In 1926, the German composer Paul Hindemith was the director of that year’s Donaueschingen Music Festival, which, since its inception in 1921, had quickly established itself as an important showcase for new and progressive music. For the 1926 Festival, Hindemith decided to spotlight a genre of...Episode details...
On today’s date in 1940, the “Standing Room Only” signs went up early as a crowd of 23,000 stormed the Hollywood Bowl to hear the great Paul Robeson perform.
On the program was Earl Robinson’s “Ballad for Americans,” a work for solo voice and orchestra that was for a time one of the most...Episode details...
London might seem an unlikely venue for the premiere of this quintessentially Spanish music—but it was a decidedly international affair when Manuel de Falla’s ballet “The Three-Cornered Hat” received its premiere performance at the Alhambra Theatre in London on today’s date in 1919.
The ballet...Episode details...
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...
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...
