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
Handel Messiah w/ Aram Demirjian
A piece that I have been asked to cover probably a dozen times is Handel's Messiah. It's a piece I love, but a piece that I've never conducted or played, and so therefore I don't know it incredibly well. There are plenty of pieces like this in the repertoire, and so I've decided ...Show more
Synopsis The hills surrounding the Austrian town of Salzburg, according to Rogers and Hammerstein, are “alive with the sound of music.” Well, the same could have been said for the vast interior and multiple choir lofts of Salzburg Cathedral on today’s date in 1682 when a lavish c ...Show more
Synopsis It might seem odd that during his long career, Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály wrote only nine works for orchestra. When someone asked him about this, he replied, “I was busy with more important work: I had to educate a public.” Kodály and his countryman Béla Bartók wer ...Show more
Synopsis “Snuff” is a finely pulverized tobacco that can be, well, “snuffed” through the nose. In the 19th century, taking snuff was a common practice, and on today’s date in 1837, the most notorious example of snuff-taking in music history occurred — or didn’t, depending on who ...Show more
Synopsis For later Romantic composers like Richard Wagner, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was “the apotheosis of the dance,” and certainly sitting still during the Symphony’s dizzying finale is not always easy. But for those in the audience at its premiere in 1813, as part of a benef ...Show more