hank Archive

“I’ve been at the piano all week, composing and writing and laughing and crying, all at the same time,” wrote Robert Schumann to his beloved Clara Wieck from Vienna in March 1839. “You will find …

The name “Leonard Bernstein” usually raises an image of Bernstein the conductor, the educator, or the speaker. Keep in mind, however, that as a young lad he began to play the piano quite a long …

Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra was a personal as well as a musical triumph for the composer. During his lifetime Rachmaninov suffered from depression. For three years, between 1897 and 1900, Rachmaninov …

Edvard Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata was composed in 1887, a time when he was on the threshold of his largest fame, a circumstance that may explain his view of the Sonata as representing a wider …

The C-sharp minor Quartet by Beethoven is filled with original features and the amazing sounds that illustrate the private world of Beethoven’s late period. We have only to listen to the opening notes of the …