When Arturo Toscanini raised his arms at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 25 April 1926, he was getting ready for the premier of an unfinished opera. Turandot, the operatic adaptation of an originally 12th-century Persian epic filtered through

The Swedish diplomat Fredrick Silverstolpe wrote in May 1800, “Haydn is writing with new zeal since he has had the good fortune to lose his nasty wife.” By most accounts, Frau Haydn was not a particularly pleasant woman, and her

Czech music critics mercilessly criticized Antonin Dvořák for his supposed cosmopolitan musical tendencies. And as a result, he was performed and published less in Bohemia than in foreign lands. In stark contrast, Dvořák gained a particularly loyal following in England,

Here is the trivia question for today. Can you name the Puccini opera that the composer himself desperately wanted to forget? The answer is Edgar, and despite revising it repeatedly, Puccini eventually declared the work irredeemable. Edgar was Puccini’s second

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) loved children. Although he was not married and did not have children of his own, he always seemed to spend more time with children than with adults. In fact, he never outgrew his ability to see the

When Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto premiered at the Palau de la Música Catalana, in Barcelona on 19 April 1936, the composer was no longer alive. Shortly after he had finished the composition he was stung by an insect at the

I don’t know if you agree, but The Exorcist (1973) and The Shining (1980) are two of the most iconic horror movies ever to flicker across the silver screen. These are all about scary imagery, ranging from a twisting and

There was great confusion at the premiere of Handel’s “Serse” at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket on 15 April 1738! I know you are asking yourself why that might have been the case? After all, Handel was setting the London stages