Know Your Composer
In his later years, the cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, recalled a conversation that he had with Nina Vasilyevna, the wife of Dmitri Shostakovich. Rostropovich wondered what he could do to encourage Shostakovich to write a concerto for the cello. “Slava,” she answered, “if you want Dmitri Dmitriyevich to write something for
Know Your Composer
In 1880, immediately following the completion of his First Piano Quartet, Gabriel Fauré began work on a sonata for cello and piano. Often, when composing a new chamber work, Fauré began with the slow movement. Ultimately, the sonata failed to materialize, but the intended slow movement was published as a
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Franz Schubert and his close-knit circle of artist and friends frequently gathered at the large apartment of Ignaz von Sonnleithner to hold their Schubertiades. These meeting had distinct intellectual, erotic and often political undercurrents. In the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Austrian police was highly suspicious
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Before television, internet, movies, and rock and roll, there was the secular cantata. During the late Baroque period in Italy, these dramatic vocal works were popular entertainment in wealthy, aristocratic circles. Made up of a brief sequence of recitatives and arias, the secular cantata amounted to a kind of highly
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My son’s piano lessons with Prof. Margarida Miranda are an education of sorts for me too. I get a chance to study piano scores more closely and better understand the inner workings of a composition. Lately he’s learning the Waltz in D-flat major, Op. 64, No. 1 by
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It is not entirely clear when Franz Schubert met Franz von Schober (1796–1882). But from the very beginning, the two men had a special relationship. Gifted, charismatic and undisciplined, Schober was tall, smooth, good-looking and a gifted orator. Basically, everything Schubert was not. Eduard von Bauernfeld once quipped, “Schober
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Franz Schubert lived the quintessential life of an urban bachelor. He rejected the restraints and dependence of family life and found sustenance and camaraderie in a close, but ever-changing circle of friends. Perpetually short of money, he lived with various roommates, hung out in pubs and drank heavily. Schubert flirted
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The Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147, was Dmitri Shostakovich’s final work. The score was completed on July 5, 1975, a day before the composer entered the hospital where, just over a month later, he would succumb to the effects of terminal heart disease and lung cancer. Shostakovich
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Too often, it’s only when a legend has passed away that one takes stock of their vast contribution in their field. We may not know much trivia about American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist Burt Bacharach, but all of us will know and love at least one of
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Gabriel Fauré’s Cello Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 109 inhabits a world of elegance and dreamy nostalgia. It is music characterized by soft edges, buoyant motion, and an effortless sense of melody. Composed in the summer of 1917, this is one of two cello sonatas Fauré completed
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Beethoven was a newcomer to Vienna when, in 1795, he completed the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major. It is bold music which was designed to showcase the young composer’s skills as one of the preeminent virtuoso pianists of the time. Although the C major Concerto was the
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Maria Theresia Paradis (1759-1824) was the daughter of the Imperial Secretary of Commerce and Court Councilor to Empress Maria Theresa. She lost her eyesight at the age of 4, and although she initially responded to treatment, she relapsed into her previous blind state. Although she lost her eyesight early on,