Off the Beaten Path: A Highly Individual Survey of Maybe Great Music
By centuries of common consensus, the compositions that make up the canon of Western Classical Music number just a couple hundred works, created by a couple dozen composers.
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Discovering a British Sound: the Forgotten Composers of the English Musical “Renaissance”
“The Land Without Music” – that was how English society was described in the late Nineteenth Century. The next fifty years would bring forth a bounty of gifted composers, the establishment of a distinct British style and the masterpieces of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten.
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Intro to Igor: Traditionalist; Iconoclast; Revolutionary
1910 – The Firebird; 1911 – Petrouchka; 1913 – The Rite of Spring; three compositions in four years that upended the world of ballet and set the stage for the ascendancy of modernism.
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European Imports and Musical Plagiarism in the Development of the Russian Piano Concerto
Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto is a singularly important work in the development of the Russian Piano Concerto, but its own genesis is a complex musical story.
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Name That Tune: Melody in Western Music
How many Baroque-era melodies can you sing? How about Classical-era melodies? Not many? What about Tchaikovsky? Richard Rodgers? The Beatles?
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The Life and Legacy of Serge Koussevitzky
As a commissioner and champion of contemporary music, Serge Koussevitzky was one of the most consequential musicians in America during the 20th Century.
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The Amazing Clara Schumann: An Appreciation, and a Revelation
As a young piano prodigy, Clara Wieck was named “Royal and Imperial Austrian Chamber Virtuoso,” Austria’s highest musical honor.
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In the Beginning: A Brief Guide to Music Before 1500
The invention of the printing press in 1450 was arguably one of the most important innovations in musical and human history.
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