La danza" è una canzone patter di Gioacchino Rossini, in tempo di "Tarantella napoletana". È l'ottava canzone della raccolta "Les soirées musicales", composta negli anni 1830-1835. La danza è diventat...
Johannes Brahms composed the Alt-Rhapsodie in September of 1869 as a wedding gift to the daughter of his close friend and confidant, Clara Schumann. The Alt-Rhapsodie is set to several verses of a poe...
Nowadays, Carmen is probably the most famous opera in the whole opera-repertoire, although its premiere in 1875 was a great disappointment because of the misunderstanding of the very realistic plot. C...
Josef Hellmesberger Jr. was an Austrian composer, violinist and conductor. His compositions include operettas, ballets, lieder and a variety of dances such as the 'Danse diabolique' ('Teufelstanz' or...
Camille Saint-Saëns had a lifetime love for Algeria which he visited for the first time in 1875 and where he died in 1921. In 1880 he wrote his 'Suite Algérienne'. It's a work written in four movement...
German composer Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) was the 11th child of Johann Sebastian Bach. After his death, six of his symphonies where assigned to the opus number 18. Symphony No.6 actually began...
French composer Adolphe Adam composed his opera 'si j'etais roi' (if I Were King) in 1852. Though less popular than 'Le postillon de Lonjumeau', it is often regarded as Adam's finest work. The well-de...
'Vanda' (Wanda) is a grand opera in five acts by Antonín Dvorák which was premiered at the 'Provisional Theatre' in Prague on 17 April 1876. The story is about the Polish queen, Princess Wanda, who dr...
'H.M.S. Pinafore' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. 'H.M.S. Pinafore' was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and their firs...
The Helios Overture was composed in 1903 while Nielsen was on holiday in the Greek isles. The piece is said to depict the course of the sun through the sky from dawn to sunset. Even though the piece w...
In 1883, a singer named Johanna Richter made a guest appearance in the court theater at Cassel, Germany, where Gustav Mahler was the conductor. As a result of this engagement she entered into a regula...
The Ouverture Carnevalesca was performed in Bologna on April 19th of the same year (1913) as part of a ten-city tour. The piece was written shortly before the Sinfonia drammatica (1914) and Ottorino R...
Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) along with Granados, Albeniz and Manuel de Falla, was a defining voice in Spanish music. His music is typically very lyrical and deeply inspired by the rich musical heritage...
I Got Rhythm is a song composed by George George Gershwin published in 1930, which became a widely-known jazz standard. The song was introduced by Ethel Merman in the musical Girl Crazy. In 1933, Geor...
Cesar Franck's symphonic poem, 'Le Chasseur Maudit,' was written in 1883 and first performed in the following year. It is based upon the familiar ballad of Bürger's, 'Der wilde Jäger' ('The Wild Hunts...
With Les Pecheurs des Perles Bizet first made his mark in 1863. Set in ancient Ceylon, this tale of friendship, love and betrayal has been performed more and more often in opera houses around the worl...
Sullivan's Operetta The Gondoliers (first staged in 1889) was the last of the wildly successful Gilbert and Sullivan productions. The exuberant Dance a Cachuca is sung towards the beginning of the sec...
Tenor and Concert Band. Ruggiero Leoncavallo, both composer and librettist, based Pagliacci on real-life events he recalled from childhood. From these he fashioned a vivid musical play with intense pa...
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born in New Orleans in 1829. His father was of German-Jewish decent and his Catholic mother was a Creole from Haiti. His piano lessons commenced at the age of five and were...
In its original form, the Fete Polonaise from the Opera Le Roi Malgre, is scored for chorus and orchestra. Ever the artistic pragmatist, Chabrier turned the dance sequence into a glittering orchestral...
Respighi's Three Botticelli Pictures (1927) is a three-movement suite based on famous paintings by the Renaissance master Botticelli. It's fully as colorful and beguiling as the fulsome and flashy Pin...
With the deepest respect for Bach's genius, Respighi accepted Toscanini's request in 1930 for a transcription of Bach's great Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor. The result was a 'Bravo Respighi!' from...
Respighi's Gli Uccelli (The Birds) is a suite in five movements for small orchestra. Each movement is based on themes by 17th and 18th century composers.
In 1919, Spanish composer Reveriano Soutullo began his famous musical partnership with Juan Vert, which continued until the latter's early death in 1931. The Zarzuela La leyenda del beso (1924) is one...
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) finished his masterpiece Otello in October 1885. The libretto by Arrigo Boito was based on Shakespeare's tragedy. The Bonfire Chorus is sung in the very first act: the peopl...
The work of the Russian composer Anatol Liadov (1855-1914) is characterized by bizarre humour, originality, precision and imagination. Kikimora is a fairy tale for orchestra by Liadow about a female h...
Giuseppe Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera contains two famous soprano roles, strong male solo roles, fine choruses and sharp dramatic situations. And yet it is not quite as popular as some other Ver...
Zu den brillanten 'Danzas Fantasticas' wurde der spanische Komponist Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) durch die Erzählung 'La Orgia' von José Mas inspiriert. Das Werk ist dreisätzig, jeder Satz ist in einem...
Prokofiev composed his first piano concerto while at the Conservatory, in 1911 and 1912, and premiered it himself on August 7, 1912. The concerto is a single movement divided into clearly marked secti...
As a composer, Edward MacDowell is mostly remembered for his two piano concertos, a great number of compositions for piano including Woodland Sketches (with the very popular 'To a Wild Rose'), New Eng...
As a composer, Edward MacDowell is mostly remembered for his two piano concertos, a great number of compositions for piano (including Woodland Sketches (with the very popular 'To a Wild Rose'), New En...
In 1933 Revueltas composed his brief symphonic poem 'Janitzio' named after an island in Lake Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacßn, west of Mexico City, whose population had derived its income largely...
American composer and Cornetist Herbert L. Clarke was one of the first soloists to combine a pyrotechnic technique with a lush, romantic sound. His 'virtuoso-with-a-heart' style set the standard for C...
The diptych 'Estampes Simfoniques' (Symphonic Images) by the Spanish (Catalan) composer Joaquim Serra (1907-1957) would not be a unique piece in its production if it wasn't because in this occasion th...
Alejandro Garcia Caturla (1906 - 1940) was a Cuban composer of art music and creolized Cuban themes. He was fascinated by creolized Afro-Cuban rhythms and these Creole themes were characteristic of hi...
Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra' (Enigma), Op. 36, commonly referred to as the 'Enigma Variations', is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar...
In 1899 Edward Elgar finished his best-known large-scale composition, the 'Enigma Variations'. Elgar dedicated the piece to 'my friends pictured within', each variation being an affectionate portrayal...
As a composer Franz Lehár started with contributions to the opera-genre but the great triumph of his first operetta 'Die lustige Witwe', (The merry widow), in 1905 made him clear that he had to gif hi...