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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Goltermann’s Cello Concerto No. 1 June 15th, 2023In the 19th century, a time of the travelling virtuoso, to find a virtuoso who wanted to stay home and have a solid playing position was rare, but that was the case with cello virtuoso Georg Goltermann (1824–1898). Goltermann was -
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15 June: Julia Fischer Was Born June 15th, 2023The German classical pianist and violinist Julia Fischer was born on 15 June 1983 in Munich. Her parents Viera Krenková and Frank-Michael Fischer, a mathematician from East Germany, met as students in Prague. Julia started playing the violin around the -
Musicians and Artists: Pearson and Renoir June 13th, 2023 B.R. Pearson’s Dance at Bougival Inspired by Renoir In his 1883 painting, Dance at Bougival, French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) created a near–life-size portrait of two dancers in the milieu of an open-air café. His painting has captured the couple -
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13 June: Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes Was Premiered June 13th, 2023Giuseppe Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes premiered at the Paris Opéra on 13 June 1855. It was well received, and even the notoriously difficult Hector Berlioz found much to admire, praising “the penetrating intensity of the melodic expressiveness, the sumptuous, wise -
Teresa Carreño: Thirteen Facts About the Great Pianist and Composer June 12th, 2023 Teresa Carreño was one of the most famous pianists of her generation. She traveled the world from Europe to America to Africa to Australia and lived a life full of accomplishment and adventure. Franz Liszt: Annees de pelerinage, 2nd year, -
Gershwin’s Forgotten Rhapsody June 11th, 2023 We all know George Gershwin (1898–1937) and his Rhapsody in Blue, his 1924 composition that, beginning with an extended clarinet glissando, firmly issued jazz into the world of classical music. The work was commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman and received -
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11 June: Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Was Premiered June 11th, 2023When a marital disagreement between the king and queen of fairies spills into the human realm, it creates a tangle of misdirected spells and misplaced love affairs. With the fairies spreading accidental chaos far and wide, nothing is what it -
The Shocking Stories of Three Missing Stradivarius June 11th, 2023 Everyone knows that the most famous violins in the world were built by Antonio Stradivari. He was a violin maker from Cremona, Italy, who lived from 1644 to 1737. However, you may not know that although Stradivari’s workshop produced over