Curated category
Honorary members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
- Igor StravinskyIgor Stravinsky once received a score back from his mentor in the mail, returned with a note reading: "Not delivered on account of death of addressee." That…
- Johannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms once interrupted a friend's toast in Berlin with five blunt words: "Quite right; here's Mozart's health." It was January 1896, near the end…
- Maurice RavelMaurice Ravel was born on the 7th of March 1875 in Ciboure, a Basque town in France less than 20 kilometres from the Spanish border.
- Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky once listened to a playback of his own voice on an Edison recording device and said: "This trill could be better." That was January…
- Aaron CoplandAaron Copland grew up above a Brooklyn shop at 628 Washington Avenue, in a family of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who had traveled through Scotland just to…
- Antonín DvořákAntonín Dvořák composed the String Quartet in F major in just three days during a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa, in 1893. Three days.
- Hector BerliozHector Berlioz was born on the 11th of December 1803 in the commune of La Cote-Saint-Andre, in south-eastern France, the son of a physician who had never…
- Richard StraussRichard Strauss died on the 8th of September 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with the words "dying is just as I composed it in Tod und Verklärung" on his lips.
- Sergei RachmaninoffSergei Rachmaninoff stepped onto the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in May 1892 knowing, he later admitted, that his one-act opera was "sure to fail." He was…
- Alexander GlazunovAlexander Glazunov stood at the podium in Paris on the 17th of May 1907 to conduct the last of the Russian Historical Concerts, a man at the absolute peak of…
- Paul HindemithPaul Hindemith was born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, on the 16th of November 1895, and within two decades he would be playing concertmaster at the Frankfurt…
- Johann Nepomuk HummelJohann Nepomuk Hummel was taught piano by Mozart at the age of eight, housed and tutored free of charge for two years by the most celebrated composer in…