Reflection on the essence of music can take many forms. From reflection on the nature of particular musical forms, formal interpretations of composition, and the experience of…
So you’re acquainted with Antonin Dvořák’s buoyant, instantly accessible “New World Symphony,” are you? And you loved it? Yay, you are part of an enormous fan club that…
I remember the first time I learned Beethoven’s Farewell to the Piano, a simple, two-part, four-page piece in the first volume of a piano series called The…
Some of the most profound changes ever to befall Western art music happened in the middle of the 18th century, around the time of the death of Johann…
In the summer of 1979, I worked in a small town in southern Ontario where one day I learned the Rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins was playing at…
In January of 2022, my dad and I, one Saturday morning, took a drive. Our main conversation topic had been about getting concert tickets to an artist…
“Music seems to exist in and of itself, like a temple built around your soul.” The story of music in the twentieth century would have been very…
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) is a unique case in the history of music: There are few other instances of a composer being considered a significant creator despite composing…
The Metropolitan Opera’s series of High Definition (HD) broadcasts, transmitting opera performances live into movie theaters around the world, has been a bright spot on the cultural…
Google “Top 10 classical ballets” or something similar, and you’ll find a whole slew of lists that, in truth, really don’t vary a whole lot. Some feature more…
Oh, the many moods and stories Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg conjures in my mind, my heart. There’s the transcendent “Morning Mood” from his Peer Gynt Suite, the haunting yet…
Warning: do not attempt to drive or operate heavy machinery while listening to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade for the first time. Said composition is known to have caused feelings of extreme uplift,…
When thinking or writing about Western classical music, we are so often concerned with touting its brilliance and greatness that we seldom place it in context with…
The violin concerto as a form of music has endured for some 300 years and remains, alongside the piano concerto, the most popular type of concerto played…
Quite unjustly, he stands in the shadow of his young friend, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Though nearly every educated music lover acknowledges him as one of the great…