Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
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Music History Monday: There’s No Software Without the Hardware!
Today we celebrate the birthday of the piano builder and composer Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, who was born in Ruppertsthal, Austria on June 18, 1757: 261 years ago today. It’s entirely understandable if you’ve never heard of Pleyel or his music, because his music – despite being extremely attractive and technically sound – has fallen into…
Music History Monday: Richard Strauss
We celebrate the birth of the composer Richard Strauss, who was born on June 11, 1864, 154 years ago today. I will pull no punches here: in my humble (but happily expressed) opinion, Richard Strauss was one the greatest composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was a melodist and musical dramatist on near…
Music History Monday: Serge Koussevitzky and What it Takes to Be a Special Person!
If I were a rich man, yabba-dabba-dabba yabba-dabba-dabba-daba-doo… Now look, I will be the first to acknowledge how lucky I am: in a world filled with want and poverty, my family and I live in the greatest of comfort. (The old joke must be told. The flight attendant settles an elderly gentleman into his seat…
Music History Monday: Leopold Mozart
On this day in 1787 – 231 years ago – Leopold Mozart, the father of Wolfgang Mozart, died in Salzburg at the age of 67. For all of his talents as a violinist, violin teacher, conductor and composer, history would have forgotten Johann Georg Leopold Mozart almost entirely had he not fathered and trained one…