Know Your Composer
Nobody composed variations like Austrian composer Franz Schubert! An undisputed master of the genre, his variations on his own melodies became a fascinating combination of formal innovation and musical poetics. Peeling away layer upon layer of significance and meaning, Schubert bathes his melodies in unexpected and radiant colors. In 1824
Know Your Composer
Haunting or bewitching are words that come to mind to the hundreds of thousands of those who have experienced Samuel Barber’s 1936 Adagio for Strings. Or the countless millions whose lives have been unwittingly changed by eight minutes of music of which they could not name composer or title.
Know Your Composer
In all, the remarkable collection of Schubert’s Lieder transcriptions by Franz Liszt totalled 58 songs. Liszt first handed twelve of these piano transcriptions to a Viennese publisher in 1838 and his concluding efforts emerged 10 years later in 1848. It is indeed interesting that Liszt spent an entire decade
Know Your Composer
In the good old pre-pandemic days (remember them?), we at Child’s Play would have been resting during the festive season after all the hard work put into our annual Christmas concert earlier in the month of December. One of those concerts featured an arrangement for strings of ‘Silvesterlied’ or
Know Your Composer
One day in 1979, the chief music critic at the San Francisco Examiner, Michael Walsh, who had the desk next to mine, sidled over and handed me the album of a new musical, Sweeney Todd. ‘It’s actually an opera’, he whispered conspiratorially, ‘but don’t tell anyone’. When I
Know Your Composer
Greatness will invariably recognise greatness! And Franz Liszt’s efforts and commitment on behalf of forgotten masterpieces set a powerful trend in the 19th century. As such it is hardly surprising that Franz Schubert occupied a central place in Liszt’s transcriptions and paraphrases. Schubert published his first major piano
Know Your Composer
Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986), a virtuoso pianist, prolific composer and conductor of Polish origin was one of the few mainstream orchestral composers who wrote for the guitar. His association and admiration for the musical personality of Andres Segovia resulted in a long term fruitful collaboration and friendship with Segovia. It has
Know Your Composer
In my humble opinion, the richness and subtlety of Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) melodic and harmonic language is unequaled in the world of classical music. For one reason or another, we are led to believe that Schubert’s music was not popular during his lifetime. Nothing could be further from
Know Your Composer
Robert Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood (Kinderszenen), Op. 15 is one of those rare piano works that is both a staple of the standard teaching library and frequently performed by concert artists. Nearly 200 years after its publication, perennial favorites such as Of Foreign Lands and People (Von fremden Ländern
Know Your Composer
Police officals in Naples were presented with a rather gruesome scenario on 16 October 1590. The palace apartment near the Piazza San Domenico Maggiore was the scene of a horrific double murder. They found the body of Don Fabrizio Carafa, whom contemporaries described as a “model of beauty,” and one
Know Your Composer
The life of Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682) was characterised by turbulence, adventure and amorous escapades. In fact, in 1677 an attempt was made to murder him for reasons unknown, although it was believed to be at the instigation of a Venetian senator with whose fiancée Stradella had eloped. That attempt on
Know Your Composer
When I was a young man, just out of my initial degree in the US and suddenly accepted as student at the prestigious Paris Conservatory, I found myself confronted with the cultural enigma that was the French system of Solfeggio. As a player of a transposing instrument, I definitely did
