In the summer of 1824, the fifteen-year-old Mendelssohn spent a holiday with his father in the fashionable spa town of Bad Doberan, on the Baltic coast near Rostock. Writing home to his family in Berlin he confessed that, although he was "comfortably lodged… with friendly people, a decent piano,...Episode details...
John Birge is the new host of 'Composers Datebook,' the award-winning program about this day in classical music history. A well-known name at Classical Minnesota Public Radio, he will take over from retiring and longtime host John Zech on May 1.
In the summer of 1972, five burglars broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC, and soon the term “Watergate” came to signify a political scandal that nearly led to the impeachment of then-president Richard Nixon. But if you had...Episode details...
Many composers have produced works inspired by their deep religious faith: in the 18th century, the sacred music of the devout Lutheran church musician Johann Sebastian Bach being a notable example.
Even in our more secular age, this is sometimes the case. The contemporary Scottish composer...Episode details...
To some it seemed an act of sheer madness for a String Quartet to announce in the 1970s that it would not perform the classic repertory of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, but devote itself instead to music written after 1900, especially newly-composed works. But the Kronos Quartet has proved the...Episode details...
On today’s date in 1717, King George and his entourage took a barge trip on the river Thames, traveling from Whitehall to Chelsea, accompanied by about 50 musicians, also on barges. A contemporary newspaper account reported that they performed “the finest Symphonies, composed express for this...Episode details...
Following the death of a loved one, the American poet Barbara Crooker wrote, “How can we go on/knowing the end of the story?”
The American composer Dale Trumbore attempted to answer that question with her haunting choral work entitled “How to Go on,” given its premiere performance on today’s...Episode details...
In 1965, Leonard Bernstein took a sabbatical year from his duties as music director of the New York Philharmonic. In 1964, the busy Mr. Bernstein had just finished conducting Verdi’s opera “Falstaff” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in 1966, would make his debut at the Vienna State...Episode details...
Today is Bastille Day, and on today’s date in 1900, the Opera-Comique in Paris premiered a patriotic opera entitled “La Marseillaise,” which melodramatically depicted how, on a spring night during the French Revolution, Rouget de l’Isle supposedly wrote the words AND music for the song which...Episode details...
