Music

Opera has flourished in the United States. But how did this supposedly ‘elite’ art form become so deep-rooted in a nation devoted to popular culture and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal? Daniel Snowman explains.

A subject and servant of Europe’s most cosmopolitan empire, the composer Joseph Haydn played an important role in the emergence of German cultural nationalism during the 18th and 19th centuries, writes Tim Blanning.

The man who wrote the words of 'Hark! the Herald Angels Sing', 'Love Divine, All Loves Excelling' and hundreds of other much-loved hymns was born on December 18th, 1707.

The premiere of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at the Vienna opera house on December 23rd, 1806, was not a success.

Joannes Chrisostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27th, 1756.

Tom Neuhaus looks at the subversive young Germans known as Swing Youth who refused to have their hobbies and tastes dictated to them by the Nazis and provoked the regime by their devotion to American and British music and fashion.

Adrian Mourby welcomes a new wave of opera houses around the world, and compares this with the previous surge in the late 19th century.

Janet Vitmayer previews the new Music Gallery at the Horniman which is due to open this winter.

John D. Pelzer shows the connections between Jazz, Youth and the German Occupation.

Guiseppe Verdi, described by the Italian parliament as 'one of the highest expressions of the national genius' died on January 27th, 1901, aged 87.

Denis Stevens describes a unique system of social support in 18th-century Venice that brought great economic, social and cultural benefits.

Jayne Rosefield looks at the interaction between the composer and the dictator. Winner of the 1998 Julia Wood Prize.

Isaac Watts died on November 25th, 1748, aged seventy-four, in Stoke Newington, Hackney.