Being Bela Bartok
There’s a freedom to the music of Bela Bartok, a willingness to cut loose from the moorings of Brahms, Mozart, and even Beethoven, to let...
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Jan 24, 20232 min
The Music of a Gentle Man
Perhaps it was the success of “Carmen.” Overnight, Spanish music was all the rage of Europe, particularly in Paris. Everyone was...
Jan 24, 20232 min
Animals, Orchestras & Abraham Lincoln
Every composer finds himself doing hack work once in a while; it’s called paying the bills. Tchaikovsky was loathe to write “Dance of...
Jan 21, 20232 min
Frank Sinatra and the String Quartet
When Frank Sinatra wanted to listen to music---sit down and really listen--he listened to string quartets. This was a side of Sinatra...
Jan 21, 20232 min
Music to rival the Himalayas
Is Classical Music being written today? Yes. Sort of. What is being composed today--and for most of the 20th Century--are less...
Dec 31, 20223 min
Hallelujah! The Nisley's 2022 Christmas Letter
He was a world-renowned composer living in London, whose career was on the ropes, and who could no longer find work. As a result, he had...
Dec 24, 20223 min
The last Romantic--the symphonies of Gustav Mahler
Orchestral music was in a state of transition when Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) took up his pen and began composing symphonies, the likes of...
Oct 10, 20222 min
As Contemporary as the Cell Phone
Johann Sebastien Bach was fooling around on the great organ in the Leipzig Cathedral when he composed the most hair-raising sounds ever...
Oct 10, 20222 min
The Well-Tempered Mind of J.S. Bach
Thomas Jefferson played violin and was familiar with the music of Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart, but it’s unlikely he ever heard of Johann...
Sep 24, 20222 min
George Frideric Handel - Superstar
George Frederick Handel was German--and a contemporary of Johann Sebastion Bach--who lived most of his adult life in London. Unlike...
Aug 25, 20222 min
World-class Ego
Of all the great composers, none had a bigger ego than Richard Wagner (pronounced Ree-card Vawg-ner). Wagner (1813-1883) was famously...
Aug 22, 20222 min
Master of the small statement
At the age of eight he was playing piano and composing music that your high-school music teacher could only dream of doing. It was only a...
Aug 22, 20222 min
And Tell Tchaikovsky The News
“Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news,” sang Chuck Berry in one of Rock’s classics. It seems Pyotr (that's Peter to you)...
Aug 18, 20221 min
Too Good For This World
Robert Schumann achieved fame in the mid-nineteenth century--after Beethoven, and before Brahms and Wagner were recognized as musical...
Aug 17, 20222 min
The short, unfinished life of Franz Schubert
Not all composers possess gigantic egos. Franz Schubert is a case in point. Shy, quiet, bespectacled, known but to a small cadre of...
Aug 17, 20221 min
Living in Beethoven’s Shadow
Orchestral music had moved from the parlors of the nobility and into the public forums by the time Johannes Brahms made his mark in the...
Aug 17, 20222 min
The luminous genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
If you were in Vienna in, say, 1780, and looking for the world-famous composer Wolfgang Mozart, chances are you’d find him at the local...
Aug 12, 20222 min
Papa Haydn
It was the ultimate gig. A 30-piece orchestra at your beck and call. The run of the palace, and servants to meet your every whim. ...
Aug 9, 20223 min
Beethoven, a man of no small emotion
He’s the one who alienates half the dinner guests at your party, gets roaring drunk, makes a pass at your wife, breaks your $1,000 vase,...
Mar 9, 20223 min
One of the Wonders of Symphonic Music–Beethoven's Third Symphony
Ludvig von Beethoven was a revolutionary. This was never more evident than in 1806, when his Third Symphony premiered in Vienna. What it...
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