Going to a classical music concert can be somewhat bewildering, what with all the odd terms that seem to be used. For this we must blame the Italians; they like to qualify things. Sometimes they do this with suffixes (that -issimo, for instance, means “very,” -ino and -etto both mean …
R, E, S, P, E, C, T: Find out what it means to me. R, E, S, P, E, C, T. Take out the TCB. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. Sock it to me. So sang Miss Aretha …
The French cannot do pop music. Everybody knows this except the French. I recently met a fellow in my local pub who had a theory to explain this gallic failure. He said that all the best pop songs have Germanic lyrics. English is basically made up of Germanic words …
Known as František Kočvara in his native Prague, this rather odd fellow was a skilled double bass player and composer. He seems to have traveled considerably, finally finding a home in London where his works were published from the 1770s. He left little of note except one popular composition, …
Johan Schobert’s exact birth year seems uncertain and has been listed as anywhere between 1720 and 1740, with a cautious consensus of 1735. Beginning in 1760 he was a harpsichordist in the service of the Prince de Conti in Paris. He had interactions with the Mozart family, specifically the …
Lets hear it for Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz (1742–1790) who was a minor composer not particularly well known these days, maybe because his last name sounds a bit like a German skin complaint. He was revered in his time as a skilled harpist, indeed one of the greatest of the later …
The bridal chorus melody from Lohengrin (1850) is probably ( and sadly) the most widely recognised of all Wagner’s music. But it was not the composer’s intention that it be associated with a bride’s arrival at her wedding. In the opera, the chorus is sung after the wedding. It …
The ancient Greeks adored Terpander. He was without doubt the most popular musician and lyricist of his time. Originally from Antissa, on the coast of Lesbos he had settled in Sparta, where he completely transformed the whole Greek musical system. He added more strings to the lyre, changing …
