Today I want to share with you an unbelievable piece: “Adagio,” from the ballet Spartacus, by Russian-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian. Many of you, especially those who have kids, will know this piece from Ice Age 2.
I have known about Van Cliburn was since I was very little. He was about the only American that (Soviet) Russians did not hate but admired (maybe the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Louis Armstrong). Van Cliburn won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition. It was 1958. [...]
When my father talks about classical music you’ll never hear him
In today’s musical note I want to share with you one of the most popular operas of our time: La Traviata. It was composed by Giuseppe Verdi in 1852. I watched this production a few years ago and I thought it was probably the best one I’d ever seen. Aside from the great performances by [...]
I’ve stumbled on Eugen D’Albert maybe fifteen years ago or so. I was shocked how good his music was and unknown he was. He is a Scottish-born German composer who was also a pianist (you can still find recording of him playing works of other composers). Similar to Moszkowits he lived in the Rachmaninoff’s era [...]
This week I’ll share with you two undeservedly underrated and underrecorded composers that in my not so humble opinion deserve to be overrated and overrecorded. Both lived in the golden age of the late romantic, early modern period of classical music, that is, the late 19th to early 20th century. I want to share with [...]