When Claude Debussy was working on his opera, Pelleas et Melisande, he wrote “Berlioz was never, properly speaking, a musician of the theater.” Debussy’s comment mirrored the thoughts of contemporary critics and scholars who suggested that Berlioz was more successful

At 12:55 am on 5 December 1791, the singular and unique Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart took his last breath. He had fallen ill in Prague in September 1791, but continued his professional activities, including conducting the premiere of The Magic Flute

On 30 November 1877, the German cellist and professor at the Moscow Conservatory Wilhelm Fitzenhagen performed the premier of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme under the baton of Nikolay Rubinstein. Nadezhda von Meck wrote to Tchaikovsky, “today is the

Gaetano Donizetti was born into abject poverty in the town of Bergamo on 29 November 1797. He was the fifth child of Andrea Donizetti, a custodian at a local pawnshop, and Domenica Nava-Donizetti. His older brother Giuseppe served as a

Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto—nicknamed “Emperor” after Beethoven’s death and referring to the work’s majestic character rather than a specific political figure—was conceived during troubled times. Napoleon’s forces had invaded Vienna in 1809, and the subsequent French occupation brought physical and

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” This most widely quoted statement originating with Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche first appeared in the 1882 publication Die fröhliche Wisssenschaft

Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu was born on 23 November 1876 in Cádiz, a city and port in the autonomous community of Andalusia. His father José María Falla came from a family of merchants from Valencia, a

On Friday 23 November 1900, The Times published the following obituary. “The death of Sir Arthur Sullivan, which we announce this morning with great regret, not only deprives England of the man who for many years has been her most