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In 1969, the hundredth anniversary of Hector Berlioz's death, the Association nationale Hector Berlioz began sponsoring a critical edition of die composer's writings. The first part of the project finished [...]

France's ancien regime ended in January 1793, when an executioner held up Louis XVI's severed head to a jeering crowd. Not long before that cold day in Revolutionary Square, many [...]

During die 1940s, The New Yorker built its reputation by publishing some of the best writers of the time, including George Orwell, W. H. Auden, Vladimir Nabokov, and John Hersey. [...]

Alex Ross Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 784 pages, $40 As befits one of history's great megalomaniacs, Richard Wagner worried deeply about [...]

In January' 1891, Victorien Sardou premiered his Thermidor at the Comedie Francais. The play tells the story of a clerk working for the fearsome Committee for Public Safety who tries [...]

Such is the modern organ: essentially symphonic. A new instrument needs a new language ... --Charles-Marie Widor, Foreword to Symphonies pour orgue (1887) 'Behind every exquisite thing that existed,' says [...]

Alan Walker Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 736 pages, $40 The great difficulty for any biographer of Fryderyk Chopin is conveying his mercurial personality. An [...]

By late autumn, France's literary season is in full swing. Each year, various societies announce their awards for the best French fiction and nonfiction, works translated into French, specialized scholarly [...]

Some fifty years ago, the historian of intellectual life Robert Darnton, after finishing his doctoral work at Oxford, was researching the writer and Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot. Very much a [...]

Swans sing until the end of their lives. But Rossini stopped singing in the middle of his. --Heinrich Heine During die last decade of his life, Gioachino Rossini, the 'Swan [...]

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.... Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect.--Lord Macaulay, Machiavelli (1828)One of [...]

Emma Rothschild An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries. Princeton University Press, 464 pages, $35 The century and a half from 1756 to 1906 [...]

... nobody in our time had such a nose for a profit, nor such greyhound speed at running it down. --Memoires, Philarete Chasles Winning the war, they say, is easier [...]

Thomson writes like an angel or at any rate like the slightly malicious cherub he now resembles ... --Wilfred Mellers, 1967 The decades between 1930 and 1960 were good ones [...]

In the spring of 1938, the publisher William Morrow & Co. approached Virgil Thomson for a book on music and contemporary culture. It was a great idea, though perhaps not [...]

Eugene Briffault, translated and edited by J. Weintraub Paris a Table: 1846. Oxford University Press, 211 pages, $24.95 'Whoever did not live in the years before 1789 can never know [...]

The discusses on the life and works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The author describes that Ludwig Alois Friedrich Ritter von Kõchel of Stein, Lower Austria lists, numbers, and classifies Mozart's works from the earliest to the last. The author suggests that Mozart's compositional process can be described as opportunistic and sometimes even chaotic.

Examines the work of composer Richard Wagner, as exemplified in the music for the opera `The Ring' in New York City with conductor James Levine in March and April 1997. Wagner's creation of an underlying tonality meant to represent a scene's particular emotional hue; Adaption and intensification of Ludwig van Beethoven's system of thematic and harmonic development.

Reviews Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chamber of Orchestra of Europe's performance of the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven at Carnegie Hall in new York City.

Profiles composer Robert Schumann and his works. Personal background; Emotional problems; Career history; Major works; Features of Schumann's musical development.

Reviews the performances of pianists Earl Wild and Leon Fleisher at Carnegie Hall, New York during the later part of 1995. Featured pieces in the performance; Profile on both pianists.

Evaluates pianist Maurizio Pollini's performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's sonatas at Carnegie Hall, New York, on October 8 and 16, 1995. Structural lucidity of the playing; Combination of humility and interpretive excitement.

Profiles musician Donald Francis Tovey. Reputation; Family background; Educational attainment; Career history.

Focuses on the performance of Cesar Franck's symphonic poem `Psyche,' at the New York Philharmonic in Lincoln Center at New York City. Physical deterioration of the orchestral sheet music of `Psyche'; Legend of Psyche; Extension of Franz Liszt's concept of the symphonic poem.

Focuses on the music of Johannes Brahms which was conducted by Kurt Masur and performed by the New York Philharmonic. Several important changes into in the symphonic structure introduced by Brahms; Information on the symphony of composer Ludwig Beethoven which was also performed by the group; Description of some works of Brahms performed by the group; Description of Masur's rendition of Brahms' music; Other information on group's concert.