Salvatore Accardo gave his first professional recital at the age of 13, in a program that included Paganini’s Capricci. At the age of 15, Accardo won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 he became the first winner of the Paganini Competition in Genoa. His vast repertoire ranges from pre-bach to post-Berg; composers such as Sciarrino,…
Category: onthisday
7 Facts About Alfred Newman’s Life
He is perhaps best known for composing the fanfare which accompanies the studio logo at the beginning of 20th Century Fox’s productions. Newman was highly regarded as a conductor, and arranged and conducted many scores by other composers, including George Gershwin, Charles Chaplin, and Irving Berlin.
The only love affair I have ever had was with music!
No one, including Maurice Ravel himself, could have predicted that this orchestral piece would be so popular. Ravel referred to his creation as follows: «This is not music at all». For Ravel «Bolero» became the peculiar work – and perhaps in this «not-music» we will find a solution to the life and fate of the…
Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche: Gian Francesco Malipiero
as soon as I had resigned my post of “teacher” a prestigious international publisher (Edition Universal Wien) came knocking at my door and signed me for all the works that I would write from 1924 to 1930 […]. To be associated with a publisher who was both able and attentive and held the keys of international music meant not to rot and not having to succumb to our [Italian] musical environment. In fact, between 1924 and 1932 I lived intensely in the world of Music without ever concerning myself with these “machinations” that destroy the serenity and corrupt the musician”.
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
Kubrick’s name has permanently stuck in the history of cinema, because the director of his projects completely changed the whole film industry! From science fiction to some anti-war drama. Kubrick’s work features original and fast mounting transitions, strong panning motion and scaling, and the use of classical music as a soundtrack (sometimes he even built archetypes of his characters around this music).
Alban Berg: a genius, a child, a hero and a victim of the times
One of the most prominent representatives of expressionism in music, Berg expressed in his work the characteristic thoughts, feelings, and images of expressionist artists: dissatisfaction with social life, feelings of powerlessness, and loneliness. The hero of his works is a small man driven to despair by the hostile environment of bourgeois society. The breeding ground for such artistic representations of the world was generously given to the composer by life itself.
Allusion of the Apocalypse in Metropolis by Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was found to be nearly complete in Buenos Aires in 2008. This find not only brought back long-lost footage that brought the movie closer to its Berlin debut in 1927, but it also brought back the design of intertitles that were assumed to have been lost forever. The most significant of these,…
Agnès Varda: “I enjoy the time passing. I think it’s a privilege to be in friendship with time.”
She directed 36 films, including the acclaimed “Cléo de 5 à 7.” Her cinematographic work earned her various honors, including the Palme of Honour and Academy Honorary Award
Ah, that bad joker Wolfgang
Mozart was a great joker. Once he’s got a fun during a run of his Magic Flute at Vienna’s Freihaus Theatre. In a letter to his wife Constanze, Mozart admitted sneaking backstage and sabotaging the great Emanuel Schikaneder as the latter sang ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’. When Schikaneder, as Papageno, went up on his magic…
The Music Firebird of 20th century: Stravinsky conducts Stravinsky
At the age of 28, he became internationally recognized when “The Firebird” debuted in Paris in 1910. Three years later, the unique and scandalous “Spring of the sacred” premiered there. Fame stuck to his name and never left. Rimsky-Korsakov, said Stravinsky, was like a second father to him. Stravinsky copied some of his mentor’s things…









