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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The Losses of Another War: Bax’ In Memoriam August 25th, 2021 A work from 1916 entitled In memoriam would normally be assumed to be work commemorating the losses of World War I. This work by English composer Arnold Bax, however, is for a different struggle – the armed uprising in Ireland -
Caravaggio (1571-1610)
“Amore Vincit Omnia” (Love Conquers All) August 24th, 2021Film director Martin Scorsese commented in 2005, “If Caravaggio were alive today he would have loved the cinema; his paintings take a cinematic approach… He painted religious subject matter but the models were obviously people from the streets; he had -
Dragging Bach Into the 21st Century August 23rd, 2021 Ludwig van Beethoven would have been decidedly unhappy in the 21st Century, I think. He didn’t have the highest opinion of humanity to begin with, and all this social media influencing and posturing would have driven him downright crazy. Yet, -
Inspired and Fertilized by Music IV
Lüpertz, Klee, Bukowski and Libeskind August 22nd, 2021The city of Salzburg rose from a small Celtic settlement into a powerful economic center because of its trade in salt. The city regulated the collection of tolls and taxes from barges ferrying salt from the northern part of the -
A Work Symbolic of the World: Alexander Tchaikovsky’s Quarantine Symphony August 22nd, 2021 For composer Alexander Tchaikovsky (b. 1946), it wasn’t the thought of doing his 9th symphony that was the difficult mountain to meet, it was the sixth and seventh. Having completed his sixth symphony (and remembering that the sixth symphony was -
Cello Music by Women Composers II
Hensel (Mendelssohn), Farrenc, and Le Beau August 21st, 2021We continue with more wonderful cello works by the accomplished women composers of yesteryear who had to grapple with a lack of recognition for their music. Fanny Hensel, née Mendelssohn (1805-1847) is recognized as an important composer especially of lieder, -
Can You Improvise Classical Music? August 20th, 2021 As a lover of jazz, especially early jazz, the thing that pulls me towards this form is the improvisation that gives jazz its unique quality. Not all jazz is improvised. In fact, most is not. But at the heart of -
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Peanuts Gallery August 19th, 2021 Widely considered the most influential cartoonists of all time, Charles Schulz (1922-2000) created the “Peanuts” in 1950. This most famous of all comic strips ran for 50 years, with 17,897 original strips published in all. It appeared in over 2,600