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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Mozart’s Musical Journey
28 February 1778: “Non so d’onde viene,” K. 294 February 28th, 2019“I have also, for practice,” Wolfgang Amadeus writes to his father from Mannheim, “arranged the air ‘Non so d’onde viene’ which has been so charmingly composed by Bach. Just because I know that of Bach so well, and it pleases -
Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots
Premiered Today in 1836 February 28th, 2019What do you call the massacre of thousands of Huguenot Protestants by Catholic forces on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572? In artistic terms, you’d have to call it the most successful opera of the 19th century. When Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots premiered -
Remembering Denis Matthews February 27th, 2019 “There isn’t a day when I sit down to play the piano that I don’t think of him, in my mind hearing what he said when I played certain pieces” – Sarah Beth Briggs, British concert pianist -
A Love Letter in Music
Schumann’s Fantasie in C, Op. 17 February 27th, 2019“perhaps the most impassioned music I have ever written.”Robert Schumann writing to Clara Wieck, March 1838 Never one for disguising his emotions, Robert Schumann wore his heart on his sleeve and his music reflects his joy at being alive – -
Music in Baroque Spain
An Interview With Rupert Damerell of Quondam February 26th, 2019Spanish composers didn’t have what other European countries had: a central court. They did have the Holy Roman Emperor, in the form of Charles V and later, his son, Philip II, but those rulers preferred to hire musicians from the -
At the Center of the Musical Universe
Carl Maria von Weber II February 25th, 2019Although Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz is frequently portrayed as the liberation of German cultures from foreign influences, we should not forget that a “veritable Freischütz mania flooded all England.” Productions of the opera opened in London in -
Musicians and Artists: Chabrier and Friends February 24th, 2019 If you hang around in the arts, then you hang around with lots of kinds of artists – musicians don’t just pal around with other musicians but add all kinds of artists into their circles. Some of these circles, such -
Moved to Tears February 24th, 2019 Music has the power to tug at the heartstrings, and evoking emotion is the main purpose of music – whether it’s joy or sadness, excitement or meditation. A certain melody or line of a song, a falling phrase, the delayed