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
Latest article
Spotlight
-
How Debussy changed a Scholar’s fate August 7th, 2016 Fifty years have passed since China’s Cultural Revolution, during which citizens were severely oppressed by restrictions on culture. Unbelievably, the incendiary spark of the Cultural Revolution was a critique titled “Notes on the New Historical Drama ‘Hai Rui Dismissed from -
A Piece Whose Time Has Finally Come August 6th, 2016 Pianist Sarah Beth Briggs was asked to play a piano reduction of Hans Gál’s Cello Concerto when her friend Antonio Meneses was working on it and was so impressed with Gál’s orchestral writing that she asked her producer, Simon Fox- -
The Twentieth Century Mozart August 6th, 2016 Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s parents named him after Mozart. Against all odds, Erich lived up to the hype by becoming one of the greatest prodigies in music history. The little boy was born in May 1897 in Brünn (now Brno in -
How You Should Feel in the Key of F minor August 5th, 2016 In our earlier series on C major and minor, G major and minor, and D major and minor, and A major and minor, E major and minor, B major and minor, F sharp major and minor, C sharp major and -
Ethel Smyth: String Quartet in E minor August 4th, 2016 Ethel Smyth’s String Quartet in E minor has received considerable scholarly attention. Elizabeth Wood investigates the work as a representative of the struggle for women’s rights and Smyth’s involvement with the women’s suffrage movement. On the other hand, Jennifer Gwynn -
Alexander Grechaninov: A musical Dinosaur? August 3rd, 2016 Alexander Tikhonovich Grechaninov (1864-1956) wasn’t entirely happy to study at the Moscow Conservatory. Although he took composition lessons from Sergey Taneyev and sat in the counterpoint class with Arensky, his initial attempts at composition were judged to be a waste -
Tobias Greenhalgh August 2nd, 2016 Singing and Superheroes About to embark upon a run of Die Fledermaus in the Lehár Festival at Austria’s Bad Ischl, baritone Tobias Greenhalgh talks about his travels to date, education, and work-life balance. -
Bringing the Universe to the Concert Hall August 1st, 2016 The death of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, age 87, on 27 July 2016, brings to an end life of the most famous composer from Finland since Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). He studied at the Sibelius Academy and the Juilliard School before