Frédéric Chopin – Poet of the Piano
The room is small, lit by candlelight, the air filled with perfume and whispers. In the corner stands a piano, polished, its lid raised, its keys waiting. A young man, slight of build, pale,…
Podcasts · In this section
Classical Music Giants
Composers and musical innovators whose work reshaped the classical tradition.
Franz Liszt – The Virtuoso Showman
The stage is lit, the hall crowded, the air electric. A tall man with flowing hair strides to the piano, his presence alone sending murmurs through the audience. He sits, and with a flourish…
Arnold Schoenberg – The Liberator of Dissonance
On a September evening in 1940, in Los Angeles, a gathering of émigré musicians and intellectuals sat in a modest house. Outside, the palms swayed in the Pacific breeze; inside, a frail man with…
Dmitri Shostakovich – Witness of an Era
In the autumn of 1937, in Moscow, an orchestra sat poised to begin a new symphony. The composer, a thin, bespectacled man with nervous eyes, had been living under the shadow of fear for…
Jean Sibelius – The Architect of Northern Light
The hall is dark enough that you can hear the architecture. It is winter outside, that kind of northern winter that does not so much snow as restrain, and inside the orchestra waits with…
Richard Strauss – The Architect of Operatic Shock and Grace
Richard Strauss was born in 1864 in Munich, a city whose opera house was both a workplace and a pulpit for his father, Franz, principal horn and uncompromising guardian of classical virtues. Franz Strauss…
Igor Stravinsky – The Chameleon of the Century
It is the evening of May 29, 1913, in Paris. The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is brand new, gleaming with modern lines, its audience filled with artists, aristocrats, and critics. The orchestra tunes, the lights…
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Emotion and Elegance
The hall is hushed, the orchestra ready. A conductor raises his baton, and suddenly violins sing with a melody so direct, so piercing, it feels as if someone has opened their chest and revealed…
Verdi – dramatist of the human voice
The curtain rises, and a chorus of Hebrew slaves sings softly of their lost homeland, their voices swelling into longing that seems to transcend the stage itself. “Va, pensiero,” they sing, “fly, thought, on…
Vivaldi, – Venice’s “Red Priest”
The year is 1678, and Venice is at the height of its glittering power. The city floats on its canals like a dream, its palaces glimmering in the light of torches and candles, its…