the River and A Song Before Sunrise Two works written in close proximity give us two different times of day. Frederick Delius (1862-1934) was a quiet master of the tone poem. Summer Night on the -
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2 June: Edward Elgar Was Born June 2nd, 2022Born in the small village of Lower Broadheath near Worcester on 2 June 1857, Edward Elgar was the fourth of seven children born to William Henry Elgar and Ann Greening. William Elgar hailed from Dover and had been working as -
Fatma Said June 1st, 2022 What do the Argentine tango, French poetry, and Beyoncé all have in common? If you said that they all brim with passion, you’d be right; but they’re all also things that inspire Fatma Said in her work. Fatma Said Sings -
David Teniers II’s Singeries and Cats May 31st, 2022 The Bavarian State Painting Collection has a painting from the late 17th century that just begs the question of where the artist got the inspiration for his work. The prolific Flemish artist David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) was a contributor -
On This Day
31 May: Joseph Haydn Died May 31st, 2022When Joseph Haydn peacefully closed his eyes for the last time at 12:40 am on 31 May 1809, he was considered Europe’s most illustrious and famous composer. I have previously written a blog on Haydn’s Funeral and the macabre way -
Walkin’ round the World Again May 30th, 2022 Ensembles and Bands That Preserve and Evolve Ancestral Musical Expressions It is a horrifying fact, but as many as half of the world’s 7,000 languages are expected to be extinct by the end of this century. “The effect of language -
Musicians and Artists: Adler and Pollock May 29th, 2022 Samuel Adler: Pasiphae In the mid-1940s, Jackson Pollock started on a series of mythologically themed pictures, the largest of which was Pasiphae. Pasiphaë was the daughter of the god of the sun, Helios, and Perse, an Oceanid nymph. She was -
Georges Braque
“Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented” May 29th, 2022How the artistic camaraderie between Braque and Picasso inspired classical composers Born 140 years ago in Argenteuil, Val-d’Oise, Georges Braque (1882-1963) played a decisive role in the revolutionary art movement of Cubism. Guided from a young age toward creative painting