In classical music, the Romantic Era lasted from around 1810 to around 1910. That century gave us some of the most famous symphonies in the repertoire. Nineteenth-century composers like Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvořák, Schubert, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and others elevated the symphony
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Forgotten Pianists: Heinrich Neuhaus January 2nd, 2017 The noise of the new so often pushes the old out of our sight that often it’s a good idea to go back and see what we might have missed or forgotten. Today, we’re looking at the influential Heinrich Neuhaus. -
Musical Giants of the 20th Century: Organists January 1st, 2017 Although we primarily associate the pipe organ with liturgical and/or religious use, the “Queen of Instruments” was originally part of the gladiatorial games in Rome! Parades and subsequent gory events were often accompanied by music, featuring curved horns and organs. -
Alina Pogostkina January 1st, 2017 ‘It is a huge privilege and luxury to be able to have this life’ January’s Artist of the Month is Alina Pogostkina, a Russian-born German violinist storming the international stage. 2016 saw her playing with groups including the Philharmonia, Brno -
Holiday Fun: Die Fledermaus January 1st, 2017 A New Year’s Eve tradition in the opera world is Johann Strauss II’s operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat). A year earlier, Eisenstein abandoned his friend Falke in center of town, drunken and dressed as a bat (hence the title), and -
Happy New Year from Franz Schubert and the Nonsense Society December 31st, 2016 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 -
Holiday Fun: The Nutcracker December 31st, 2016 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 -
Composers and Their Poets: Wolf II December 30th, 2016 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 -
Holiday Fun: Hansel and Gretel December 29th, 2016 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