Maria Ctaeva

Acclaimed as one of the greatest interpreters of Mozart, Portuguese pianist Maria-João Pires is an artist who combines exquisite stylistic refinement with a serious effort to plumb the intellectual complexities and spiritual depths of music. Refusing to conform to the traditional image of a concert virtuoso, Pires emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of music, always searching for hidden meanings which may elude the analytical performer. This remarkable reverence toward works of music, clearly manifested in her performances of Mozart, was made explicit by her remark that, as a performer, she acts as a channel for the composer's ideas.

Maria Yudina is hailed by many to be among the greatest of the Russian female pianists. Yudina (1899-1970) not only studied piano, but conducting, the vocal arts, organ, philosophy and history. She and the great Sofronitsky had the same teacher for a while, and both went in different directions and had glorious careers at least in Russia. There is a huge world cult for Maria Yudina's recordings. I've discovered that piano afficianods either love her or hate her. The interest in the pianist is so strong that a new company by the name of Vista Vera, domiciled in Russia, has just issued their apparent final—volume 13—of both live and Melodiya-made recordings.

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660‐1725) is one of the most important composers of the Italian Baroque and the founder of the Neapolitan School. His immense output includes instrumental music but above all an enormous amount of vocal music, both sacred and profane.

Celebrated violinists Maria Milstein and Mathieu van Bellen pair Bela Bartok's 44 Duos for Two Violins with Luciano Berio's 34 Duetti per Due Violini. Bartok's miniature masterpieces have inspired and delighted countless young musicians.

Maria Callas was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy. Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.

Maria Callas wurde am 2. Dezember 1923 im New Yorker Stadtteil Washington Heights als zweite Tochter der griechischen Einwanderer George Kalogeropoulos (1881–1972) und Elmina Evangelia Dimitriadou (1894–1982) aus Meligalas geboren. Ihr älterer Bruder Vassilios war in Griechenland an Typhus gestorben. Die Eltern lebten zu diesem Zeitpunkt seit sechs Monaten in den USA.

Am 2. Dezember 2023 feiert die Welt den 100. Geburtstag von Maria Callas.

Am 2. Dezember 2023 feiert die Welt den 100. Geburtstag von Maria Callas.

Acclaimed as one of the greatest interpreters of Mozart, Portuguese pianist Maria-João Pires is an artist who combines exquisite stylistic refinement with a serious effort to plumb the intellectual complexities and spiritual depths of music. Refusing to conform to the traditional image of a concert virtuoso, Pires emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of music, always searching for hidden meanings which may elude the analytical performer. This remarkable reverence toward works of music, clearly manifested in her performances of Mozart, was made explicit by her remark that, as a performer, she acts as a channel for the composer's ideas.