Composers Archive

The Schumann concerto began life as a Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra in one movement, completed by Schumann in May 1841. Clara Schumann’s importance to the Concerto’s gestation should not be underestimated. Not only did …

The first time I heard this music, I was taken aback at how sad it begins, a textbook example of “sehnsucht,” a German word that means yearning, longing, and/or melancholic desire. But the piece is …

Time passes; and one my favorite singers has not only left the concert stage, but also moved away from the US. Barbara Bonney got her start singing German Lieder, but the power of Bonney’s soprano …

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) composed his 2-act comic opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) in 1791, the year he died. It premiered just three months before Mozart’s death, was quickly embraced by audiences of the …

The symphony #36 by Mozart is a grandly inventive work that Mozart created in an amazing hurry. For the first time, he begins a symphony with a slow introduction, declamatory at the outset, then yielding …