Carl Orff was an extremely private person, insisting that his work is the only important thing. When the editor for a lexicon on modern opera asked Orff to provide some bibliographical information, Orff replied: “Carl Orff, born in Munich, still living there.” His eight volume autobiography revea

Pioneering, Power, Primal, Religious, Repetitive, Rhythmic, Spiritual

Bach achieved a religious, mathematical, and musical ideal: he combined extreme complexity with impeccable stability, at once defining and surpassing Baroque ideals. From painting to music to architecture, the arts of the Baroque era took embellishment to its limit without surrendering harmony or uni

Baroque music, Ebullient, Layered, Mathematical, Organic, Religious, Repetitive, Serial

In "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf asks her readers to imagine that Shakespeare had a sister. Woolf contends that such a woman, regardless of how gifted she might have been, would have had no chance to be Shakespeare's equal; she would have been denied the education afforded her brother and lef

Contemplative, Feminist, Lush, Medieval era, Pioneering, Religious

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

Death, Dramatic, Eclectic, Moody, Organic, Religious, Romantic music