The Classical Music Minute

Send us Fan Mail Description The Age of Enlightenment saw the dawning of a new era in music. Public concert halls were established, lower classes had access to music, and even music itself changed and grew. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact The Age of Enlightenment considered the importance of an individual who can reason for themselves, the idea of equality under the law, an...

Send us Fan Mail Description The Renaissance was a period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact From about 1520 through to the end of the sixteenth century, European composers utilized polyphonic language to explore musical expression through the French chanson, the Italian madrigal, the G...

Send us Fan Mail Description Steve Reich is an American composer and leading exponents of Minimalism, a style based on repetitions and combinations of simple motifs and harmonies. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact In commemoration of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, Reich composed WTC 9/11: For Three String Quartets and Pre-recorded Voices (2010), in...

Send us Fan Mail Description John Cage’s music is loved by many and hated by some. After him, no one could look at a painting, book, or person without considering how they might sound if you listened closely. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact In the 1970s, with inspirations like Thoreau and Joyce, Cage began to take literary texts and transform them into music. “Roratorio, an...

Send us Fan Mail Description Frédéric Chopin suffered from serious and chronic health problems throughout his life. This shaped many of the pieces he created as he searched for peace of mind and a quest for simplicity. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Chopin generally bypassed the sketching process and proceeded directly from th...

Send us Fan Mail Description There was an overwhelming melancholy in Elizabethan times and composer John Dowland understood how best to capture this sadness. Dowland (1563 –1626) is best known for “ I saw my lady weep ,” and “ Flow my tears ” both of which capture the melancholy side of the early 17th century. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Dowland made his name on these c...

Send us Fan Mail Description The Metropolitan Opera is back after a long pandemic shutdown with a new season. It launched with Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” marking the first time that a Black composer and a Black librettist have found their way to the Met. This is indeed a historic moment, fueled by recent events, and yet long overdue. Join me, as we take a minute to get the sco...

Send us Fan Mail Description Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is a highly celebrated work. But did you know that poetry was also published along with it? You can check out the full poetry on the Charlotte Symphony website . Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Vivaldi’s opera Giustino, which was also written in 1723, has similarities to The Four Seasons. In the middle of Act I, there’...

Send us Fan Mail Description Leonard Bernstein was one of the first American-born conductors to receive worldwide fame. A conductor, composer, and avid educator, his life cannot be captured in this podcast. But my hope is that if you didn’t know much about Leonard Bernstein, this snapshot may inspire you to learn more. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Leonard Bernstein'...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever wondered what is Neoclassicism in music? And how did Igor Stravinsky play his part? Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact From 1948 to 1951, Stravinsky worked on his only full-length opera, The Rake’s Progress, a Neoclassical work based on a series of moralistic engravings by the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The Rake’s Progress fl...

Send us Fan Mail Description Why was Verdi so revered by the Italian people? Was it just his catchy tunes, or something deeper and more complex? Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Italian unification is also known as the Risorgimento meaning "Resurgence", was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever wondered who invented the printing press and how this affected music way back when? Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact It wasn’t until the 19th century that the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press was replaced by steam-powered rotary presses. This allowed printing on an industrial scale, becoming practically the sole medium for modern bulk pri...

Send us Fan Mail Description Martin Luther is best known for having brought about the Protestant Reformation. But Luther was also an avid composer, whose works are still celebrated today. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact The Protestant Reformation was a religious revolution that took place in the Western church in the 16th century. Its greatest leaders were Martin Luther and...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever heard of the “pants role” aka “trouser roles” or “breeches parts” in opera? Well, this goes back centuries, with quite the backstory. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Why did Baroque audiences buy into women playing masculine heroic parts in opera? The most conceivable theory is that Baroque opera was not concerned with realism. Further, the...

Send us Fan Mail Description In order to understand where music stands today, it’s great to consider some of the origins and uses of music. Archaeology has uncovered numerous indications of the importance of music in Ancient Greece, especially as it relates to their athletic Games. Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact The earliest games at Delphi were held in the eighth century...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever heard of the twelve-tone technique aka dodecaphony aka twelve-tone serialism aka twelve-note composition? I know, it’s a little mind-bending, but worth noting if you love music that breaks the boundaries of tonality. It’s even used in modern broadway shows! Join me, as we take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Schoenberg believed that his 12-tone technique would...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever wonder what inspired Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz? This “program” symphony is fueled by Hector’s obsession with actress Harriet Smithson. It is a shocking ride of epic psychological dimensions. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact In the fall of 1827, at age 24, Hector Berlioz attended the opening night of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, performed in Paris by...

Send us Fan Mail Description One of my favourite operas by Giuseppe Verdi is Macbeth—maybe because I am such a Shakespeare fan. Verdi himself was also an avid reader of Shakespeare and sought to produce an operatic work unlike any that had gone before. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact When Verdi’s Macbeth first premiered in Florence in 1847, it was dubbed “L’opera senza amore!” The opera w...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever wondered where the term Bel canto came from? Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Did you know that Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the Bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s? One of the most remarkable female opera singers of the 20th century, sh...

Send us Fan Mail Description Although not a superstar like Handel, J.S. Bach was prolific in his writing. Yet, after his death, his music remained relatively dormant for some time. So, was Felix Mendelssohn responsible for kickstarting Bach back into the limelight? Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact At the time Mendelssohn was promoting Bach, there was already a Bach revival underway; in fac...

Send us Fan Mail Description Maybe you’ve heard of the famed violins by Stradivarius. But why are these violins so coveted? Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact What about the best-preserved Stradivarius? Tellingly nicknamed “the Messiah,” it sits in a climate-controlled case in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, receiving the kind of curatorial attention and care reserved for precious w...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever wondered who were the Medieval Troubadours? Back in the day, nothing was written down but passed from performer to performer as they travelled the countryside. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact One of the epic poems performed by troubadours was Beowulf. Beowulf was spoken by some and sung by others. Beowulf is the story of a hero who fights and defeats a hu...

Send us Fan Mail Description Ever wondered how the Operatic Overture came into existence? Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact The roots of the opera Overture begin with the first surviving opera, Peri’s L’Euridice in the year 1600. Peri included an instrumental “ritornello” at the beginning of the opera. This planted the seeds for what would eventually become the full-blown overture. About St...

Send us Fan Mail Description Carlo Gesualdo was both a vicious murderer and brilliant composer—the two going hand in hand. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact There have been no fewer than eleven operatic works on the subject of Gesualdo’s life, with Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) premiering his Gesualdo in 1993. About Steven Steven is a Canadian composer living in Toronto. He creates a range o...

Send us Fan Mail Description Need a quick refresher on the plot of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte aka The Magic Flute? Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder decided to write The Magic Flute aka Die Zauberflöte in the style of Singspiel —a German-language comic opera with singing and dialogue—though it should be noted that Mozart never actuall...