hank Archive

David Oistrakh was born in Odessa, in the Ukraine, on Oct. 30, 1908. His father was a bookkeeper who was an amateur fiddler, and his mother sang in the chorus of the Odessa Opera. Not …

I read somewhere that the key of A-Flat was the key of consolation. And from the collection of 32 sonatas by Beethoven, the composer’s #31 is a wonderful example of that statement. The first movement …

For me, Music is about emotion: When the music is sensed by my ears, do I feel sad? Do I feel excited? Do I feel like getting up and dancing? Mozart was, of course, a …

Robert Schumann instructed the performers of his violin Sonata to do so with “Leidenschaftlichem Austdruck” (German for Passionate Expression). And right from the start, I connect with this requirement for expressiveness. After all, the composer …

The opening movement of the Beethoven quartet Op. 59 No. 2 announces its compositional ambition with a symphonic call to attention and a charged silence, before launching into a dense and nervous exposition of remarkably …