Articles

2698 Posts
archive-post-image
On This Day
15 September: Jessye Norman Was Born
The incomparable Jessye Mae Norman was born on 15 September 1945 into the segregated American South. As she wrote in her memoirs, “I am the joy and pride of my maternal grandmother, looking out over a front yard overflowing with
Read more
archive-post-image
1937: The Year of the Ondes Martenot
It was the hot new instrument in town – eventually combining a seemingly traditional keyboard with the modern valve/tube technology developed in the first world war. Maurice Martenot (1898-1980) developed his ‘Ondes Musicales’ (musical waves) instrument in 1928, first as
Read more
archive-post-image
On This Day
14 September: Tōru Takemitsu’s Fantasma Was Premiered
Commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, Fantasma/Cantos for clarinet and orchestra first sounded on 14 September 1991 in Cardiff. In this composition, Takemitsu imagined the orchestra as a
Read more
archive-post-image
Music to Make You Run Away
L. Frank Baum’s The Patchwork Girl of Oz
In his 1913 children’s book, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, L. Frank Baum added a bit of music criticism into his text. His characters disapprove of classical music, ragtime, and ‘popular’ music, and, in fact, you sense a slight disapproval
Read more
archive-post-image
On This Day
13 September: Clara Schumann Was Born
An eminent scholar writes, “Clara Schumann was the creative partner of three men: Friedrich Wieck, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. Her father was her sole teacher, much maligned for the role he later played in the romance between his daughter
Read more
archive-post-image
Famous Music Composers
New York
In 1944, Leonard Bernstein wrote music for the musical On the Town. It tells the story of three sailors on shore leave for their 24 hours of adventures and romance in New York City. The song “New York, New York,”
Read more
archive-post-image
On This Day
12 September: Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 Was Premiered
On 12 September 1910, audiences in Munich were treated to a unique classical music extravaganza. For the premiere of his 8th Symphony, Gustav Mahler had assembled a performing cast that stretched the resources to their limits. It involved 858 singers,
Read more
archive-post-image
What’s Better Than One Violin, Viola, and Cello? TWO! String Sextets II
After Brahms wrote his two brilliant string sextets, Dvořák, Erwin Schulhoff, Schoenberg, Tchaikovsky, Reger, Rimsky-Korsakov, Franck, Korngold, Martinů, and others followed suit. I’d like to feature two Czech composers’ sextets. Antonín Dvořák (1841-1903) the first of 14 children, showed exceptional
Read more