Specific cities have inspired a huge amount of classical music over the years. Today, we’re looking at a selection of classical works explicitly connected to major cities, examining how each composer responded to each place. Some pieces reflect civic pride
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12 July: Anton Arensky Was Born July 12th, 2023Anton Arensky was born on 12 July 1861 in Novgorod, on the banks of Lake Ilmen. His father was a physician and played the cello, and his mother was said to have been a good pianist. Young Anton showed great -
Béla Bartók In and Out of Love July 11th, 2023 Béla Bartók (1881-1945) started his musical journey at age 5 with piano lessons at home before he went to the Budapest Academy of Music in his teens. His teacher, István Thomas, had been a student of Liszt and his training -
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11 July: Nicolai Gedda was Born July 11th, 2023Operatic tenors enjoy a special status in the world of music. We all still remember the illustrious Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, and Richard Tauber from the first half of the twentieth century. However, as a critic wrote, “the most versatile -
Famous Quotes from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart July 10th, 2023 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) penned a vast number of letters, starting from about the age of 14 and ranging to the last month of his life. Literally, thousands of these documents have been preserved, thanks to the foresight of his -
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10 July: Henryk Wieniawski Was Born July 10th, 2023The exceptional and brilliant violinist Henryk Wieniawski, born on 10 July 1835 in Lublin, was quickly considered a reincarnation of Nicolò Paganini. In the summer of 1848, a German reviewer writes, “Our third guest, violinist Wieniawski, is a 12-year-old boy -
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9 July: Denisov’s Clarinet Concerto Was Premiered July 9th, 2023The clarinet concerto by Edison Denisov (1929-1996), premiered on 9 July 1989, finds the European-oriented composer firmly rooted in Russian-Siberian soil, “developing a certain partiality to the tonal qualities of the clarinet.” In fact, the clarinet had previously featured in -
Five of the Best Yuja Wang Performances July 9th, 2023 Yuja Wang is indisputably one of the world’s best pianists. Her musicianship pairs an ironclad technique with a searing passion. Her fashion sense is famous, too. Nobody on the concert platform today rocks stiletto heels like Yuja Wang! We checked -
Dvořák’s American Suite July 9th, 2023 Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) spent three years in America and gave us some great works written during that time that were highly influential. His use of native American and black song sources opened the eyes of many American composers to the