The solo violin has long been acknowledged as the perfect instrument to express emotions like love, longing, heartbreak, rapture, and romance. The Romantic era lasted from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century and produced numerous works that
Latest article
Spotlight
-
The Voices of a Bass – An Interview with Valerian Ruminski January 18th, 2018 Bass Valerian Ruminski was recently in Hong Kong as Colline in a production of La bohème. Next, you might see him in Calgary in Eugene Onegin, or in Geneva as Dr Bartolo in the Barber of Seville. Or, you might -
I Am the Very Model: Gilbert and Sullivan and Light Opera I January 16th, 2018 It’s of some tribute to librettist W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) that 140 years after their first comic operas hit the stage, we can still find a great deal of humour in their works and many of - At the Center of the Musical Universe
George Frideric Handel II January 15th, 2018When Ludwig, or Louis Spohr (1784-1859) died at the age of 75, Johannes Brahms lamented that the last of the great masters had died. This seems high praise indeed for a composer whose posthumous neglect is shockingly at odds with -
Turning the Tables January 14th, 2018 They all die at the end, those poor opera women. Madama Butterfly kills herself, Tosca dies off the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo, and Carmen has a face-off with her former soldier lover. -
What do musicians do all day? January 14th, 2018 “What do you actually do?” and “What is your day job?” are all-too familiar questions to musicians. People are also endlessly fascinated about practising – “so how much practising do you actually do?” – and imagine we spend most of -
Forgotten Cellists: Elsa Hilger January 13th, 2018 Hilger was born in 1904 in the small town of Trauenau, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the youngest of eighteen children (only four survived.) Elsa and her two sisters, Maria and Greta, were prodigiously gifted young musicians. After the family heard the news -
Classical Music Apps (Part Two) January 12th, 2018 In this follow-up article about classical music apps, we turn to ones suitable for music-lovers and for those wishing to learn more about and listen to classical music. -
Unravelling the influential Franco-Belgian violin and organ schools II January 11th, 2018 The early core of the Paris Conservatoire violin faculty gradually came together between 1795-1802, as a result of spontaneous cooperation between Italian freemasons Giovanni Viotti and Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842), their French pupils, freemasons Pierre Baillot, Jean-François Tiby, and their friend
