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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Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev February 19th, 2015 Pianist, Scholar and Composer When Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915) attended the funeral of his student Alexander Scriabin in 1915, he caught a rather severe flu. Instead of taking proper medicine and rest, he continued to resist the virus and persisted -
In an Italian Garden February 18th, 2015 Madrigals in elevated style formed the basis of various musical entertainments during the late Italian Renaissance. Before the advent of opera, composers habitually turned to the dramatic madrigal in an effort to create new musico-dramatic forms. Among the most popular -
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev
The Russian Bach February 17th, 2015His teacher Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky called Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev “the greatest master of counterpoint in Russia; I am not even sure there is his equal in the West.” And his student Sergei Rachmaninoff, described Taneyev as “a master composer, the -
Imagined Intimacy
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev and Sophia Andreevna Tolstoy February 16th, 2015Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915) was a rather unusual character! Well into adulthood, he lived with his beloved nanny Pelageya Vassilievna Ivanovna. He abhorred alcohol and was a militant non-smoker; making his friends smoke at the open kitchen window in clear -
Musical Form in Architecture
August Endell (1871-1925) February 15th, 2015Believe it or not, the dictionaries and most prominent reference books of 1878 did not have a word to identify what we now think of as abstract art. The best anybody could do at the time was to compare paintings -
From Front to Back and Back to Front!
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 47 February 14th, 2015Joseph Haydn was famous for his pranks! When he was a choirboy at St. Stephen’s cathedral in Vienna in 1749, he decided to test the sharpness of a new pair of scissors by snipping off the pigtail of one of -
Dancing in Bach’s Chains February 14th, 2015 What happens when you take a synthesized excerpt of the fugue in B-minor from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach and use it to frame a pop song? In the case of Lady Gaga and her -
Meeting Julian Lloyd Webber February 13th, 2015 Music runs in the blood of the Lloyd Webber family; his parents were students of the great Vaughan William at the Royal College of Music, his godfather was the English composer Herbert Howells, and of course, his elder brother Andrew