Although Felix Mendelssohn predated Brahms, his cello music is on the cusp of romanticism, bridging the classical and the romantic periods of music. He wrote two cello sonatas, No. 1 in B-flat Op. 45, and No. 2 in D Major

Roses are gorgeously beautiful flowers, and they are associated with romantic love and beauty. And as far back as I can remember, which isn’t really all that long, the rose has been one of the most recognized symbols of Valentine’s

A week of concertizing, teaching, and community outreach started in Guangzhou six years ago and has expanded to include orchestras from up and down the Pearl River. The Guangzhou Symphony has been joined by the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Shenzhen

It is often said that life inspires art; that to its ultimate goal, art takes inspiration and pays homage to nature and to life. Over the years, it has been an obsession for artists; to imitate life. But what about

The “opera fantastique” The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) by Jacques Offenbach was first played publically, without the third act, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 10 February 1881. The composer did not live to see the premiere, as

In 1885, as Johannes Brahms was writing his Fourth Symphony, Albano Maria Johannes Berg was born on 9 February. The “o” on his first name quickly disappeared, and he was the third of four children of Johanna and Conrad Berg.

One of the great delights of Franz Schubert’s setting of Goethe’s poem Erlkönig is all the voices that appear in the work: in the vocal line, we have the narrator, the father, the child, and the Erl-king. The piano is

Charles Dickens, born on 7 February 1812 on Portsea Island (Portsmouth), Hampshire, is known for creating some of the best-known fictional characters in literature. We all are familiar with Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Little Nell, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Samuel