Showing results by narrator "Gerard Schwarz" in All Categories

In 1944 the modern American ballet Appalachian Spring premiered at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The collaborators behind the performance anxiously awaited the critical response to their artistic achievement: Would the world understand what they had done? In Ballet for Martha, the journey to this stage and the success shared among choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland, and artist Isamu Noguchi is expressively captured by acclaimed children’s book authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan.

The work of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) has been called the culmination of the Classical era or the wellspring of the Romantic era in European music. Historians today see him as the heir of Haydn and Mozart, carrying their musical discoveries to a new level of complexity and integration. But the generations of composers that followed Beethoven saw him more as the headstrong radical, breaking the shackles of classicism and showing new possibilities for music.

More than any other composer, Franz Joseph Haydn deserves to be called the father of music's "Classical" style. As he came of age in the mid-18th century, musical thinking was in the midst of profound changes. The compositional forms and procedures of the Baroque era began to seem old-fashioned and composers sought fresh modes of musical expression.

Of the many remarkable violinist-composers Italy produced during the Baroque era, the most remarkable of all was Antonio Vivaldi. An artist of astonishing vigor and productivity (he wrote more than 450 concertos, 40 operas, and many solo, chamber, and vocal works over the course of his career), Vivaldi was one of the most innovative and influential musicians of his day.