Abendlied (Evening song), is a sacred motet by the composer the German Joseph Rheinberger for a six-part mixed choir. It has been regarded as his best-known sacred composition and has a strong affinit...
'Die Zauberflöte' isn't a romantic love story but a real parable: a resemblance about higher human striving to purity and self-improvement. Not love between two people is in the centre but a more indi...
Several years before he finished his first opera, Giacomo Puccini composed a number of smaller orchestral works and some chamber music as well. Between 1881 and 1993 he composed six string quartets in...
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He was born in Venice in 1876, the son of German painter August Wolf and Emilia Ferrari, from Venice. He added his mother's maiden-name, Ferra...
As other famous opera composers of the long 19th century, such as Donizetti, Rossini or Verdi, Giacomo Puccini's instrumental or vocal works are little known or even completely forgotten. During Pucci...
The 'Klipp-Klapp Galopp' ('Click-clack Gallop') is a quick polka by Johann Strauss. The polka was created according to the motifs of the operetta 'Waldmeister' ('Woodruff') and is part of a series of...
In 1924, the celebrated composer Giacomo Puccini is working on his opera "Turandot". He is seriously ill, feels that his end is near and that he lacks the strength to complete the opera. In a final me...
Italian composer Nino Rota composed orchestral works including four symphonies, several concertos, eight operas, five ballets, songs and chamber music but he was mainly known for his film music like '...
As a composer Father Strauss is probably not as famous as his son Johann Strauss but his 'Radeztky March' is still one of the most popular pieces in classical music. When Johann Strauss Sr. in the aut...
The nineteenth century witnessed a flood of new developments and applications for electricity as an important new energy source. Perhaps not surprisingly that this subject of electricity is a recurrin...
Julius Fucík was a Czech composer, with over 400 marches, polkas, and waltzes to his name. As most of his work was for military bands, he is sometimes known as the 'Bohemian Sousa'. Today his marches...
Pascual Marquina Narro (1873 - 1948) was a prolific Spanish orchestral and operatic composer. As a composer he is particularly known for his pasodoble works. Among these belong the 'Rey del Pasodoble'...
Bluette (opus 271) is a polka written by Johann Strauss II in 1862. Strauss (1825-1899) was an Austrian composer and conductor known as the 'King of the Waltz'. This polka was written for the St. Cath...
Alessandro Volta (1745 - 1827) was an Italian physicist whose invention of the electric battery provided the first source of continuous current. In 1899, the Italian city of Como hosted a celebration...
In the summer of 1819, when Beethoven was busy composing the Credo (of the 'Missa solemnis'), he also received repeated requests from one of the seven members of an existing music society, which used...
Danish composer Hans Christian Lumbye is best known for his light compositions like the 'Champagne Galop' and the 'København Jernbane Damp Galop'. In 1854, Lumbye composed the 'Victoria Galopp'. Itali...
It was around 1870 when the young Puccini was serving at the church of Lucca as a titular organist and in his first manuscripts there are marches, sonnets and sonatas for the mass. In those days it wa...
Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio is an opera in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an existing libretto by Antonio Piazza probably called "Rocester". It was...
