Classical Music

Gabriel Fauré’s "Pavane" is one of his most popular compositions. What is less known, however, is that the premiere of this stylized dance in April 1888 was actually performed in this present version...

Gabriel Fauré’s "Pavane" is certainly one of his most popular compositions. You may, however, be surprised to learn that the premiere of this stylized dance in April 1888 was actually performed in a v...

With his composition "L'Aurore" (Dawn) in 1905, Maurice Ravel started his fifth and last attempt to win the coveted "Prix de Rome" of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His renewed elimination in t...

The Codex Buranus, the famous collection of medieval song and drama texts from the Benediktbeuern monastery, still holds many exciting secrets today: Who wrote the texts? Why, and above all: for whom?...

Gabriel Fauré composed the "Cantique de Jean Racine" in 1865 as the prize-winning final work of his musical training. The "Cantique" already possesses the typical Fauré characteristics of an expressiv...

Gabriel Fauré composed the "Cantique de Jean Racine" in 1865 as the prize-winning final work of his musical training. The "Cantique" already possesses the typical Fauré characteristics of an expressiv...

Gabriel Fauré composed the "Cantique de Jean Racine" in 1865 as the prize-winning final work of his musical training. The "Cantique" already possesses the typical Fauré characteristics of an expressiv...

Gabriel Fauré composed the "Cantique de Jean Racine" in 1865 as the prize-winning final work of his musical training. The "Cantique" already possesses the typical Fauré characteristics of an expressiv...

Das deutsche Nunc dimittis 'Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener' hat Schütz 1656 anlässlich des Todes des sächsischen Kurfürsten Johann Georg I. gleich 'auf zweyerlei Art' vertont und drucken lassen. D...

In his Christmas motet 'Hodie Christus natus est' Schütz employs the full mastery of his madrigalian musical language and exploits all the sonorous richness which the six part scoring offers him. The...

No. 13 of the 'Opus ultimum'

Alongside Gesualdo and Monteverdi, Marenzio is one of the great Italian madrigalists. The influence of his sophisticated madrigalian art on the younger generation of composers is shown by the fact tha...

At the age of eighty-six Heinrich Schütz composed his last work in 1671 with his monumental setting of Psalm 119, complemented in an appendix with a setting of Psalm 100, and a setting of a German Mag...

1866 komponierte Anton Bruckner seine feierliche e-Moll-Messe, die er in den Jahren 1876-1882 noch einmal einer umfangreichen Revision unterzog. Unter den Messen Bruckners und auch seiner Zeitgenossen...

Bruckner described his setting of Psalm 150 (1892) as "my best festive cantata of all". With its monumental Halleluja theme and the great fugue on "Alles, was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn", the psalm sett...

Sakrileg oder Geniestreich? Der Komponist und Kapellmeister Gottlob Benedict Bierey (1772-1840) instrumentierte den 1. Satz der berühmten 'Mondscheinsonate' von Beethoven für Orchester (transponiert n...

A sacrilege or a stroke of genius? The composer and music director Gottlob Benedict Bierey (1772-1840) orchestrated the first movement of the famous 'Moonlight Sonata' by Beethoven (transposed to C mi...

Sakrileg oder Geniestreich? Der Komponist und Kapellmeister Gottlob Benedict Bierey (1772-1840) instrumentierte den 1. Satz der berühmten 'Mondscheinsonate' von Beethoven für Orchester (transponiert n...

What does Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" have to do with Hercules? More than you might think at first glance. In the summer of 1733, the eleventh birthday of the Saxon Elector Friedrich Christian on 5 Se...

Although Bach's Mass in B minor is one of the most frequently performed works by the Cantor of St. Thomas's, it is full of puzzles and problems. This applies not only to the question, still unanswered...

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott BWV 80 (CV31080-00) is one of Johann Sebastian Bach's most frequently-performed cantatas. But the well-known form of the work, with its great opening chorale chorus, repr...

Great Baroque church music full of color and powerful imagery! 'Sing to the Lord a new song! Sing, rejoice and praise his holy name with the trumpets and cornetts! And nature shall join in, the seas s...

The composer Joseph Martin Kraus was born in the same year as Mozart, and like Salzburg's famous son, he was highly gifted and died too young. But in recent years he has received more attention. And r...

In 1784, Haydn modernized his oratorio "Il ritorno di Tobia" for a revival at the Burgtheater in Vienna. He added the choruses "Ah, gran Dio" and "Svanisce in un momento", the second of which was rewo...