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I’ve been forcing myself to listen to 20th-century classical music composers. My parents mostly listened to music of the Classical era (1750-1820 – Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven) and of the Romantic era (1820-1910 – think ..
Today I want to share with you Piano Concerto in G minor by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904), a Czech composer. This is the only piano concerto Dvorak composed. According to Dvorak, in this concerto he was unable to create ..
Today I want to share with you aria from Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Bizet was a French composer, most famous for his opera Carmen. Every artist should really focus on pleasing himself with his work; the public ..
Last time I talked about Shostakovich I said, “His music tells stories. We just don’t know what those stories are. Each of his symphonies could have been turned into a Fantasia type of movie.” Well, my lovely wife ..
I was doing my usual thing: reading and listening to Spotify playing random classical music in the background. Suddenly my attention was captured by a soft, light, bright, incredibly romantic piano, accompanied by the gentle ..
Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was not a child prodigy; at age 12 he was a latecomer to music (by that age Mozart had already completed his first performance tour). His father discouraged him from studying piano, so he did not. ..
I have to admit that a love for Bach’s music is fairly new to me. I felt Baroque music lacked emotion and was somewhat boring. Then one day I was perusing YouTube and stumbled on a video of Glenn Gould playing Bach’s ..
Today I am going to share with you etudes by Frederic Chopin. But I cannot talk about Chopin and not mention Schubert and Liszt. This discussion is a follow-up to previous articles I wrote about two Franzes – Franz Schubert ..
My family is an avid user of Spotify – every family member with the exception of 3-year-old Mia has an account. Every time we get in my car, Mia says, “Dad, can you play ‘Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round’?” ..
Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2. If I had to use one phrase to describe this wonderful masterpiece, I’d say it is a “concert of contrast.” Everything in this concerto has an opposite. If part of it sounds soft ..