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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Sing for Your Supper: Renaissance Notation Knives November 18th, 2021 In the Renaissance, the musical score didn’t exist. Each singer received their own part book and sang from it. In this 17th century painting, we see the singers and players gathered around the table, each with a separate book in -
Franz Schubert and Luigi Lablache
The Italian Connection November 17th, 2021Franz Schubert started his composition lessons with the famed Antonio Salieri at the age of 15. Salieri quickly realized that he was looking at an exceptional talent, and he instructed the teenage Schubert free of charge. Salieri gave Schubert a -
Music in View: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston November 16th, 2021 The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston was founded in 1870 with most of its initial collection coming from the Boston Athenaeum, where the Museum was housed. With over 450,000 items in its collection, it’s one of the largest -
Classical Romance
The Sweetest Love Stories of Classical Music Composers November 15th, 2021I am not a great fan of tabloid or boulevard journalism. Surely you have seen these colourful publications at checkout counters in your local supermarket and elsewhere. Most carry outrageous headlines of alien invasions or some poor souls doing something -
Celebrating Twenty Years of Music Making
Weymouth Lunchtime Chamber Concerts November 14th, 2021The bustling English seaside town of Weymouth, which enjoyed its heyday in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries after King George III visited the town to partake in the health-giving properties of “sea dipping”, is not the most obvious location -
On This Day
14 November: Aaron Copland Was Born November 14th, 2021Harris Morris Kaplan grew up in Lithuania, and before immigrating to the United States he lived in Scotland for a couple of years. It was in Scotland that he changed his family name “Kaplan” to “Copland.” He had no particular -
Mozart and His Circle of Friends II November 14th, 2021 The composer and tenor Benedikt Schack (1758-1826) was a close friend of Mozart, and he was the first performer of the role of Tamino in The Magic Flute. Schack hailed from the Bohemian provinces of the Austrian Empire, but moved -
Notes From a Cello-Playing Mom
Practicing and Performing Still Has to Be Done November 13th, 2021My two-year old wasn’t feeling well. “Mommy don’t go,” he whined. I had already donned my long black satin dress. Looking nervously at my watch I realized that it was very near concert time. I bent over to pick him