Originally, a musical fantasy was a piece that instrumentalists made up as they went along. Eventually, fantasies evolved into pieces that composers built out of various melodies they liked — […]
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Usually, an overture is a piece of music played at the beginning of a play, opera or ballet in order to set the mood. But there are also other kinds […]
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The polonaise is a dance that was fashionable in the Polish court. Since Polish nobility used to like to speak French, the name „polonaise“ is French. Eventually, the polonaise caught […]
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„Rhapsody“ is an ancient word that means „songs stitched together“. The Greeks used to write long poems in praise of their heroes, and then take bits and pieces of those […]
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In 1892, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s trip to the New World, a wealthy New Yorker invited Antonin Dvorak to visit America. Tchaikovsky, Albeniz, and Delius were […]
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Georg Philipp Telemann composed during the Baroque period, which ran from about 1600 to 1750. Suzanne Bona, host of the National Public Radio program Sunday Baroque, talks with Naomi Lewin […]
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Agnes de Mille loved to dance. She became hooked on ballet as a child, after seeing the famous ballerina Anna Pavlova perform. Agnes de Mille performed all over America and […]
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Rondo is an Italian word that means round. A rondo is an instrumental form with a refrain that keeps coming back. Unlike the verses of a song, though, the music […]
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Music by composers with all kinds of hyphens to their African heritage: African-French, French-Cuban, African-English, and African-American.
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Johann Strauss, Sr. had three musical sons: Johann, Jr.; Josef; and Eduard. Sometimes they worked together as musicians, but other times, there was bitter rivalry.
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