A portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, a friend of the composer, painted during 1804-1805. Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770, and so it's little surprise that 250 years ...

Any string quartet approaching its fourth decade would be expected to boast a wide repertoire, yet the enormous span of composers the Alexander String Quartet has embraced is almost beyond belief. It ...

'All people become brothers.' Beethoven’s epic final symphony, a vision for music and for humanity. Beethoven, by this time almost entirely deaf, conducted the premiere performance of his Choral ...

Best classical music for meditation: from Hildegard von Bingen to John Cage, we recommend six pieces that will aid serenity ...

Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Chopin. When you think of the musical canon, these are names that usually come to mind. The works created by these composers form an educational base that tends ...

At first glance, you might think Beethoven’s Wig 4 – Dance Along Symphonies CD ($11.99) is for parents who thought their babies would be geniuses if they were exposed to Mozart in utero. It’s actually ...

The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who died in 2023, wrote music of profoundly shadowed seriousness, and her ironically ...

Richard Nixon was an accomplished pianist, but the 37th president’s real contribution to serious music was his overture to China in 1972. As a result of that trip, the Philadelphia Orchestra would be ...