Composers
To the distant girl… the beautiful poetry Goethe wrote for Fanny Mendelssohn
Today is the anniversary of the death of one of the most important exponents of German culture, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Frankfurt, 28 August 1749 - Weimar, 22 March 1832). In...
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Why were Le Maschere’s seven premiers a spectacular fiasco?
Why did Le Maschere get such a bad reaction from the public? In the previous post we described the unlucky debut of Mascagni's opera Le Maschere. In this post we...
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Those seven premieres of Mascagni’s Le Maschere
Mascagni's Le Maschere is an opera based on the commedia dell'arte, the "symbol of the Italic spirit" (Mascagni). The commedia dell'arte included a series of stock characters, words improvisation and...
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Fanny Mendelssohn: the overshadowed life of a musician in the 19th century
The life of Fanny Mendelssohn, sister of the most famous Felix, author of about 500 works but stayed off the grid for too long. Fanny Mendelssohn , sister of Felix,...
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Georges Bizet: besides Carmen
The French Romantic composer Georges Bizet was a prodigy child. Son of a singer, he was such a gifted young musician that the Paris Conservatoire waived its usual rules to...
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