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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The Exceptional Hybrid: Luigi Borgato June 24th, 2014 The history of musical instruments is full of ingenious ideas that for one reason or another did not enter the commercial mainstream. Take for example the pedal piano, a keyboard instrument featuring an additional pedalboard played with the feet. The -
Going down for 15 Years: Henry Cowell June 23rd, 2014 Henry Cowell: Pulse The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation State Prison in San Quentin has numerously featured in fiction, literature, motion pictures, concerts, music videos and more recently, video games. It is the oldest prison in the state of -
The Kronberg Academy June 22nd, 2014 Perhaps the most exclusive of all our institutions interviewed so far, the Kronberg Academy is based in Germany, in the small town of Kronberg in Taunus. The size of the town reflects the size of the student body, devoted solely -
Masterclass in the morning
Menahem Pressler at Wigmore Hall June 21st, 2014As I stand waiting for the doors to open to the auditorium at Wigmore Hall, I take a moment to glance around the entrance. One of the first things I see, among images of Gerald Finley and Julian Bliss, and -
Divine Intervention!
Christoph Willibald Gluck and Maria Anna Bergin June 19th, 2014Christoph Willibald Gluck: Ezio, “Va, ma tremo” He was 36, an internationally acclaimed but impoverished composer of opera. She was 18, daughter of a wealthy merchant and banker, and a member of the circle of ladies in waiting who surrounded -
In touch with Menahem Pressler June 18th, 2014 Very few musicians can boast a career as long or distinguished as that of Menahem Pressler. Born in 1923, he fled Nazi Germany in the 30s, and emigrated to Palestine. By the end of the 40s had already made his -
The Eccentric Knight
Richard Strauss: Don Quixote op. 35 June 17th, 2014Few characters have captured our imagination than Don Quixote, the befuddled knight—a pathetic, aging oddball who dreams of righting the world’s wrongs. The knight is the protagonist of Miguel Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote or ‘The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of -
Alma Schindler June 16th, 2014 Muse, Femme Fatale, Composer Her admirers described Alma Schindler as pathologically cruel, anti-Semitic, exceedingly vain, prone to excessive drinking, and utterly obsessed by a sense of entitlement that the world owed her something in return for her brilliance and beauty.