In 1917, Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso made an excursion to Naples, with the composer commenting on its “half Spanish character, on the pleasure he found in the aquarium, and in the Neapolitan watercolors.” They also attended a commedia dell’arte

When famed conductor Otto Klemperer was roughly nine years of age, he encountered “the man who was to be the central inspiration of his entire life as a musician.” He remembers “seeing Mahler on the street when I was quite

Gabriel Fauré was born on 12 May 1845 in the small town of Pamiers, in the department of Ariège, in the south of France. He was the youngest of six children born to Toussaint-Honoré Fauré (1810–85) and Marie-Antoinette-Hélène Lalène-Laprade (1809–87),

The English press has affectionately dubbed Emmanuelle Haïm “The Ms Dynamite of the French Baroque.” Born on 11 May 1962 in Paris, she grew up in a highly musical household. Her father’s family hailed from Istanbul, and all of them

On 9 May 1868, Anton Bruckner stepped onto the podium in the Austrian town of Linz. He stood in front of an orchestra consisting of members of the Linz theatre, regimental bands, and some local amateur musicians, and the premiere

Winning the XVIII International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021 propelled Chinese-Canadian pianist Bruce Liu “from near obscurity to rock-star status in the classical music world.” Born Xiaoyu Liu in Paris on 8 May 1997, his path to stardom has been

The name Johannes Brahms, born on 7 May 1833 in Hamburg, is generally known around the world. And while some of his melodies and compositions have gained international and popular currency, the psychological depths of his character have remained a

For a good many opera lovers around the world, Puccini’s passionate, timeless, and indelible story of love among young artists in Paris is the world’s most popular opera. Indeed, La Bohème “is the definitive depiction of the joys and sorrows