Oil, meet fire

This is the story of two letters Tchaikovsky received in the mail. One would lead to his greatest mistake; the other to the most intimate relationship of his life. 

Making music under Stalin was a dangerous undertaking — it could end with applause or in a prison camp. In the brutal grip of World War II, Shostakovich composed a symphony so powerful, it was smuggled halfway around the world in order to be played. 

We continue the Beethoven cycle this week with his underrated 2nd symphony. Written at the height of Beethoven's despair over his increasing deafness, you might think that the symphony would be a dark and stormy one, but instead Beethoven writes one of his most relentlessly cheer ...  Show more

Ludwig van Beethoven's Second Symphony came at a pivot point in his life. Musically, the composer moved toward the more epic, revolutionary style that would define his later symphonies. Personally, Beethoven sank into despair as his hearing loss worsened. 

Synopsis Today in 1825, one of Beethoven's late chamber works, his String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127, received its premiere in Vienna by the Schuppanzigh Quartet. The Quartet had only received the music two weeks earlier, which, in those days, would be plenty of time for expe ...  Show more

Beethoven often gets the reputation of being a composer of extreme seriousness, shaking his fist at the heavens while dealing with a litany of medical ailments and heartbreak, and there is some truth to that as well. But the 4th symphony, a very strange and mysterious introduc ...