In classical music, the Romantic Era lasted from around 1810 to around 1910. That century gave us some of the most famous symphonies in the repertoire. Nineteenth-century composers like Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvořák, Schubert, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and others elevated the symphony
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Intimacy in Strauss
The Cello Sonata May 31st, 2014Yo-yo Ma, cello Emanuel Ax, piano Richard Strauss: Cello Sonata in F Major, Op. 6, TrV 115 Richard Strauss was controversial as a person and as a composer, despite being one of the more prominent composers of the 20th Century. -
The Supernatural in Music
XII. Gothic Visuals: Musical Horror in the Cinema May 31st, 2014Slowly, behind the heroine, the shadow rises….the audience shrinks back in their cinema seats, helped with a hearty push from the music, generally starting in the cellos, which signal the terror that awaits. Then the violins take over, strident in -
Monkeying around the Edges May 30th, 2014 In the fifteenth century, when manuscript book production really took off, the problem of blank space in the margins had some unique solutions. When these were music books, even the initial letters of songs were decorated. -
‘Spirit, Strength and Sorrow’
Stabat Mater May 29th, 2014The image of Jesus on the cross has inspired artists of many kinds for centuries. There are of course many striking paintings of the scene by artists from Veláquez’s Cristo crucificado to Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the -
Embodied Sexuality
Georges Bizet: Carmen May 29th, 2014Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen was first produced at the Vienna Opera on 23 October 1875, with an extremely curious Johannes Brahms in the audience. Brahms had been aware of the scandalous Parisian premiere, summarized by a local critic. “Mr. Bizet -
Pomp and Circumflex May 28th, 2014 We’ve looked at English ceremonial music – now let’s cross La Manche and look at French music of the same kind. A king such as King Louis XIV and centrality of the court at Versailles meant that there was the -
Sails in the Harbor
Sydney Opera House May 27th, 2014The Sydney Opera House is easily one of the most iconic and readily recognized performing arts centers in the world. Of course it’s not really a single venue, but a building complex that houses multiple performance spaces. It plays host -
Richard Strauss and the Rise of Modernity May 25th, 2014 Six years after the dismal failure of his opera Guntram in Munich, Richard Strauss collaborated with the librettist Ernst von Wolzogen on a project he hoped would exact revenge on the bourgeois provincialism of his hometown. Feuersnot (In need of