In April 1817, a merry little band of artists decided to form a small private club called the “Unsinnsgesellschaft” (Nonsense Society). Based in Vienna, this congenial group of artistic friends published a weekly magazine, the “Archiv des menschlichen Unsinns” (Archive

From its first notes, Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker takes us to someplace warm and magical. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71: Overture (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Simon Rattle, cond.) The ballet originates in a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and the

Wolf took up the poetry of Goethe and in his Goethe-Lieder collection, set 51 poems. They came from a variety of poetic sources, including the influential Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-96) and the wonderfully named West-östlicher Diwan (1819), as well as

The tale of the two children and how they fool the wicked witch who has captured them in her gingerbread house has become a holiday opera. The recasting of the Grimm Brother’s tale into something more family friendly was done

He wrote some of the most beautiful and inspiring Christmas music ever! Yet as a practicing church musician Johann Sebastian Bach had very little time to celebrate the Christmas season. When Bach signed the contract for the post at St.

Everybody in the Mendelssohn Berlin household was interested in arts and humanities. The home served as a center for intellectual socializing, political discussions, but also for making music. Felix’s compositions were routinely performed during the “Sunday Music,” and it soon