Classics For Kids

The music that Charles Ives wrote was greatly influenced by his father, George. From the time he was a kid, Ives heard his father experiment with sound. George Ives always […]

Appropriately spooky classical music for Halloween.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov spent years as a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Many of his students became famous composers themselves: Anatol Liadov, Alexander Glazunov, and Igor Stravinsky. A lot of […]

To go with this month’s music from Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird, some more music by composers who were playing with fire.

Igor Stravinsky based his ballet The Firebird on a Russian folk tale about an evil demon named Kashchei, who has thirteen princesses under his spell. A prince who wanders into […]

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky had a big hit with his first ballet, The Firebird. Stravinksy kept on writing ballets, followed by operas, and orchestral and choral music.

“Gigue” is the French word for jig — a lively dance in triple time. The jig started out as folk dance in Ireland, Scotland, and northern England, before finding its […]

Georg Philipp Telemann never studied composition – he taught himself how to write music. There are quite a few composers who taught themselves, including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Edward Elgar, Francis Poulenc, […]

Georg Philipp Telemann composed during the Baroque period, which ran from about 1600 to 1750. Suzanne Bona, host of the National Public Radio program Sunday Baroque, talks with Naomi Lewin […]

Telemann loved to write. He wrote more pieces of music than any other composer, and he also wrote not one, not two, but THREE autobiographies.

Tritsch-Tratsch — the title of a polka by Johann Strauss, Jr. — is Austrian slang for “chit-chat.” A lot of composers used music to portray people making sounds: talking, laughing, […]

The waltz is a dance in 3/4 time that was very popular in Vienna, Austria in the 19th century. But the roots of the waltz go back to the German […]

Johann Strauss, Sr. had three musical sons: Johann, Jr.; Josef; and Eduard. Sometimes they worked together as musicians, but other times, there was bitter rivalry.

Johann Strauss, Jr. was the son of a very successful violinist and orchestra leader. Eventually, Johann, Jr. was in competition with his father, conducting an orchestra of his own. When […]

Opera singer Denyce Graves talks with Naomi Lewin about what it’s like to be an international opera star.

Giuseppe Verdi composed Aida for a new opera house in Cairo, Egypt that opened around the time as the opening of the Suez Canal. Aida is the story of an […]

An opera is like a play in which the characters sing all their lines. Opera singers do not use microphones — their voices are trained, and can fill a whole […]

Guiseppe Verdi — “Joe Green,” in Italian — was a great opera composer and Italian patriot. His music became part of the Italian fight for independence and unity.

From the time Frédéric Chopin was a child, audiences loved to hear him play the piano. A lot of composers were famous as keyboard players, too: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt…

In his Military Polonaise, Frédéric Chopin uses the piano to imitate the drums that accompanied armies marching into battle. A lot of composers have put battle sounds into their music.

The polonaise is a dance that was fashionable in the Polish court. Since Polish nobility used to like to speak French, the name “polonaise” is French. Eventually, the polonaise caught […]

Frédéric Chopin was one of the greatest pianists of his day. Every single piece of music he wrote used the piano. The name Chopin doesn’t sound very Polish because Chopin's […]

Benjamin Britten was asked to compose music for a film that explained the instruments of the orchestra to children. Britten borrowed a tune by one of his favorite composers, Henry […]

Benjamin Britten was asked to compose music for a film that explained the instruments of the orchestra to children. Britten borrowed a tune by one of his favorite composers, Henry […]

Pizzicato is the Italian word for “plucked” — it tells string players how to play their instruments at a given spot in the music. A lot of musical “traffic signals” […]