For well over 20 years, Johannes Brahms (1833-1896) seriously considered writing an opera. In 1869, encouraged by the conductor Hermann Levi and the engraver Julius Allgeyer, Brahms initially contemplated, more or less seriously, operatic settings of Méhul’s Uthal, the heroic

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was already considered the greatest living composer when the impresario Johann Peter Salomon invited him to compose and conduct first six, and later six more symphonies for the cosmopolitan audiences in London. The British press hailed him

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her best-selling works explored black identity in America, and in particular the often-crushing experiences of black women. She authored 11 novels, children’s books, and a

It sits there in the corner of the living room, dark, foreboding, and challenging all to make it show its true potential. The key home instrument for the rising middle class was the piano. The mark of gentility was knowing

Once Giuseppe Tartini returned to Padua from his two-year stay in Prague, he quickly set up his famous violin school “La scuola delle nazioni” in 1728. By that time he already had an international reputation, which brought students from all

Enrico Caruso, born on 25 February 1873 in Naples, was considered the greatest tenor of the century. For one, that assessment is based on the exceptional appeal of his voice, “fusing the full burnished timbre of a baritone with a

Reynaldo Hahn: Si mes vers avaient des ailes (Dilbèr, soprano; Ilkka Paananen, piano) Si mes vers avaient des ailesVictor Hugo If my verses had wingsEnglish Translation © Richard Stokes from A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000) Mes vers fuiraient, doux

Musicians, like so many others, enjoy jokes, especially those that are puns related to music, composers, and musicians. Backstage, even onstage during rehearsals, these anecdotes, puns, and gags fly. Perhaps it’s because we spend so much time in a practice