In 1936, George Gershwin told a friend, “I am thirty-eight, famous, and rich, but profoundly unhappy. Why?” Gershwin had been experiencing severe headaches, but many of his friends simply attributed his unhappiness to his working conditions in Hollywood, “or to

Described as “the hottest tenor in the world,” Jonas Kaufmann is constantly trying to live down the “greatest living tenor hype.” While the tabloid press focuses on his physical attributes and his earlier supposed liaison with Madonna, Kaufmann has a

After having made his name in jazz, clarinetist Benny Goodman set out to make his name in classical music, feeling that he was likely to leave a longer impression in classical music than in jazz. To fill that need, he

Born on 9 July in Bologna, Ottorino Respighi’s paternal ancestry originated from Cortemaggiore, a small country town near Piacenza in northern Italy. His grandfather Tommaso was a capable violinist and the founder of the local orchestra. He also worked as

The Bernadotte dynasty in Sweden was founded in 1818 when the French field marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte ascended the throne as Charles XIV John (Karl XIV Johan) of Sweden. How a French military leader rose to be head of Sweden

The birth of Gustav Mahler, the second of fourteen children born to Bernhard Mahler and Marie Mahler née Herrmann, was announced on 7 July 1860 in Kalischt, a small settlement on the border of Moravia. His parents were members of

Vladimir Ashkenazy was born on 6 July 1937 in Gorky, presently called Nizhniy Novgorod, a city on the river Volga about 250 miles east of Moscow. The family name Ashkenazy is inextricably connected with Jewish history, in particular with “that

Wanda Aleksandra Landowska, born to Jewish parents in Warsaw on 5 July 1879, played a seminal role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century. A champion of 17th and 18th-century music and the leading figure