By the death of Jules Massenet on 13 August, writes a correspondence for the Musical Times “France loses her most popular and most famous composer.” Contemporary critical assessment was rather less complimentary. “Massenet’s prolonged and widespread success,” according to Fuller

One of the most influential composers in the second half of the twentieth century, John Cage (1912-1992) was a leading figure of the post-war avant-garde. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, he

The prodigiously gifted Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay tragically died at the age of 48. A student of Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leó Weiner, Fricsay was “one of the few artists in classical music that were seemingly

Itamar Golan, born on 3 August 1970 in Vilnius, Lithuania emigrated with his family to Israel when he was only one year old. He began his piano studies with Lara Vodovoz and gave his first concerts in Tel-Aviv at the

One of the most important architects of the current revaluation of historical music, Jordi Savall has dedicated his spectacular creative vitality to themes of cultural exchange and communication transcending borders. A concert performer, teacher, researcher, and creator of new musical

Antonio Vivaldi’s operatic opportunities in Venice were rapidly drying up in 1739. As the famous letter from Charles de Brosse relates, “Vivaldi is an old man with a mania for composing. I have heard him boast of composing a concerto

Pianist Angela Hewitt is probably best known for her cycle of Bach recordings, a project started in 1994 and finished in 2005. To complete her mission, she added a recording of Bach’s The Art of the Fugue in 2014. Angela

Premiered on 24 July 1938 at the National Theatre Munich, Friedenstag (Day of Peace) is arguably the least known of Strauss’ opera and in many respects the least characteristic. In fact, this serious, rather earnest treatment of war is certainly