Mittelschwere Klassische Musik der Romantik-Noten

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...

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...

The famous Meditation from Jules Massenet opera Thaïs is the entr"acte for violin and orchestra played between the scenes of the second act and nowadays often performed as a separate concert piece.

The opera "Macbeth" was first performed in Florence in 1847. A second revised version was premiered in the Paris Theatre Lyrique in 1865. The chorus "Patria oppressa" is sung at the very beginning of...

Johann Strauss jr. composed a great amount of polka's, mazurka's and marsches to perform with his own orchestra that played on 'dance soirees' in Vienna. When the industrial age dawned in the middle o...

With his L'elisir d"amore (The Elixer of Love), composed in 1832 Donizetti wrote something far greater than a mere comic opera: this was perhaps the first example of a moving, middleclass genre of the...

Don Alvaro's aria La vita è inferno all"infelice comes in the third act. It is dawn at the encampment at Velletri in Italy, where Don Alvaro has enrolled under the name of Don Federico Herreros. He si...

Giuseppe Verdi composed his opera Rigoletto in 1851 and together with La Traviata (1853) and Il Trovatore (1853) it belongs to the top of his middle period of composing. The duet "Si, vendretta, treme...

Emmerich Kálmán's most beloved operetta "Die Csárdásfürstin" had its first performance at the Vienna "Johann Strauss-Theater" in November 1915. Only in the German speaking countries it was performed 5...

The Austrian composer Carl Zeller (1842-1898) did contribute a great part to the glory of the Golden Era of the Viennese operetta in which Johann Strauss jr., Franz von Suppé and Karl Millöcker were t...

The Austrian composer Carl Zeller (1842-1898) did contribute a great part to the glory of the Golden Era of the Viennese operetta in which Johann Strauss jr., Franz von Suppé and Karl Millöcker were t...

If we say that zarzuela is Spanish light opera with spoken dialogue we shall be near the mark. Frederico Chueca composed many Zarzuela's. The Tango de la Menegilda (Housemaid's Tango) is sung in the 2...

The zarzuela "El barberillo de Lavapiés" (1874) is the comic masterpiece of Spanish composer Francisco Asenjo Barbieri. It's a miracle of raw popular spirit, musical subtlety, ironic wit and political...

Quando me'n vo", also known as Musetta's Waltz, is a soprano aria sung in the second act of Puccini's opera La Bohème" by Musetta in presence of her bohemian friends, and is directed toward Marcello i...

Emmerich Kálmán (1882-1953) was a contemporary of Bartók and Kodály at the Budapest Academy of Music. He first coupled a career as a music critic with more conventionally serious composition, before,...

The score of "La Gioconda" is best known for its ballet divertimento "The Dance of the Hours". The tangled story of passion, intrigue, violence and eventual tragedy is set against the grim splendour o...

Alfredo Catalani's Opera "La Wally" is best known for its aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana". He had composed that aria independently as "Chanson Groënlandaise" in 1878 and later incorporated it into his...

Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816) is one of the greatest of all comic operas.Based on an excellent play by Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville delights audiences with its keenly sketched characters, melo...

At the end of his life Offenbach composed his opera "Les contes d'Hoffman", but unfortunately he was not able to finish it. The plot tells the story of the poet Hoffmann telling three of his amorous a...

Carmen is probably the most famous opera in the whole opera-repertoire, although its premiere in 1875 was a great disappointment. The chorus "Vivat! Vivat le Toréro!" is sung in the second act of the...

From its first performance, Engelbert Humperdinck's opera "Hänsel und Gretel" was a phenomenal succes, produces at over fifty theaters in its first year alone. This evergreen opera, based on the Grimm...

The Polka 'Fata Morgana', Opus 330 was written by Johann Strauss for the grand ball of the Association of Artists in Vienna, which was held in Dianabad-Saal on 1 February 1869. All three Strauss broth...

The Polka 'Fata Morgana', Opus 330 was written by Johann Strauss for the grand ball of the Association of Artists in Vienna, which was held in Dianabad-Saal on 1 February 1869. All three Strauss broth...

La Bohème was first performed in 1886 at the Teatro Regio in Turin. It soon became a staple of the operatic repertoire and has remained so ever since. Puccini had begun for the first time to speak wit...

Johann Strauss komponierte seinen 'Spanischer Marsch' 1888 für die Königin María Cristina von Spanien in bester spanischer Musiktradition.