Many aspects of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's life seem relatively normal when it comes to composers of the Baroque era. He was prolific, died young, and his music became very famous only after his death. However, all three of these facts are complicated by the unique circumstanc ...Show more
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2
We humans seem to love comeback stories, and there is no comeback quite as compelling in the classical music world as Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. It was written three years after the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony, a premiere so catastrophic that it lives on ...Show more
Synopsis On today’s date in 1871, Hermann Levi conducted the premiere of a new choral work by Johannes Brahms titled Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny. It’s a setting of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, contrasting in its first part the blissful Greek gods on Mount Olympus and in ...Show more
Synopsis The “Three B’s” are traditionally Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, of course – but today we’re offering Boccherini, Brahms, and Berio. The 20th century Italian composer Luciano Berio, noted for his avant-garde scores, was asked to orchestrate the F minor Clarinet Sonata by J ...Show more
How Mozart's Requiem, written when he was dying, has touched and changed people's lives. Crime writer Val McDermid recalls how this music helped her after the loss of her father. Hypnotist Athanasios Komianos recounts how the piece took him to the darker side of the spirit world. ...Show more
"He wanted it to be something that's consoling and helpful. It's the end of their lives where they can rest in peace."World renowned choral conductor Sir David Willcocks, shares his personal reflections on the Faure Requiem alongside those for whom the music has comforted and ins ...Show more