The Canario (Italian), or Canarie (French), or Canary (English) dance was inspired, as you tell from the name by a dance from the Canarie Islands. It was popular in Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and appeared

Georg Philipp Telemann published his collection Der getreue Music-Meister (The Faithful Music Master) in a set of 25 parts between 1728 and 1729. It was like a musical journal with 70 small vocal and instrumental works mostly by Telemann, and

Between 1875 and the 1840s, if you bought a packet of cigarettes, it came with a cigarette card. This little trading card served two purposes: it stiffened the paper packets of cigarettes so they wouldn’t crush, and it served as

Johannes Brahms would not do well on Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok, that’s for sure. Of course, he is one of the most widely performed and beloved composers of all time. In the historiography of music, he stands alongside Johann Sebastian

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that John Williams is my favourite film composer. With over 100 film scores to his credit, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic

The Branle was a group dance, performed by couples in a line or in a circle. The name of the dance comes from the French verb ‘branler’, meaning to shake, sway, or wobble because of the sideways steps. After the

There are a surprising number of pieces written for toy piano. One of the most famous is John Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano (1948) but the instrument has a much longer history, dating back to the mid-19th century. As pianos

During the first decades of the 19th Century, the city of Vienna must have been a real party town. Conductors, performers and composers from all parts of Europe flocked to the city to take advantage of the rapidly expanding employment