As happened with many composers in the 19th century, just as they set off to be composers, their fathers intercede and off they went to commercial college, or law school, or medical school. Such was the case of Emmanuel Chabrier

Lord Byron’s narrative poem from 1819, Mazeppa, was one of the great influential pieces of Romantic writing. Plays, musical pieces, operas, novels, even circus performances were based on the work. The poem tells the legend of Ivan Mazepa (1639-1709). Mazepa

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) didn’t come from money and spent the summers of his youth playing the piano to entertain guests at summer inns outside Hamburg. He was promoted by Schumann in his role as editor of the Neue Zeitschreift für

When fathers have plans and their daughters have other plans, it made for any number of comic operas and Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage is one of them. Geronimo has two daughters, Elisetta and her younger sister Carolina. He wants a

In the Baroque era, the Concerto grosso, the big concerto, was the workhorse genre. Unlike a regular concerto where one soloist contrasted with the orchestra, in a concerto grosso a small group of soloists, known as the concertino alternates with

Schubert’s final symphony, his ninth, was called the Great C major to distinguish it from his earlier Symphony No. 6 in C major (called the Little C major). Now, the word Great refers to the work’s majesty. It is the

The Mazurka in the hands of Chopin changed from being a Polish country dance to being found in the drawing rooms and parlours of the most distinguished homes in the Romantic period. Its origin is in the mazur, a folk

Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, nicknamed, though not by him, Tragic, was actually written at a happy time for Mahler. He completed it in 1903 after having married the 21-year-old Alma Schindler in 1902, and while he was composing the work, his