Uncategorized Archive

“Gretchen am Spinnrade” (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) is one of Schubert’s most famous lieder (songs). The accompaniment mimics the whirr of the spinning wheel with constant sixteenth notes played in the right hand while …

Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine musician, a virtuoso on the bandoneón (a square-built button accordion), who left traditional Latin American tango bands in 1955 to create a new tango that blended elements of jazz and …

Debussy’s Petite Suite was published in its original piano four-hands version in 1889, and transcriptions for solo piano and for violin and piano appeared in 1906. What catapulted it to true popularity, however, was its …

The Cello Concerto was Edward Elgar’s last major work for orchestra, and his most amazing, really! In spite of fleeting moments of idyllic release, it’s dominated by a sense of suffering that at times cries …

“Music is a language.” I instinctively speak it without understanding its inner workings. But the deceptively simple question of “why something sounds good” has always stumped me. Answering it led me to discover a lost …