In yet another insightful stab at pop culture, the television show "South Park" aired an episode that posed this truly horrifying question: what would happen if Barbra Streisand came upon some secret power source that enabled her to be a many-times-exaggerated version of herself? The show dubbed this
Musicologists usually break up the great Ludwig van Beethoven's career into three periods: early, middle, and late. But to add a touch more flavor, you could call them the "I'm young and getting my feet wet" period, followed by the "Since I'm going deaf, I'm gonna get wacky and break some rules" peri
At age 12, Franz Liszt performed a rendition of Beethoven's "Symphony in C-minor" as the master composer sat in the audience. Legend has it that after the superb performance, the great maestro kissed the juvenile Liszt on the forehead. Liszt's future as the most brilliant of pianists seemed to be sea
Rossini's parents expected the future composer to get right to work -- they enrolled him in music lessons at the age of four. The young Rossini started writing compositions as a teenager; by the time he was in his 20s, he had already written more than seven operas. In 1812, Italy's most important ope