Classical Music

Maria Callas

The love affair of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis scandalized and fascinated the world from the moment it began in 1959 during a cruise on the fabled yacht Christina. In the decades since, dozens of books have been written about the incandescent diva Maria Callas, who transformed opera and the Promethean tycoon who revolutionized international shipping, but none has focused on the tempestuous relationship between them, which is widely thought to have collapsed following Aristotle Onassis' celebrated marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968.
Maria Callas

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Internationally renowned as the finest Mozart and Strauss soprano since World War II, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was a preeminent performer in both opera and Lieder for three decades.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Igor Stravinsky

Popularly known during his lifetime as "The World's Greatest Living Composer," Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) not only wrote some of the twentieth century's most influential music, he also assumed the role of cultural icon.
Igor Stravinsky

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany. Bach is considered by many as the greatest composer. Bach was a master of the contrapuntal technique and his music marks the culmination of the Baroque polyphonic style.
Johann Sebastian Bach

Johannes Brahms

The German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was born in Hamburg on 7 May 1833. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 19th century.
Brahms came from humble origins and had to struggle to make a living and building his musical career.
Johannes Brahms

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Herbert von Karajan

This biography explores Herbert von Karajan's life and music making against the background of European music and politics in the years 1908-1989. Periods in Herbert von Karajan's life hitherto ignored or believed to have been in some way "covered up" - his childhood in Austria during and after the First World War and his early career as a conductor in Nazi Germany - are frankly and revealingly explored.
Herbert von Karajan

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven: Eine Biographie appeared in Prague a few months after the composer's death, thirteen years before the next biography of Ludwig van Beethoven would appear. Virtually nothing is known about the author, Johann Aloys Schlosser, except that he was born in the small town of Lann, in Bohemia, around 1790 and was a partner in a publishing firm in Prague from 1827-28, at which time he published this first brief biography of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Ludwig van Beethoven

Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer born in St. Germain-en-Laye. His harmonic innovations helped pave the way for musical changes in the twentieth century.
Claude Debussy

Edvard Hagerup Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907) is the best known Norwegian composer. Grieg was born in Bergen. From the age of six, Grieg received piano lessons from his mother and studied at the Leipzig Conservatory.
Edvard Hagerup Grieg

Béla Bartók

The Hungarian composer and pianist Béla Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós (now Romania) on March 25, 1881. He died of leukemia in New York on September 26, 1945.
Béla Bartók