Verdi’s opera Aïda sees two kingdoms at war – Egypt and Ethiopia – while in real life an actual war between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia left sets and costumes stranded in Paris, delaying its premiere in… Read More »Victory, Freedom, and Love: Verdi’s Triumphal March from Aïda
Left: A ‘cabinet card’ of Tchaikovsky in 1888, the year his fifth symphony was composed (source: Thoughts on a Train, by Dick Strawser) Standing alongside Beethoven’s fifth symphony as contemplations of Fate, are Tchaikovsky’s fourth and fifth symphonies. While in… Read More »As Fate Would Have It: Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony
“For some time I have had a descriptive symphony … in my brain. When I have released it, I mean to stagger the musical world.” – Hector Berlioz It is one thing to hear a symphony that tells us a… Read More »From Revelries to Visions: Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique
There are at least two conflicting theories on the context in which Tchaikovsky penned one of his most iconic works: a love for one young Eduard Zak, who later took his own life, or the soprano Désirée Artôt, who ended… Read More »Where Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow: Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet
Handel, G.F., Music for the Royal Fireworks. (1749) “The music was a huge success,” commentated Katie Derham at the 2012 Proms, “but being an English celebration it will come as no surprise to you to learn that the fireworks themselves… Read More »Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks
Chopin: Nocturnes No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1; No. 8 in D flat, Op. 27, No. 2; Nocturne No. 9 in B, Op. 32, No. 1. The term ‘notturno’ was in common parlance in music circles… Read More »Of Dreamlands, Romance, and Fevered Visions
The genesis of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto exhibited a tumultuous relationship between the composer and performer. Tchaikovsky approached his colleague, pianist Nicholas Rubenstein, for comments on its composition, and received unexpectedly harsh criticism that the composer later wrote: “An independent… Read More »Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor
If Gershwin indeed “took jazz off the streets, dressed her up, and took her to the concert hall,” as Quincy Jones said in Fantasia 2000, then Richard Addinsell perhaps contributed in the opposite direction. As Hubert Clifford wrote, “Addinsell is… Read More »Richard Addinsell: Warsaw Concerto
In mid-1838, Felix Mendelssohn wrote to the violinist Ferdinand David, telling him of a violin concerto he intended to compose: “One in E minor runs in my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace.” This work took a… Read More »Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Violin Concerto in E minor
Luis de Milán in the mid 16th century defined the fantasia as an instrumental composition whose design evolves “solely from the fantasy and skill of the author who created it”. A celebrated form, Bach composed some 15 fantasias, and Beethoven… Read More »Benjamin Britten: Phantasy for oboe, violin, viola, and cello