Sergey Rachmaninoff wrote Vocalise in 1912 for soprano and piano. The soprano part has no words, just a single vowel continuously sung throughout this short, six-minute piece. This masterpiece has been transcribed into different ..
Recently a reader shared a piano concerto performed by then-eleven-year-old Alma Deutscher from Britain. I was glad to see this young virtuoso, but with shows like America’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got Talent, child ..
Today I would like to share with you Romance for Viola and Orchestra, by German composer Max Bruch (1838-1920). The viola is the violin’s more petite and sadder cousin. My niece Irene studied the violin ..
Someone recently asked whether I think of myself as Russian, or American. My initial response (without thinking) was – American. But as I gave this question more thought I realized that the answer is more complex. First ..
Today I would like to share with you two overtures, one from the opera The Marriage of Figaro, composed in 1786 by Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the other from the opera The Barber of Seville, composed thirty ..
Not until I started to include musical notes with my emails and started to write and think about it did I realize what an important role music plays in my life. Sometimes certain musical pieces almost serve as a bookmark ..
Today I’d like to share with you a very short excerpt from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice, by German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), arranged by Italian composer Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914). This is the most ..
Today I would like to share with you Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Beethoven wrote this concerto in 1803, under the spell of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. Beethoven paid tribute to Mozart’s ..
Today I’d like to share with you Piano Concerto No. 1 by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). Brahms was born six years after Beethoven’s death and, just like the rest of the European musical establishment, has lived in Beethoven’s ..