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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Brahms and His Late Piano Works
Klavierstücke Op.118 March 22nd, 2019Dedicated to Clara Schumann, Brahms’ Klavierstücke Op.118 were written in 1893 again at Bad Ischl during his summer sojourn and are probably his most well-known opus nowadays. Julius August Philipp Spitta, a German musicologist, wrote to Brahms after receiving the -
Music and Nature
Seasons: Spring March 21st, 2019We start the year with Spring, even though any year starts in the throes of Winter, be it the frosty Winter of the Northern Hemisphere, or the burning Winter of the Southern Hemisphere. Spring is awakening, is renewal, is a -
Tcherepnin: Symphony No. 2
Premiered Today in 1952 March 20th, 2019Commissioned by the Associated Music Publishers in New York, Alexander Tcherepnin premiered his second symphony in Chicago on 20 March 1952. It took Tcherepnin a long while to finish the composition, as he labored on the orchestration for the better -
Mozart’s Musical Journey
20 March 1784: Piano Concerto No. 14, K. 449 March 20th, 2019On 20 March 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sent his father the famous list of subscribers who paid an entrance fee of six gulden for three concerts at the Trattnerhof. “Here you have the list of all my subscribers,” he writes, -
Hector Berlioz: Enfant Terrible! March 19th, 2019 Whether we like it or not, Hector Berlioz is primarily associated with a single composition. Everybody knows his Symphonie Fantastique, but his religious works, the dramatic legends, his songs and even his operas are rarely scheduled for performance, and they -
At the Center of the Musical Universe
Antonio Salieri March 18th, 2019Ever since Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) fictionally poisoned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he has gotten some seriously bad press. But as we know all too well, factual information and historical fact have never stood in the way of Hollywood telling a good -
Musicians and Artists: Burney and Reynolds March 17th, 2019 Charles Burney (1726-1814) took on the three roles of music historian, composer, and musician. His first music books, The Present State of Music in France and Italy… (London, 1771) and The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and -
The Salon Concert March 17th, 2019 We are so used to attending concerts in specially-designed large halls that it is easy to forget that until about 1850, most music was experienced in people’s homes, churches, small intimate venues or ‘salons’. The Salon Concert was particularly popular