Happy Birthday, Shostakovich-Style
As far as we know Dmitri Shostakovich never recorded his own arrangement of “Good Morning to All” (1893)/”Happy Birthday to You” (1912), but Trio Telepatico’s … Read more
As far as we know Dmitri Shostakovich never recorded his own arrangement of “Good Morning to All” (1893)/”Happy Birthday to You” (1912), but Trio Telepatico’s … Read more
The first is that the vast majority of famous composers who committed crimes almost certainly got away with it. Until the mid-19th century, the criminal … Read more
It is self-evident that Eugéne Ysaÿe (1858-1931) wrote his own Violin Sonata No. 3, but he might not have considered himself its only author; he … Read more
There are classical composers who represent the 20th century American sound more acutely and specifically than Samuel Barber does, but no other who has come … Read more
In early 18th century Venice there lived a self-assured red-haired priest named Antonio Lucio Vivaldi. Traveling with an entourage that nearly always included his elderly … Read more
“With God’s help and grace, I will be a Mozart in composition and a Liszt in technique.” – from an 1843 diary entry Feel free … Read more
The fissure between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates is very large, stretching out along the northern third or so of our planet, and … Read more
These ten composers died before their 30th birthday. Many more composers, of course, died in their thirties and forties (most famously Mozart, who passed at … Read more
If you’re a fan of indie Japanese pop music, you might have heard the 2011 Vocaloid track “Senbonzakura (A Thousand Cherry Blossoms).” Vocaloid tracks are, … Read more
When Eon Productions approached Paul McCartney to write and record a theme song for the James Bond flick Live and Let Die (1973), it was … Read more
The Grammy Awards are generally noted for a handful of pop music categories, a slightly smaller handful of pop music performances, the pomp and circumstance of … Read more
Ask anyone of a certain generation to hum Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, and they’ll probably imagine something like Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Orchestra version that … Read more