With the German Sixteenth Army strategically entrenched just thirty miles southeast of Leningrad, the city also known as St. Petersburg got ready for the most prolonged siege of World War II. Among the citizens of Leningrad was a thirty-four-year-old composer

What do you do if you’re stuck in the frozen north and are looking longingly at the sunny south where your wife is working? Well, you take a holiday and then, if you’re a composer, you write something that brings

Does an audience have a right to boo? Or is it boorish, arrogant and rude? There is a long tradition of riots in the concert hall complete with hissing and catcalls and throwing food—tomatoes, radishes (in the case of Maria

Musical instruments in China were traditionally classified into 8 groups delineated by the material used in the instrument: Silk, Bamboo, Wood, Stone, Metal, Clay, Gourd and Hide. We will look at selected instruments in six of these groups in this

The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin was very interested in relating color and sound. Scriabin had synesthesia – he actually heard in color; his friend Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov had the same sense. In 1910, Scriabin codified his sound and color senses and

When the string section changes from a lush sound to a percussive sound, we know that it’s all about pizzicato. The word in Italian means pinched or plucked and that’s what the string players are doing. They’ve put down their