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In the late 19th century, Paris was an incredibly vibrant musical city. Alongside its nearly unrivaled musical scene, composers such as Saint-Saëns, Franck, Massenet, Faure, Debussy and Ravel had developed a veritable renaissance of French music. In this second part of a two-hour program featuring chamber music performances from the 2015 Savannah Music Festival, we…

Although Paris remained one of the paramount musical centers of Europe, French music during the 19th century was eclipsed by German and Austrian music, and by Italian opera. However, by the mid to late 19th century, the foundations for a renaissance of French music started taking place with such composers as Franck, Saint-Saëns, Massenet and…

By the close of the 18th century, Ludwig van Beethoven had established himself as one of Vienna’s most important pianists and composers. But in the early 1800s, Beethoven was forced to confront the onset of deafness. Though he responded by producing some of his greatest works over the next ten years, as the second decade…

As a banjoist, Bela Fleck is hard to define, so far-reaching are his influences and his musical excursions. After writing his first orchestral work, entitled “Impostor Concerto,” and getting a record deal for it, the immediate question was what else would he go on to record? He decided to write a piece for banjo quartet,…

For a composer who wrote every piece with a prominent piano part, Chopin’s genius is still completely remarkable. He was able, by the sheer quality and originality of his work, to be identified with his instrument in a consuming way. It is a marriage, and the two truly become one. When anyone plays Chopin, it…

While it’s common knowledge that Mozart was a young genius of music, he certainly wasn’t born that way. Mozart was a brilliant musician and composer, but he became that way because of how much training he received in his youth and because he worked hard at it for years. Like Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn was a…

There are few types of music that can lift you to a higher plane, that can get you close to an out-of-body moment, than Qawwali. Qawwali music is a form of Sufi devotional music popular in south Asia, primarily in the Punjab and Sindh regions of Pakistan, as well as parts of north India and…

Two of the foremost exponents of old-time music today are multi-instrumentalists Dirk Powell and Riley Baugus, who formed bonds with their grandparents to discover their musical roots stretching back to Scots-Irish ancestors that came to the mountains in the middle of the 18th century. These two men display a vibrant creative energy that crosses a…

It takes considerable bravery to name your band after one of the greatest jazz ensembles of the 20th century, but the Hot Club of Cowtown get away with it because they have spirit, originality and skill that would surely have impressed Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt back in the 1930s and 40s. The Texas trio…

Throughout the Americas during the 19th century, the rich harmonic and melodic forms from Europe melded with the complex and intoxicating rhythms from Africa. In Brazil, the most important musical style to emerge was called choro, which dates back to the 1870s when European dance forms combined with the local African rhythms of Rio de…

While most jazz piano trios have the piano front and center, there is one trio in which all members share equally in shaping the direction of the music. The Marcus Roberts Trio, made up of Roberts on piano, Rodney Jordan on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums, does so with lighting quick musical reflexes and…

In demand as both a performer and a composer, Edgar Meyer has formed a role in the music world unlike any other. One of the most remarkable virtuosos in the relatively unchronicled history of his instrument, Meyer’s technique and musicianship in combination with his gift for composition have brought him to the fore. In this…

It’s always interesting when an outstanding artist decides to recreate an existing work. It opens up our understanding of both the original and the new version. So when banjoist Noam Pikelny reimagined one of the standard-bearers for instrumental bluegrass, the 1976 recording entitled Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe, he wanted to be true to its…

That high lonesome sound known as bluegrass is a music steeped in tradition. Inspired by the music of Appalachia with roots in Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English traditional music, it first emerged in the 1930s when Kentucky native Bill Monroe formed his famous bluegrass boys. One of bluegrass music’s modern day masters is tenor and…

Beginning in the Renaissance period, the European guitar generally had four courses, each strung with two gut strings, and the pair of strings within each course tuned in unison. By the early 18th century, six double-strung courses had become common, and the changing number of courses in these early guitars reflected the ongoing desire on…

A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and contralto voice types. With a a vocal range extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above, mezzo-sopranos generally have a heavier, darker tone than sopranos, and a voice that resonates in a higher…

Long before the advent of concert halls, theaters and outdoor festivals, people gathered in their homes to play music and share the intimacy of musical expression in small rooms. While concert halls inside of homes have always been a part of music making, they hold a place of esteem in jazz history. Jazz house concerts…

When one thinks of bebop, the first musician that comes to mind is usually Charlie Parker, the pioneering alto-saxophone player and composer. In this episode, we listen to an early disciple of Parker’s, alto sax player Charles McPherson, who was born in 1939 and raised in Detroit. Mr. McPherson grew up surrounded by a wealth…

Emerging in the 18th century from the region of Andalusia in southern Spain, flamenco is a form of Spanish folk music and dance that is thought to have grown out of Andalusian and Romani music and dance styles. Born into a musical family in Andalusia, Jose Fernandez Torres acquired the moniker “Tomatito” after becoming a…

The many victorious performances made by Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly added timeless examples of small group jazz to a tradition that developed in the wake of the bebop movement of the 1940s. Working together, the three artists achieved a poetic level of expression that was as playful and tender as it was…

The art of musical composition generally consists of the manipulation of harmony, melody, form, rhythm and timbre. In the case of Johannes Brahms, creating such order was often an arduous task, and it was completely common of him to destroy the original version of a work if he thought it was in any way inadequate….

The great tradition of jazz piano in the early 20th century was probably best summarized by the father of stride piano, James P. Johnson, when he was asked which pianists he had learned things from in New York City. He responded by saying, “I loved Eubie Blake, Luckey Roberts, Willie the Lion Smith, and even…

The blues as such are synonymous with low spirits, blues music is not. With all its so-called blue notes and overtones of sadness, blues music is nothing if not a form of diversion. On this episode, we listen to a 2014 performance at the Charles H. Morris Center entitled “Ladies Sing the Blues,” featuring Catherine…