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Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail K. 384
Premiered Today in 1782
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
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Returning to the studio
The late great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made two significant and highly-acclaimed recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the first in 1955 when he was just 22, the second a quarter of a century later in 1981 when he was nearing
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Khachaturian: Piano Concerto in d-flat major, Op. 38
Premiered Today in 1937
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
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Ditters von Dittersdorf: Doktor und Apotheker (The Pharmacist and the Doctor)
Premiered Today in 1786
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
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Music for the Eyes
Éditions Russes de Musique
The great conductor and champion of contemporary music Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) certainly knew the value of a good marriage. Musically talented, he initially studied double bass and eventually joined the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra in 1894. He toured extensively with the
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Synergy
synergy syn·er·gy (sĭn’ər-jē) n. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. “those three minutes of perfection – when time stands still and the music
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Haydn: Symphony Nr. 92 in G major “Oxford”
Premiered Today in 1791
By the mid-1780s Joseph Haydn was the most famous composer in Europe. Although he had worked in relative obscurity in the service of the Esterházy family for many decades, his reputation had spread far and wide. And when Johann Peter
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J.S. Bach: Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147
Premiered Today in 1723
Say what you want, but Johann Sebastian Bach certainly knew a good tune when he heard one! And he certainly was not shy reusing his own tunes when time was of the essence. Bach took up the position of Thomaskantor,
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