For a number of commentators, the pianist Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) was considered a bridge, the most important link, “between the two distinct factions of the celebrated Russian school of pianism, which pitted Scriabin’s mystical, sexual, opiate music against Prokofiev’s dynamism

Vicious reviews have been known to severely damage careers and artistic prospects. In the case of George Bizet (1838-1875), it has been suggested that the horrendous initial reception of Carmen had somehow contributed to the composer’s death. The opera premiered

Music lovers have always been fascinated by a good composer’s death story. Beethoven supposedly raised his arm in defiance of a thunderstorm while on his deathbed. An entire mythology arose surrounding Mozart’s final illness (“was he poisoned?”). Bach’s Art of

John Cage was given a book of the I Ching (Book of Changes), a classic Chinese text that uses a hexagram symbol, to create order out of seemingly random occurrences. One of the first works that he used the I

We are very fortunate, indeed, that Mikhail Glinka, born on 1 June 1804, left us a detailed account of his life and works in his Memoirs. Began in June 1854, Glinka was not recording his life story, because he strongly

Life for Tchaikovsky in the late 1870s was fraught: his short-lived marriage was disintegrating, his suicide attempt was unsuccessful, and his doctor looked at his nearly mad patient and ordered him off to the countryside for a complete rest. Financial

Political stirrings of national identity and pride ignited a great awakening across Europe in 1848. Urging an end to Habsburg absolutist rule, the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) openly participated in this revolution. Barely escaping arrest, and unable to establish

Isaac Albéniz was born on 29 May 1860 in Camprodón, a small town in the province of Girona, Spain. The town lays picturesquely nestled in the Pyrenees, at the confluence of the rivers Ter and Ritort. Located just a couple