Specific cities have inspired a huge amount of classical music over the years. Today, we’re looking at a selection of classical works explicitly connected to major cities, examining how each composer responded to each place. Some pieces reflect civic pride
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On This Day
26 May: Magdalena Kožená Was Born May 26th, 2022Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, today also known as Lady Rattle, was born in Brno on 26 May 1973. Her father was a mathematician and her mother a biologist, and Magdalena sang in the Children’s and Youth choir attached to the -
The Women He Knew: Virgil Thomson’s 5 Ladies May 25th, 2022 Taking up the genre of musical portraits as had been done by earlier composers such as Couperin, Schumann, Anton Rubinstein and Elgar, American composer Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) began composing his portraits in 1928 and completed his final one 60 years -
On This Day
25 May: Gustav Holst Died May 25th, 2022Gustav Holst’s reputation had been steadily growing during the years before World War I, and in 1917 “he composed the choral and orchestral Hymn of Jesus, perhaps the most characteristic and original work of his maturity.” His true breakthrough, however, -
Away from Home: Martinů’s La Jolla Sinfonietta May 24th, 2022 As WWII disrupted the world, many composers fleeing Europe ended up in the United States and were never able to return. One of those composers was Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959). He moved to France from Czechoslovakia in 1923 and then ended -
The Greatest Composers of Film Music
Satie, Ibert, Tailleferre, Milhaud and Honegger May 23rd, 2022I was still too young to actually see the first “Tomb Raider” film release in 2001. But when I first watched it some years later, I thought it was the biggest thing since the invention of the handbag. Finally, there -
On This Day
23 May: Beethoven’s Fidelio (Final Version) Was Premiered May 23rd, 2022As you can tell from the title, Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio was a long time in the making. In fact, the process of composition and revision took nearly 10 years, from the first failure in 1805 to the premiere of -
Musicians and Artists: Zwilich and the NMWA May 22nd, 2022 Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Images, for two pianos and orchestra American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich responded to a commission from the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) with a work that reflected the contents of the museum’s collection. Written -
On This Day
22 May: Richard Wagner Was Born May 22nd, 2022I absolutely love the way Richard Wagner is introduced in the most-respected English-language dictionary. The author writes, “It is both fitting and psychologically congruous that a question mark should hover over the identity of the father and mother of the