Shostakovich is often, in musical circles, called the greatest composer of the twentieth century. Yet the quality of his music is so uneven that, while a third of it is the brain-bombing work of a divine genius, another third is almost worthless, and another third scares young violinists into abandon

20th-century music, Catastrophe, Lyrical, Melancholy, Moody, Pathos, Visceral

Johnny Cash is "The Man in Black." A patriarch of country music, Cash has played with and influenced some of the greatest figures in contemporary music. Cash has a voice that can bend steel. Deep, resonant, and manly, when combined with his songs' marching bass lines, the Cash voice evokes a sense of

Dark, Gritty, Intimate, Masculine, Pathos

The exact circumstances of Giuseppe Verdi's birth are lost to history; history, and we, have wanted to know them. Some speculate he was born on October 10, 1813, others turned his supposed birthplace into a national monument, but the composer himself refused to confirm the accuracy of these biographi

Epic, Lyrical, Melancholy, Pathos