“Be yourself, because everyone else is taken” “The glory of Édouard Lalo (1823-1892),” wrote a scholar in 1925, “was that he cast a shaft of sunlight into French music, expressing joy, life, and chaste tenderness free of sentimentality, and burning

“I dared much, but the next time, I will dare even more” Born in the city of Liège on 10 December 1822, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, César Franck (1822-1890) composed in a rich and luxurious

“Music is the most romantic of all the arts for its sole subject is the infinite” Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822), better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann, was possibly the most original and influential fiction writer

“The Pressure Which Liszt Has Put On My Personality Is Insufferable” In his lifetime the composer and teacher Joachim Raff (1822-1882) was greatly celebrated and admired. His music was valued, with some reservations, by Mendelssohn, Liszt, von Bülow, and Clara

“I am an eclectic spirit” Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was one of the leaders of the French musical renaissance during the later part of the 19th century. He was a scholar of music history and tolerant of a wide range of

“The Swan of Catania” Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) rose from humble beginnings in Sicily to take the operatic stages in Italy, London and Paris by storm. Closely connected to the Italian “bel canto” singing style practiced by the most illustrious performers

“It is to God that I must give account” 125 years ago, on 11 October 1896, Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) died from acute heart disease brought on by persistent alcoholism. His funeral took place in the Karlskirche in Vienna on 14

“No life without art, no art without life” Theodor Leschetizky (1830–1915) is one of the most illustrious and supremely towering figures in the history of the piano. In fact, his student Annette Hullah suggested that Leschetizky “was the best piano