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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The Best (Sexiest) Performances
“Habanera” by Georges Bizet May 10th, 2021If there is one opera I love above all others, it has to be Georges Bizet’s Carmen. It contains beautiful and ethnic melodies, plenty of action and great drama. But the reason I personally rate it above others in the -
The Music of Poetry
Pablo Neruda: “Poems of Love and of Protest” May 9th, 2021Pablo Neruda famously quipped, “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” In his “Saddest Poem” he laments the loss of a lover who has moved away from him. The strong connection of the poem to the stars and sky -
Online Communities for Musicians Offer Advice, Support and Inspiration May 9th, 2021 Some years ago, when I was working on two of Rachmaninoff’s Opus 33 Etudes-Tableaux for a performance diploma, I posted on Facebook a screen shot of a passage which was giving me some issues and asked if anyone had some -
Wolfgang A. Mozart and His Fellow Musicians II May 8th, 2021 Recently, Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) has gotten some seriously bad PR. But we need to be clear about the fact that he did not cause Mozart’s death. Salieri was a serious and steady man, but there is also mention of him -
Art and Music: Romare Bearden and Music in Collage May 8th, 2021 Music has so many aspects in art and we were looking at the collage art of American artist Romare Bearden to see how he captured both sound and sight in his work. Romare Bearden (1911-1988) was not only an artist -
A Fantasy About a Fantasia: Henry Purcell and Elliott Carter May 7th, 2021 In the summer of 1680, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) started to experiment with an older musical form, the fantasia. The basic structure of a fantasia is the construction of several musical phrases, or points, each of which is given a contrapuntal -
Pure Class – and in a Class of Her Own: Christa Ludwig (1928-2021) May 6th, 2021 Ottavia’s Torment (Christa Ludwig) I never had the privilege of experiencing Christa Ludwig perform live. But I saw her year after year in the audience of the Salzburg Festival. Statuesque, elegant, attractive and humble, this true operatic diva was content -
Eugène Ysaÿe May 5th, 2021 “The King of the Violin” Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was, without doubt, one of the most important and towering violinists of his time. Born in Liège on 16 July 1858, he received his initial violin instructions from his father at the