Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream
The stories, legends, and myths about the trials and travails of composers lives are legion, like Beethoven's battles against fate, Mozart and Schubert's struggles with finances, Brahms' failures with...
17 Aug 202352min
Elgar Cello Concerto
Elgar's Cello Concerto was composed in the shadow of World War 1. It was a piece that marked a profound shift in Elgar's outlook on life and music, and was his last major work before a long silence ca...
10 Aug 202352min
Romeo and Juliet in Classical Music
The "love theme" from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture is one of the most famous themes in the history of Western Classical Music. The story it accompanies might be the most famous Wes...
3 Aug 202349min
Mozart Symphony No. 38, "Prague"
Very few cities have had a relationship with a single person, especially a foreigner, like the city of Prague and its love affair with Mozart. Here's what Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's librettist for som...
27 Jul 202353min
Jean-Louis Duport Cello Concerto No. 4
Thank you to Nicole for sponsoring today's show on Patreon! Have you ever heard of Jean-Louis Duport? I imagine that unless you are a professional cellist, or someone who studied cello as a child, you...
20 Jul 202343min
Brahms B Major Piano Trio
When we listen to the music of Johannes Brahms, we often are reminded of the image of the portly bearded Brahms at the piano, eyes closed in a soulful pose. Brahms' works always, even in his youth, se...
6 Jul 202355min
Sibelius Violin Concerto
There's a joke among classical musicians that the only parts of a piece that matter are the beginning, the end, and one place in the middle. I don't think its something that anyone really believes in...
29 Jun 202348min
Ravel, Bolero + La Valse
Maurice Ravel the Magician, the Swiss Watchmaker, the aloof, the elegant, the precise, the soulful, the childlike, the naive, the warm, the radical, the progressive. These are all words that were used...
22 Jun 202354min
