Classical

The William Tell Overture

The William Tell Overture is the overture to the opera William Tell (original French title Guillaume Tell), whose music was composed by Gioachino Rossini. William Tell premiered in 1829 and was the last of Rossini’s 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement (he continued to compose cantatas, sacred musicContinue Reading

Ravel: Bolero

Classical, With Music

Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by the French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937). Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel’s most famous musical composition The work had its genesis in a commission from the dancer IdaContinue Reading

Bizet: Carmen – The Toreador Song

Classical, Song

The Toreador Song is the popular name for the aria “Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre” (“I toast you”), from the opera Carmen, composed by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. It is sung by the bullfighter (French: toréador) Escamillo as he enters inContinue Reading

Debussy Clair de Lune

Classical, Music

Suite bergamasque is a piano suite by Claude Debussy. He began composing it around 1890, at the age of 28, but significantly revised it just before its 1905 publication. The popularity of the 3rd movement, “Clair de lune“, has made it one of the composer’s most famous works for piano. ClaudeContinue Reading

Leonard Bernstein’s Unanswered Questions

Classical, With Documentary

The Unanswered Question is a lecture series given by Leonard Bernstein in the fall of 1973. This series of six lectures was a component of Bernstein’s duties as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry for the 1972/73 academic year at Harvard University, and is therefore often referred to asContinue Reading

The Year 1791 in Music

Classical, With Documentary

1791 was a year of great political change: Louis XVI was beheaded in France; the US Congress adopted the Bill of Rights and the Constitution; and the ideas of Rousseau and the Enlightenment were all pervasive. It was also the year in which Mozart wrote his enigmatic opera ‘The MagicContinue Reading

The School of Notre Dame

Classical, Music, With Music

During the Middle Ages, the Parisian cathedral of Notre Dame was a hotbed of musical innovation. Two of the brightest musical lights of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries worked there: Masters Leonin and Perotin. Leonin’s fame came from his collection of two-voiced organa to be used for bothContinue Reading

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14

Classical, With Music

In December 1830 Ludwig van Beethoven had been dead less than four years and his “Pastoral” Symphony and Leonore Overtures were then the most radical descriptive program music known to the world. In December 1830 a twenty-six-year-old composer named Hector Berlioz was waiting anxiously for the first performance—scheduled at theContinue Reading

Beethoven’s First Symphony

Classical

IN THE LIST OF COMPOSITIONS OFFERED BY BEETHOVEN TO HIS PUBLISHER THE FIRST SYMPHONY FIGURES AT THE PRICE OF £10. In hearing this Symphony, we can never forget that it is the first of that mighty and immortal series which seem destined to remain the greatest monuments of music, asContinue Reading