By: JJ Sechan From Impressionist works to Tone Poems and Serial pieces, there are a lot of nitpicky words used to describe classical music, and today we dive into the nitpicky-est one, Neoclassicism. As with many 20th century musical innovations, we have Igor Stravinsky to thank for this multi-syllabic monstrosity. After attaining celebrity status with the…
By: Pam DeVier For me, the work of composing is like sculpting a stone, not like transmitting the sounds of imagination or inspiration. Grażyna Bacewicz, October 23, 1958 A virtuoso violinist, pianist, and prolific composer, Grażyna Bacewicz (pronounced grah-ZHEE-nah baht-SEH-vich) rejected the romanticized idea of the composer as a passive conduit. A student of both…
By: Michael Campion When Charles Martin Loeffler died in 1935 an article in the New York Herald Tribune acknowledged his inestimable contribution to American music by saying, “There will not be another like him. No one in America has approached him for individuality of style, perfection of craftsmanship, beauty of utterance, loftiness and subtlety of…
By: Quinn Riley The year was 1914 and King George V had just announced The United Kingdom’s entrance into WWI. It was at this time, on August 4th, that English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was on holiday at the seaside town of Margate in Kent, where he strolled along the cliffs near the English Channel…
By: Pam DeVier January 1776. Mozart turns 20 years old on the 27th and composes his Serenade No. 6 in D major, K. 239, better known as his Serenata notturna, a redundant title scribbled on the original manuscript in his father’s hand. While the United States was on the brink of declaring its independence, Mozart was…
By: Robert Bruce I love zoos. I have traveled to other cities in the United States just to visit top-rated zoos in the country. And whenever I am observing the fauna on display – be it big cats, feathered friends, African ungulates, cold-blooded reptiles, or even six-legged crawly critters – I invariably recall music describing…
By: Dave Carty For the past few weeks, I’ve had one of my favorite symphonies buzzing around in my head: the Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms. In his day people tended to fall into one of two groups: either a claque that admired Brahms’ music as the stalwart defender of the…
By: Jeff Peckham Melba Liston (1926–1999) was a titan of jazz whose contributions as a trombonist, composer, and arranger fundamentally reshaped the sound of the big band era and beyond. As the first woman to hold a chair in several of the world’s most prestigious jazz orchestras, she broke formidable gender and racial barriers, proving…
