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• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Instrumentalist
• Late Romantic

(Yo’-sef Sook) 1874–1935 Czech violinist and composer Suk was second violinist with the Czech String Quartet from 1892 to 1922, then became a professor at the Prague Academy where, in 1892, he had been a favourite student of Dvořák. He later married Dvořák’s daughter, Otilie, and his love for her inspired many works, such as the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. Its lilting rhythm epitomizes the Viennese style of the period in which it was written. Introduction | Late Romantic | Classical Personalities | Josef Suk | Late Romantic | Classical ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

Boris Godunov, the only project out of nine that Mussorgsky completed himself, has been cited as the great masterpiece of nineteenth-century Russian opera – with its thrilling crowd scenes, historic panorama and the chilling power of its principal character. Boris was unusual in having its chief male role written for a bass voice and for the ‘sung prose’ ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1928 Premiered: 1928, Berlin Book by Bertolt Brecht, from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann after John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera Prologue The Ballad Singer sings the ‘Ballad of Mack the Knife’. Act I Peachum controls the begging business in London. His wife’s description of their daughter Polly’s lover, ‘the Captain’, fits the notorious gang leader Macheath (Mack ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Instrumentalist

1920–2001 American violinist Born in Russia, Stern was taken by his parents to America when he was just a baby. He later studied in San Francisco, where he played the Brahms concerto under Pierre Monteux in 1936. He played for Allied troops during World War II, and made his European debut at the Lucerne Festival in 1948. He ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Instrumentalist

b. 1948 Japanese pianist Born near Tokyo, her diplomat parents brought her to Vienna, where she studied at the Academy of Music (with Kempff among others). After gaining second prize at Leeds (1975), she initially made her name as a Mozart specialist, performing (and later recording) the complete sonatas and concertos. Her repertoire nonetheless extends through Schubert and ...