“No one feels another’s grief, no one understands another’s joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality, they only pass each other by”, said Franz Schubert said once. There is a bitter truth in his words, isn’t there?
By 1811, Austria, exhausted from the Napoleonic Wars, was in a situation of crisis. Ludwig van Beethoven faced a kind of crisis too. He had serious financial difficulties. His attempt to marry – far from his first! – had ended…
If you have been to an old cemetery, you have seen how cruel time is. Even the headstones which were placed a hundred years ago often seem half-destroyed: sad angels without heads sit on the cracked steles, names of the…
Pieces of classical music tend to be relatively long. Even their separate parts often last up to fifteen minutes. Fine themes unfold gradually and enter into complicated relationships with each other. Preludes by Frédéric Chopin from Op. 28, in contrast,…
In many popular movies, battles are the most gripping scenes. We admire mighty heroes killing several enemies with one blow. We enjoy the heat of combat, the thrill of victory… Here are a piece of music and a painting, both…