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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Minors of the Majors
Edvard Grieg: 25 Norwegian Folk Songs and Dances, Op. 17 December 5th, 2016“Minors of the Majors” invites you to discover compositions by the great classical composers that for one reason or another have not reached the musical mainstream. Please enjoy, and keep listening! -
The Devil Takes a Wife December 4th, 2016 In Ottorino Respighi’s 1923 comic opera Belfagor, the eponymous devil comes to a small village in Italy. This was Respighi’s fifth attempt at opera and we see him still struggling to get the correct coordination between the music and the -
Musical Giants of the 20th Century: The Art of Lieder (Female Interpreters) December 4th, 2016 When we talk about giants among the female Lieder interpreters of the 20th century, we really must start with the great Polish soprano Marcella Sembrich (1858-1935). Sembrich performed for Liszt, and after studying in Vienna and Milan, secured long-term contracts -
A Girl’s Best Friend: Ethel Smyth and Marco December 3rd, 2016 Nowadays composer Ethel Smyth is known less as a composer and more as a memoirist. Her multiple autobiographies are colorful windows into the musical life of the late nineteenth century. In 1919 she published Impressions That Remained, a book in -
Composers and their Poets: Beethoven II December 2nd, 2016 Although he set the great poets such as Goethe, Beethoven set one poem by a German writer who was better known for his plays. In music, many of those plays were the basis for great operas: Wilhelm Tell became Rossini’s -
Sunwook Kim December 1st, 2016 ‘The Quality of the Moment’ Sat in a Piccadilly coffee shop, I catch Sunwook Kim just before he heads off to Switzerland to play Beethoven’s first piano concerto with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. -
Unsung Concertos
Sergei Bortkiewicz: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 16 (1913) November 30th, 2016Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) described himself as a romantic and a melodist, and he had an emphatic aversion of what he called modern, atonal and cacophonous music. His musical style builds on the sounds and structures of Chopin, Liszt and the -
Gesture in Piano Playing, Part 2 November 29th, 2016 In my previous article on gesture, I talked about the physical gestures we can employ to influence and enhance the quality of our sound and how we can create certain effects at the piano, such as staccato, a rich cantabile