Mozart and opera
… Lire plusEvery time the idea comes to mind that it would be good to write an opera, I feel as if my body was afire, and tremble from head to foot with impatience.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Letter of July 31, 1778
Quantz 250: an anniversary
Quantz is a marvelous composer.
Jean-Pierre Rampal
Johann Joachim Quantz, one of the most important proponents of the transverse flute in the 18th century, a performer as well as a composer, died in Potsdam on July 12, 1773. This year, … Lire plus
Private Musick : english chamber music in the time of the Stuarts
Thence Swan and I to a drinking-house near Temple Bar, where while he wrote I played on my flageolet till a dish of poached eggs was got ready for us.
Samuel Pepys,
Diary, February 9, 1660
Elizabeth I stunned many … Lire plus
Tribute to Molière
Tribute to Molière
Les Boréades pay tribute to the 400th anniversary of Molière’s birth with Les Bouffons de Jean d’Estrée (Danseries, Paris, 1559)
This work evokes Molière’s youth, when he attended the theater in the provinces. His humor and irreverence … Lire plus
Johann Sebastian Bach : The four Missae brèves
If only God had made our world as perfect as Bach made his divine.
Cioran
It was in fulfillment of his duties as a musician in, successively, the cities of Weimar, Köthen, and Leipzig, that Bach composed almost all his … Lire plus
Of Tact and Elegance: Gallant and Classic
In music, classicism slowly settled at the same pace as the gallant style. This style changed up the rigid ways of baroque, and was the first to prominently do so, in a number of ways. Firstly, the basso continuo, as … Lire plus
