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
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Minors of the Majors
Antonín Dvořák: Mass in D major, Op. 86 February 29th, 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! -
Music by a Medium: The Story of Rosemary Brown February 28th, 2016 The little girl was seven years old when she awoke and saw a ghost standing beside her. His hair was long and white, and he wore a cassock. He told her that he had been a composer and pianist in -
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
Shakespeare and Music VI – Macbeth February 28th, 2016“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” Bloodstains cannot be scoured nor erased in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. Intense ambition and a consuming lust for power lead the Scottish general Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth to commit murder and to seize -
Sex and Music: Medieval France February 27th, 2016 The fifteenth-century French chanson was not only a popular light vocal genre but a wonderful vehicle for all sorts of lasciviousness. In Josquin des Prez’ song “Faulte d’argent,” the anonymous poet complains that “Lack of money is unparalleled misery….,” but -
How You Should Feel in the Key of C Minor February 26th, 2016 The Austrian composer and pianist Ernst Pauer (1826-1905) was a student of Mozart’s son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, before moving to London in 1851. He was one of the first piano professors at the Royal College of Music and also -
Music in Exile
Displaced by War February 25th, 2016With Nazi security forces hot on his heels, Kurt Weill crossed the French border on 22 March 1933. For the next two years Weill settled in Paris, and the composer barely managed to make a living. He completed his Symphony -
Giovanni Paisiello February 24th, 2016 The Original Barber of Seville In 2016, we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Giovanni Paisiello’s death (1740-1816). One of the most successful and influential opera composers of his time, he wrote music for 94 operas that cultivated a comic, simple, -
Muses and Musings
Anna and the Red Priest: Anna Girò and Antonio Vivaldi February 23rd, 2016Amid anguish and torment, Lives the contented soul, Chaste love, its only hope! Antonio Vivaldi: Nulla in mundo pax sincera, RV 630 (There is no honest peace in this world) These most powerful lines about the true nature of love