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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Boneless Preludes and Greetings to the Goat
Erik Satie and Suzanne Valadon August 8th, 2014Recently, I came across a composition entitled Three Boneless Preludes for a Dog. With a name like that, it was instantly clear that it could only have come from the pen of Erik Satie. But it was still rather surprising -
Mazeppa: Endless Battles for Ukraine August 6th, 2014 “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire was certainly right on the money about warfare and humanity. And he was also right about the -
Songs from a Century Ago August 5th, 2014 We went to a concert the other day of songs from WWI – popular tunes for a war that started a hundred years ago. What surprised us was how familiar some of the tunes were. Songs such as George M. -
Alexander Grechaninov
Russian Devotion and Spirituality August 4th, 2014Grechaninov’s most enduring and influential musical gift to posterity is surely found in his liturgical music. Breaking entirely new ground, he returned to the old Slavonic traditional chants of the Russian Greek Orthodox Church. Folk-like harmonies and motivic counterpoint provide -
Audition Tips August 3rd, 2014 What’s the scariest monster in the closet for musicians? (I must whisper here) THE AUDITION. Any job interview inspires some trepidation, of course, but THE AUDITION— so brief, so dicey, so seemingly random— brings on tremendous doubt, misgivings and even -
Georges Braque and Erik Satie – A Musical Friendship August 2nd, 2014 Violins, guitars, mandolins, music sheets and references to classical composers are very much part of Braque’s oeuvre, particularly during his analytic and synthetic cubist period, which essentially started in the early part of the 20th century and lasted well into -
Martynas Levickis August 1st, 2014 With already a Decca album under his belt at the age of 22, Martynas Levickis is a concert accordionist ready to take on the world and its assumptions of the accordion. Quickly skyping in between concerts at the world-famous Schleswig-Holstein -
Salzburg Festival
It’s not for “Jedermann”! July 31st, 2014The War to end all Wars—as World War I was colloquially known—put a brutal stop to most cultural events on the European continent. Although some determined aficionados managed to ignore the devastation caused by this all-encompassing conflict, most theaters, opera