In 1878, while in Switzerland, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote the first part of his op. 42 cycle for violin and piano, Souvenir d’un lieu cher (Memory of a dear place). The three movements, Méditation, Scherzo, and Mélodie were published

Should we consider Mozart to be the most positive of composers? In all of his dozens of symphonies, they were all in a major key, with two exceptions and those were both in the same minor key. Mozart’s Symphony No.

We tend to think of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos as a unified collection, but, in fact, they’re rather a strange grouping of works that only have the idea of ‘concerto’ as their unifying feature. Bach prepared the six concertos during 1720,

At the heart of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy is a song he wrote in 1816 based on a text by Georg Philipp Schmidt von Lübeck (1766 – 1849). In the song, the wander seeks happiness, but cannot find it anywhere –

In 1839, Franz Liszt (1811-1886) returned to Hungary, which he had left in 1822 at age 11. In the new nationalism that was sweeping Europe, he was hailed as a true Hungarian champion. As part of his musical explorations of

The Argentine tango scene in the early 20th century was not quite the scene we know from the later tangos of Piazzolla. In this 1912/1916 tango by Argentine composer Eduardo Arolas (1892-1924), we have a more normalized work. Arolas made

Reputed to be the hardest work for piano, Balakirev’s 1869 work Islamey saved many a pianist’s weary wrists when it was orchestrated in 1907 by Alfredo Casella. Its reputation ensured that both Rubinstein and Liszt had the piano work in

In Alexander Borodin’s opera Prince Igor, left unfinished at the composer’s death, we have modern Russia of the 12th century fighting pre-modern Russia. Prince Igor and his army are going to war against the Polovtsy who have attacked Russian lands.