Michael Jackson was unquestionably the biggest pop star of the '80s, and certainly one of the most popular recording artists of all time. In his prime, Jackson was an unstoppable juggernaut, possessed of all the tools to dominate the charts seemingly at will: an instantly identifiable voice, eye-popp
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff[a] (Russian: Сергей Васильевич Рахманинов, Sergej Vasil’evič Rakhmaninov, 1 April 1873 [O.S. 20 March] – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, the l
Why, in the name of all that's decent and civil, would Tchaikovsky have remarked in his diary that Brahms was a "scoundrel" and "a giftless bastard"? What could summon such a fork-tongued comment about the great German composer?
For one, Johannes Brahms was extremely voluble in his own blunt opin
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