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
12 May: Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore Was Premiered May 12th, 2022L’Elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) is one of the most beloved of all Donizetti’s operas. It combines touching romance and hilarious comedy with beautiful music. Donizetti composed the opera in a six-week period, and it went into rehearsal around -
The Post-Covid Opera May 11th, 2022 We were thinking about what post-COVID opera might be like. Can we really go back to operas with parties with women coughing themselves to death in the corner (La Traviata), with false doctors (any number of operas from 1730 forward)? -
On This Day
11 May: Busoni’s Turandot Was Premiered May 11th, 2022Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) famously claimed that Schiller’s translation of Carlo Gozzi’s dramatic fairy-tale Turandot in conjunction with Carl Maria von Weber’s incidental music “ruined a masterpiece of Italian literature.” Gozzi’s play, supposedly based on a Persian story from the collection -
Women Composers You Should Know V May 10th, 2022 In the 19th century, we have women composers with famous brothers, such as Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) and women composers from famous musical families, such as Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) and Maria Malibran (1808-1836). In Clara Schumann (1819-1896), we have woman composer -
On This Day
10 May: Gabriela Montero Was Born May 10th, 2022Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, born on 10 May 1970, has garnered critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage for her visionary interpretations and unique compositional gift. She has come to be known in particular for her real-time -
Fine-Tuning Vladimir Horowitz
Franz Mohr May 9th, 2022One very special person has played more in Carnegie Hall than all pianist superstars put together. His name was Franz Mohr, and he was the piano tuner to the stars. You see, he was the chief concert technician for Steinway -
Fish Music May 8th, 2022 So you don’t have a dog or a cat, but a fish tank is the place where your animal companion resides. What kind of music do we have about fish? We’ll start with the tank itself, and Giancarlo Vulcano’s Music -
Bells for All Occasions May 8th, 2022 It was just Orthodox Easter Eve and all over Greece, the church bells rang out at midnight. We were thinking about music with bells and all the different ways that they are used. They’re used in a couple of different