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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Let’s Not Be Brave
Margaret Brouwer’s I Cry—Summer 2020 June 6th, 2023The COVID lockdown of 2020–2022 affected composers and performers in many different ways. Some reported that, at least for the first few months, all of their activity stopped while the world reassessed itself. Many people found that their future lives -
On This Day
5 June: Carl Maria von Weber Died June 5th, 2023A veritable mania for Carl Maria von Weber’s (1786-1826) opera Der Freischütz swept London in 1824. Despite suffering from the advanced effects of tuberculosis, Weber accepted an offer from the impresario Charles Kemble to conduct the opera season and compose -
What is a Group of Classical Musicians Called? June 5th, 2023 A group of classical musicians performing together is called an ensemble. Some ensembles consist entirely of instrumentalists, while others consist of singers. Of course, there are also ensembles where instrumentalists and singers perform together. A variety of ensembles appear in -
Greek Gods in Music June 4th, 2023 We were looking at the Greek gods and thought we’d see how they’d fared in music. Some of them were subjects of whole operas or ballets, others were just characters who moved the action forward. All of them, however, have -
Les Femmes “Compositeurs”
Piano Music by French Romantic Women Composers June 4th, 2023In the exciting cultural institution we know as the “Parisian salon,” Salonnières organized gatherings in their homes that brought together writers, artists, philosophers, musicians, and other patrons. “It stimulated socializing between the sexes and brought nobles and bourgeois together, eventually -
On This Day
4 June: Yevgeny Mravinsky Was Born June 4th, 2023The city of St. Petersburg was founded in 1703, and it quickly developed into “the most opulent, precocious, and enlightened metropolis in the Russian empire.” The Academy of Sciences was founded in 1717, and Mikhail Glinka produced the first nationalist -
Samuil Feinberg the Composer
“Any work of art leaves us an impression of uniqueness and rarity” June 3rd, 2023For a number of commentators, the pianist Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) was considered a bridge, the most important link, “between the two distinct factions of the celebrated Russian school of pianism, which pitted Scriabin’s mystical, sexual, opiate music against Prokofiev’s dynamism -
On This Day
3 June: Georges Bizet Died June 3rd, 2023Vicious reviews have been known to severely damage careers and artistic prospects. In the case of George Bizet (1838-1875), it has been suggested that the horrendous initial reception of Carmen had somehow contributed to the composer’s death. The opera premiered