The “Grande Symphonie funèbre et triomphale,” to use its full title, was Hector Berlioz’s fourth and last symphony. Commissioned by the Minister of the Interior for the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the three-day revolution of July 1830, the

Hoping to gain financial independence, Richard Wagner was eager to establish an annual music festival that would realize his particular vision of music and theatre. Initially he contemplated Munich, but his extravagant and scandalous behavior in that city caused him

24 July 1983 marked the 200th birthday of Simón Bolívar, known around South America as “El Libertador.” The Venezuelan military and political leader played a significant role in the establishment of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama as sovereign

On 22 July 1864 Clara Schumann and conductor Hermann Levi played through a piano sonata for two pianos by Johannes Brahms. Clara was overwhelmed by the music’s grandeur, and wrote to the composer. “The work is splendid, but it cannot

In the wide world of music, it is not always easy to determine what actually constitutes the premier performance. The process of introducing works to a wider audience is by definition a complicated one, and rather frequently a composition disappears

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 16 July 1782. The Austrian Emperor Joseph II was in the audience and famously said, “Too many notes my dear

Aram Khachaturian might easily be considered the poster child of Soviet realism in music. Joseph Stalin decreed that a composer in Soviet society had to be “an engineer of the human soul by writing music that communicates directly with the

Premiered at the Vienna Burgtheater on 11 July 1786, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf’s comic opera Doktor und Apotheker (The Pharmacist and the Doctor) was a resounding success. The contemporary press declared it “the one work among all new German operas