Know Your Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach was part of an extensive Saxon-Thuringian family that produced an unparalleled and almost incalculable number of musicians. From fiddlers and town musicians to organists, from Kantors, court musicians and Kapellmeisters, member of the Bach family extensively populated the musical landscape from the 16th to the 19th century.
Know Your Composer
The name “Mozart” is almost universally associated with the musical genius of Wolfgang Amadeus. However, Wolfie was not the only Mozart with significant musical talent, just take a quick look at his father. Johann Georg Leopold Mozart (1719-1787) was a controversial figure among his biographers. He was either seen as
Know Your Composer
How a reclusive Frenchman created some of the most radical, beautiful music of the modern era. Claude Debussy died a century ago, but his music has not grown old. Bound only lightly to the past, it floats in time. As it coalesces, bar by bar, it appears to be improvising
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How an African-American composer’s works were saved from destruction. In 2009, Vicki and Darrell Gatwood, of St. Anne, Illinois, were preparing to renovate an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. The structure was in poor condition: vandals had ransacked it, and a fallen tree had torn a hole
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Katharine Rawdon: Sören Sieg, the first time I heard your music I nearly fell off my chair with delight! It made me tap my foot, smile, and want to get up and dance (and I’m no dancer!). So in this interview I would love for you to answer for
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The extraordinary dynasty of dance music composers and musicians named Strauss originated in the Hungarian town of Buda. Around 1750, Grandfather Johann moved to Vienna, and his son Franz Borgias operated a small tavern in the suburb of Leopoldstadt. That pub became the birthplace of Johann Strauss I (1804-1849), and
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Orlando Gibbons (1572-1625) was born in Oxford, son of a town wait—essentially a town musician whose duties included playing his instrument for the townsfolk, welcoming Royal visitors, and leading processions on civic occasions. William Gibbons moved back and forth between Oxford and Cambridge, and young Orlando became a chorister
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The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘reminiscence’ as either ‘a story told about a past event remembered by the narrator’ or ‘a characteristic of one thing that is suggestive of another’. We all love to reminisce: we gain comfort by our efforts to recollect the pleasures of our pasts and to
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According to popular legend, Orlande de Lassus, born in 1530 or 1532 in the Franco-Flemish province of Hainaut, was abducted three times because of the beauty of his voice! Probably pure fabrication, it nevertheless provides a fictional narrative that explains how the 12-year-old boy came to be in the services
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A partly sad, partly bizarre story of how Mozart (1756-91) suffered benign neglect for the better part of the 19th century, and how he was rehabilitated in the 20th century by Hollywood. By Manohar Parnerkar Today it is hard to believe that the 19th-century radical Romantics once denigrated Mozart as
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The composer has long been seen as a symbol of divine order. But his music has an unruly obsession with God. “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” The words of the Psalm look bright on the page, but the music pulls them into
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An American Original Growing patriotic and nationalistic fervor had virtually inundated all aspects of European society by the middle of the nineteenth century. These political stirrings of national identify and pride not only found their way into all forms of artistic expression, they also found their way across the Atlantic.