"Maybe, just maybe, we've found the next Mozart." Not just a six year old virtuoso, but a composer as well, Emily Bear seems likely to keep us listening longer than most precocious child pianists. As one tv talk show host has learned, as a composer Emily is both speedy and prolific.
posted by washburn on May 1, 2009 - 52 comments

5 Year Old Adopted South Korean Blind Piano Prodigy Yoo Ye-eun can play songs after hearing them once. Watch her perform with Britain's Got Talent's Connie Talbot in a South Korean TV show called "Star King".
posted by MythMaker on Jul 13, 2008 - 29 comments

A lovely free online text on the Fundamentals of Piano Practice. (Tuning, too.)
posted by Wolfdog on Jun 25, 2007 - 18 comments

Christel Assante carves eggshells into extraordinary pieces of art. SculptorRon Cheruka , who goes by the nickname "the egg man," also works in the medium of eggshell, but he is not quite as talented in my opinion, a Salieri to Assante's Mozart.
posted by jonson on Mar 4, 2007 - 17 comments

Search the complete works (including 8000 pages of critical commentary) of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a gift by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum on the occasion of his 250th birthday. (German links are also available).
posted by ubiquity on Dec 12, 2006 - 8 comments

All Mozart, all the time. "To celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday Swedish Radio launched a new service on the Internet: SR Mozart - a channel dedicated to the music of Mozart."
posted by four panels on Nov 28, 2006 - 11 comments

The opening theme of Mozart's symphony in G minor, K. 550 - on rollerblades and downhill.
posted by persona non grata on Sep 4, 2006 - 38 comments

So, most people know that Friday was the 250th birthday of some musical dude you might've heard of. But! Did you realise that this year also marks the 100th birthday of Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich? Debate over whether Shostakovich was a tortured artist, rebelling against Stalinist Russia, or a Soviet Sympathiser continues, but the fact remains he was a brilliant composer who left a lasting impression on film music, and composed complex works from 2 cello concertos, 15 string quartets, 15 symphonies Warning!: Last four links are direct to the BBC "Discovering Music" Real player streams.
posted by coriolisdave on Feb 1, 2006 - 14 comments

Mozart's musical diary - kept between 1784 and 1791 - goes online today courtesy of the British Library. There is a helpful audio commentary if you can't decipher his handwriting, plus excerpts from some of his music. The same site also has works by artists and authors such as Jane Austen, Leonardo da Vinci and Lewis Carroll.
posted by greycap on Jan 12, 2006 - 5 comments

Rondo Alla Iron Maiden (Program Notes, mp3s). As the name suggests, this new work for string quartet is a classical rondo in the style of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Composer Kurt Mortensen might rather you pay more attention to some of his other works, like this charming folk-tinged trio, but I had to go straight for the silly stuff.
posted by Wolfdog on Sep 28, 2005 - 16 comments

It's 25 Years Ago Today Since Maria Callas Died. There's a badly designed but well-intentioned and informative Italian website to commemorate the anniversary and there's the film Callas Forever, directed by one of her best friends (and the director of many of her most memorable operas, Franco Zefirelli. It premiered today. Mozart's Requiem was also played at the concert held in her honour tonight in Athens. I can't help thinking, though, that the Web is sorely lacking in resources about one of the greatest, most goosebump-provoking singers who ever lived. In fact, classical singers and classical music in general seem very (increasingly) badly served. Even the glorious Andante magazine, which I recently linked to, looks like it's disappeared...
posted by MiguelCardoso on Sep 16, 2002 - 21 comments

The Shot Chord Heard Round the World! On the morning of Nine Eleven 2002 at 8:46am, over 160 choirs across the world will sing Mozart's "Requiem" to metaphorically stand in for the thousands of voices silenced a year ago. Among all the ideas I've heard to commemorate this occasion, this one seems the most dignified, and least cringeworthy. They mentioned it on NPR's Morning Edition (caution: Real Audio file).
posted by ZachsMind on Sep 10, 2002 - 33 comments

Not Salieri but Schnitzel the latest theory about what did in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is that he might have contracted trichinosis from some spoiled pork cutlets. "Why Antonio, I'd just die for some wiener schniztel right now," Wolfgang exclaimed. "Yes, you would," sneered Salieri.......
posted by briank on Jun 11, 2001 - 18 comments