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Classical Music November Anniversaries: A Information

by Admin | Oct 26, 2026 | Classic, Musical Industry

Classical music anniversaries in November span practically 4 centuries, from Jean-Baptiste Lully’s delivery in 1632 to Nelson Freire’s loss of life in 2021.

This month gave us the births of Bellini, Borodin, Falla, Joplin, and Hindemith; the deaths of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, and Schubert; and premieres starting from Brahms’s second piano concerto to a Schumann violin concerto that spent practically a century locked away by the individuals who beloved him most.

Beneath is a day-by-day information to the month’s important dates, deaths, and debuts – and the drama behind each.

November 1, 2021

Loss of life of Nelson Freire

Freire performs Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2

The nice Brazilian pianist died at his residence in Rio de Janeiro, simply two weeks after his 77th birthday.

Often known as “the kid with golden palms,” Freire gave his first public recital at 4. At fourteen he went to Vienna to check with Bruno Seidlhofer, alongside fellow college students Martha Argerich and Friedrich Gulda. He went on to document a lot of the piano duo repertoire with Argerich and have become a celebrated Chopin interpreter.

Away from the stage, he was famously reserved and gave few interviews, letting his taking part in converse for him.

We revisited the documentary that captured this famously personal musician right here: https://interlude.hk/nelson-freire-born-on-october-18-1944when-music-speaks/.

November 2, 1739

Delivery of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf

Dittersdorf’s Double Bass Concerto

Dittersdorf was a fixture within the Classical-era Viennese music scene, and he counted Haydn and Mozart amongst his chamber music companions.

He was additionally a prolific composer, writing roughly 120 symphonies over his profession.

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf

His double bass concerto is among the uncommon Classical-era showcases for the instrument, requiring solo virtuosity from gamers normally caught in orchestral sections.

We wrote an introduction to 6 of Dittersdorf’s enjoyable and fanciful symphonies: https://interlude.hk/fanciful-stories-in-music-dittersdorf-ovid-symphonies-i/.

November 3, 1801

Delivery of Vincenzo Bellini

Bellini’s “Casta Diva” from Norma

Bellini was born in Catania, Sicily, right into a household {of professional} musicians; his father and grandfather have been composers, organists, and academics.

He grew as much as turn out to be considered one of opera’s nice melodists. His “Casta Diva” from Norma is among the most beloved soprano arias within the repertoire.

We dug into the story of Bellini’s childhood right here – together with how, in accordance with household legend, he may sing arias by the point he was eighteen months previous: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-3-november-vincenzo-bellini-was-born/.

November 4, 1847

Loss of life of Felix Mendelssohn

Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 6

Mendelssohn died at 38 within the aftermath of a stroke – simply months after the devastating loss of life of his sister Fanny from the identical trigger.

His String Quartet No. 6, written after her loss of life, is commonly heard as a musical response to his grief; its urgency and turbulence depart from the polished model normally related to him.

Eduard Magnus: Felix Mendelssohn, 1846 (Berlin State Library)

We informed the horrifying story of Mendelssohn’s loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-4-november-felix-mendelssohn-died/.

November 5, 1989

Loss of life of Vladimir Horowitz

Horowitz taking part in Schumann’s “Träumerei”

Horowitz died of a coronary heart assault at his New York townhouse on the finish of a decades-long worldwide profession.

He had a particular affinity with Romantic-era music, and his late-in-life interpretations of Schumann’s “Träumerei” are particularly legendary.

Vladimir Horowitz (1986)

We answered the fifteen most often requested questions on Horowitz right here: https://interlude.hk/the-fifteen-most-faqs-about-vladimir-horowitz-stage-fright-flat-fingers-and-more/.

November 6, 1893

Loss of life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6

Tchaikovsky died simply 9 days after conducting the premiere of his Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique,” a piece he known as the perfect factor he’d ever written.

The official trigger was cholera, contracted from a glass of unboiled water at a restaurant. Nonetheless, generations of biographers have proposed options – that the loss of life was suicide or tied to an rising scandal over his attraction to males.

We informed the story of Tchaikovsky’s tragic sickness and loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-6-november-pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovsky-died/.

November 7, 1934

Premiere of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

Rachmaninoff wrote the Rhapsody in simply six weeks, creating twenty-four variations out of the Paganini caprice that had already impressed Liszt and Brahms.

He premiered it himself with the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Leopold Stokowski, throughout a live performance in Baltimore.

The work is particularly well-known for its eighteenth variation, a hovering, upside-down model of the theme that turned considered one of his most beloved melodies.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1892

We explored the background of the Rhapsody right here – and why Rachmaninoff is commonly quoted as saying of the eighteenth variation, “This piece is for my agent.”: https://interlude.hk/creme-de-menthe-variationssergei-rachmaninoff-rhapsody-on-a-theme-of-paganini/.

November 8, 1883

Delivery of Sir Arnold Bax

Bax’s Tintagel

Bax grew up in a rich London family, taught himself to improvise on the piano as a baby earlier than he ever had formal classes, and later studied on the Royal Academy of Music.

He was particularly impressed by Irish and Celtic fantasy. That inspiration produced Tintagel, his tone poem evoking a ruined fort on the Cornish coast.

We known as Arnold Bax “far and away essentially the most uncared for British composer who flourished within the first half of the twentieth century.” Discover out why right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-8-november-arnold-bax-was-born/.

November 9, 1881

Premiere of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2

Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2

Brahms wryly described this concerto to a good friend as “a tiny little piano concerto with a wisp of a scherzo.” In truth, it’s a mammoth four-movement work that redefined what a piano concerto could possibly be.

Its uncommon scherzo motion started life as a discarded center motion for his violin concerto, however Brahms determined it didn’t match and reworked it right here as an alternative.

We dug into the concerto’s historical past right here: https://interlude.hk/when-the-symphony-embraces-the-concerto-brahms-piano-concerto-no-2-op-83/.

November 10, 1928

Delivery of Ennio Morricone

Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission

Morricone was born in Rome to knowledgeable trumpeter and began composing at six. He entered the Rome Conservatory at twelve, constructing a classical basis earlier than turning into one of the recognisable movie composers of the twentieth century.

Ennio Morricone

He scored greater than 500 motion pictures, and his unconventional instrumentation – his use of whistling, cracking whips, and jaw harp – turned central to these movies’ identification.

After Morricone died in 2020, we wrote a tribute: https://interlude.hk/in-memoriam-ennio-morricone-1928-2020/.

November 11, 1994

Loss of life of Elisabeth Maconchy

Maconchy’s String Quartet No. 1

Together with Bax, Maconchy was one of the underrated British composers of the twentieth century.

She studied on the Royal Faculty of Music underneath Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Though she confronted sexism working in interwar Britain, she constructed a big physique of labor marked by taut development and emotional depth.

In the present day her best-known works are her 13 string quartets.

November 12, 1833

Delivery of Alexander Borodin

Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor

Borodin was born in St. Petersburg, the illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian prince and a a lot youthful Russian girl.

Regardless of that precarious begin, he confirmed a expertise for each music and chemistry, coaching as a doctor and analysis chemist whereas composing on the aspect.

Alexander Borodin

That double life makes the “Polovtsian Dances” from his opera Prince Igor particularly outstanding. It’s a number of the most vivid, exoticist orchestral writing of the Russian nationalist college – and it was written by a person who by no means thought of composing his day job.

We dug into Borodin’s childhood right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-12-november-alexander-borodin-was-born/.

November 13, 1868

Loss of life of Gioachino Rossini

Rossini’s Overture from Wilhelm Inform

Rossini spent a lot of his life managing the fallout from a gonorrhea an infection, which triggered many years of problems together with most cancers, the illness that killed him after two operations in Paris.

He retired from opera in 1829, on the peak of his fame, instantly after composing the wildly profitable opera Wilhelm Inform.

His funeral in Paris drew 1000’s. Fittingly for Rossini, newspapers on the time famous the temper was nearer to a festive live performance than a sombre service.

We wrote about Rossini’s power well being points and funeral right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-13-november-gioachino-rossini-died/.

November 14, 1805

Delivery of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet

Fanny and her youthful brother Felix have been educated by the identical academics from childhood, and each have been prodigies.

Nevertheless, Fanny couldn’t pursue the identical form of public music profession Felix had due to expectations round her gender and her household’s social standing.

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel

Regardless of this, she wrote greater than 450 works, most of them unpublished in her lifetime. She’d lately determined to start out publishing extra when she died all of a sudden of a stroke in Might 1847.

Felix was devastated; his closing string quartet was privately subtitled “Requiem for Fanny.”

We wrote an article about Fanny and Felix’s profound musical bond right here: https://interlude.hk/felix-and-fanny-mendelssohn-compared-nine-works-that-reveal-their-intertwined-genius/.

November 15, 1787

Loss of life of Christoph von Gluck

Gluck’s “Che farò senza Euridice?” from Orfeo ed Euridice

Gluck spent the 1760s dismantling considered one of opera’s most entrenched conventions: the da capo aria, which paused the story’s drama so singers may exhibit improvised ornamentation throughout a repeated part.

Joseph Siffred Duplessis: Christoph Willibald von Gluck, 1775 (Kunsthistorisches Museum)

Orfeo ed Euridice, his first reform opera, turned well-known for its lack of showy arias. Its lamenting aria “Che farò senza Euridice?” has been sung by everybody from contraltos to baritones to countertenors ever since.

Gluck died in 1787 as one of many best reformers in operatic historical past.

We gathered 75 years of recordings of Gluck’s well-known opera Orfeo ed Euridice right here: https://interlude.hk/christoph-willibald-gluck-born-on-july-2-1714-75-years-of-recordings-of-orfeo-ed-euridice/.

November 16, 1895

Delivery of Paul Hindemith

Hindemith’s Symphonie Mathis der Maler

After World Battle I, Paul Hindemith emerged as a number one voice of the German avant-garde.

He educated as a violinist earlier than specializing in composition, ultimately growing his muscular, contrapuntally dense model.

That model reached its pinnacle in his Mathis der Maler (Matthias the Painter) symphony, drawn from his opera in regards to the painter Matthias Grünewald.

The opera follows Grünewald as he struggles to grasp the aim of artwork in a time of political violence – a topic that resonated notably strongly for Hindemith, given his more and more fraught place in Nazi Germany.

We wrote about Hindemith’s childhood right here – and why his father compelled Paul and his siblings to check music: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-16-november-paul-hindemith-was-born/.

November 17, 1888

Premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5

Tchaikovsky was initially anxious about his fifth symphony, writing to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that he sensed one thing insincere and overworked in it, regardless of its heat reception from critics and audiences.

Luckily, he fell again in love with it when he carried out it on tour. In the present day, it’s one of the beloved symphonies of the nineteenth century.

We seemed on the symphony’s historical past right here: https://interlude.hk/darkness-and-light-tchaikovskys-symphony-no-5/.

November 18, 1953

Loss of life of Ruth Crawford Seeger

Seeger’s Suite for Wind Quintet

Ruth Crawford Seeger died of intestinal most cancers shortly after composing her Suite for Wind Quintet. This work marked a short, hopeful return to composition after twenty years away.

Throughout the Nineteen Twenties and early Nineteen Thirties, she’d been considered one of American ultramodernism’s most strident voices, and her 1931 String Quartet is among the period’s most influential works.

Ruth Crawford Seeger

However after the mid-Nineteen Thirties, she got here to see composing ultramodern music for its personal sake as indefensible amid the Melancholy’s grinding poverty. She centered on elevating her youngsters and transcribing American folks songs for songbooks like American Folks Songs for Kids – work that formed how generations of People first encountered folks music.

We wrote about Seeger’s life through the Nice Melancholy right here: https://interlude.hk/ruth-crawford-seeger-depressing/.

November 19, 1828

Loss of life of Franz Schubert

Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 21

Schubert died at thirty-one in his brother’s Vienna condominium of a years-long syphilis an infection.

Between spring and autumn of his closing 12 months, he accomplished his final three piano sonatas, works so thematically and structurally intertwined that students usually deal with them as a trilogy.

The Sonata No. 21 in B-flat is the final of the three and is commonly thought of their fruits.

We wrote about Schubert’s closing months, together with his battle with syphilis and his loss of life: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-19-november-franz-schubert-died/.

November 20, 1894

Loss of life of Anton Rubinstein

Rubinstein’s Romance in E-flat main

Composer Anton Rubinstein died at residence exterior St. Petersburg at age 64. Historian Philip S. Taylor wrote, “The composer’s physique lay in an open coffin. Two rows of troopers lined the route from the railing surrounding the catafalque to the church pulpit, and the western entrance to Trinity Church in St. Petersburg was filled with police.”

Anton Rubinstein silhouette

Throughout Rubinstein’s lifetime, he was most well-known for his piano taking part in and compositions.

His music could have fallen out of style right this moment, however his affect on Russian music was profound.

We wrote about Rubinstein’s loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-20-november-anton-rubinstein-died/.

November 21, 1695

Loss of life of Henry Purcell

Purcell’s Rondeau from Abdelazer

Purcell died in Westminster at age 36, having spent his brief profession navigating the twin position of church and courtroom composer.

His anthems for the Chapel Royal ranged from intimate “full anthems” for unaccompanied voices to lavish “symphony anthems” constructed for orchestra and soloists.

One in all Purcell’s personal funeral anthems, “Thou Knowest, Lord,” was carried out at his burial in Westminster Abbey – then, centuries later, on the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

We wrote about Purcell’s legacy of church and courtroom music right here: https://interlude.hk/henry-purcells-sacred-legacy-the-art-of-the-anthem/.

November 22, 1710

Delivery of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Bach’s Sinfonia in D minor

Wilhelm Friedemann was Johann Sebastian Bach’s second little one and eldest son – and by most up to date accounts, his most naturally gifted.

His father wrote the Clavier-Büchlein partly as a instructing software, personally guiding a lot of his early coaching.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm held prestigious organist posts in Dresden and Halle for over twenty years, however his profession steadily unravelled as a result of monetary mismanagement and a popularity for unreliability.

He died in poverty in Berlin in 1784, largely unpublished and depending on his college students for earnings.

We checked out Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s life right here: https://interlude.hk/bach-babies-in-music-wilhelm-friedemann-bach-1710-1784/.

November 23, 1876

Delivery of Manuel de Falla

de Falla’s Nights within the Gardens of Spain

Falla was born in Cádiz to a service provider father and a pianist mom. As a baby, he deliberate to turn out to be a author earlier than deciding at seventeen to give attention to composition as an alternative.

His decisive affect was his instructor Felipe Pedrell, a scholar dedicated to reviving Spanish music by way of folks music. That inspiration exhibits all through Noches en los jardines de España (“Nights within the Gardens of Spain”), which mixes impressionistic orchestral color with Andalusian environment.

We wrote about de Falla’s childhood right here – and the story of the imaginary utopian metropolis he ruled as a baby: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-23-november-manuel-de-falla-is-born/.

November 24, 1868

Delivery of Scott Joplin

Joplin’s “The Entertainer”

Scott Joplin’s delivery date is commonly given as 24 November 1868, although students have lately questioned it, together with the precise location of his delivery. His father was previously enslaved, and information are scarce.

Scott Joplin in 1912

Though his “Maple Leaf Rag” made him wealthy and well-known, Joplin aimed for much more formidable objectives. He spent the latter a part of his life writing and attempting, in useless, to stage his opera Treemonisha – a piece that wouldn’t attain the stage till many years after he died.

We wrote about how Joplin was the king of ragtime and an opera pioneer right here: https://interlude.hk/scott-joplin-1868-1917-king-of-ragtime-and-opera-pioneer/.

November 25, 1965

Loss of life of Dame Myra Hess

Hess taking part in her association of “Jesu, Pleasure of Man’s Needing”

Hess was a beloved pianist within the first half of the twentieth century, however she is greatest remembered for what she did through the Blitz. Fairly than let the battle silence London’s musical life, she organised practically 1,700 lunchtime live shows on the Nationwide Gallery, performing in 150 of them herself.

Londoners queued round Trafalgar Sq. for the primary live performance, and the crowds saved coming all through the battle. She was finally made a Dame for her efforts to enhance wartime morale.

We informed her outstanding story right here: https://interlude.hk/great-women-artists-shaped-music-iv-dame-myra-hess/.

November 26, 1937

Premiere of Schumann’s Violin Concerto

Schumann wrote this concerto in a feverish three-week burst in 1853, shortly earlier than a suicide try led to his admittance to the asylum the place he’d die.

Joseph Joachim, the violinist it was devoted to, thought the piece betrayed Schumann’s declining psychological state, and he satisfied Clara Schumann and Brahms to assist him suppress it.

Joachim ultimately willed the manuscript to the Prussian State Library with directions that it keep sealed for a century.

Jelly d’Aranyi

It resurfaced by chance in 1933, when Joachim’s violinist grandniece, Jelly d’Arányi, discovered the rating, claiming her great-uncle’s spirit had led her to it.

We informed the otherworldly story of rediscovering Schumann’s violin concerto right here: https://interlude.hk/unsung-concertos-robert-schumann-violin-concerto-woo-23/.

November 27, 1955

Loss of life of Arthur Honegger

Honegger’s Pacific 231

Honegger was a member of Les Six, a unfastened collective of French composers lively within the Nineteen Twenties and Nineteen Thirties who embraced a lean, trendy model.

He’s greatest remembered right this moment for “Pacific 231,” an orchestral work with relentless rhythms that has reminded many listeners of a steam prepare. (For his half, Honegger denied the connection.)

We checked out “Pacific 231” and its two companion items right here: https://interlude.hk/world-captured-music/.

November 28, 1632

Delivery of Jean-Baptiste Lully

Lully’s Suite from “Le Bourgeois gentilhomme”

The Italian-born Lully arrived in France at age fourteen and took a job as a tutor, instructing Italian to a French princess.

He educated as a dancer, and through one royal ballet rehearsal, sped up music he discovered too gradual and carried out a number of roles himself. The teenage Louis XIV was impressed and named him courtroom composer.

He dominated French music for many years, specialising in overtures and full of life courtroom dances.

We wrote in regards to the starting of Lully’s turbulent life journey right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-28-november-jean-baptiste-lully-was-born/.

November 29, 1924

Loss of life of Giacomo Puccini

Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi

Puccini died in Brussels after an aggressive, experimental remedy for throat most cancers. He’d travelled to Belgium particularly to bear a brutal process involving crystal needles implanted instantly into the tumour.

Initially, he gave the impression to be recovering, however he died and collapsed from coronary heart failure on 29 November 1924.

Giacomo Puccini

We wrote an article about his sickness and loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-29-november-giacomo-puccini-died/.

November 30, 1813

Delivery of Charles-Valentin Alkan

Alkan’s “Le Festin d’Esope”

Alkan was top-of-the-line pianists of his technology: a rival of Liszt and Chopin.

Regardless of that popularity, his profession stalled dramatically in his thirties. Handed over for a coveted instructing put up on the Paris Conservatoire after which devastated by Chopin’s loss of life in 1849, he withdrew from public musical life for practically twenty years, retreating into Biblical scholarship as an alternative.

Charles-Valentin Alkan

A lot of his output stays genuinely obscure even now, overshadowed by the reclusiveness that outlined the second half of his profession.

We informed the story of how Alkan grew as much as turn out to be one of many century’s most profitable pianists right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-30-november-charles-valentin-alkan-was-born/.

Conclusion

Thirty days, thirty tales: courtroom composers and ragtime pioneers, prodigies and late bloomers, symphonies completed in triumph, and concertos suppressed out of affection.

What’s your favorite November classical music anniversary to look at?

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Oxymorons in Music: When Titles Contradict Themselves

by Admin | Oct 5, 2026 | Classic, Musical Industry

Many items of music have names that, on deeper reflection, are actually oxymorons: the 2 phrases contradict one another. Some acquainted oxymorons embody jumbo shrimp, deafening silence, awfully good, unique copy, and bittersweet, giving us a approach to specific the massive model of a small factor, the emphatic silence that follows a noise, and so forth. Collectively, the phrases create one thing greater than the person phrases can.

In music, we now have works comparable to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. If a concerto is a soloist (or group of soloists as in a Triple Concerto), who’s the named soloist right here? Every part of the orchestra turns into the soloist at completely different occasions. This turns into clearest within the second motion, the Sport of Pairs (II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegro scherzando), the place pairs of devices, beginning with the bassoons, take turns as soloist.

Béla Bartók, 1943

Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, BB 123: II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegro scherzando (Belgian Radio and Tv Philharmonic Orchestra; Alexander Rahbari, cond.)

The identical may be stated for Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Whenever you consider a dance social gathering, you hardly ever invite a symphony! On this case, Rachmaninoff supposed the items for a proposed new ballet by the choreographer Fokin, however his loss of life ended that concept. Rachmaninoff then pulled all the fabric collectively in what’s a symphony in all however identify. Moreover, the three actions had been supposed to symbolize completely different occasions of day: the primary as Mid-Day, the second as Twilight, and the third as Midnight. To strengthen the night time theme, the work pits the forces of Demise, represented by the Dies irae melody from the Requiem, in opposition to the forces of Redemption, represented by the triumph of the ultimate Alleluia, taken from the Russian liturgy.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1921

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: III. Lento assai – Allegro vivace – Lento assai – Come prima – Allegro vivace (Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Slatkin, cond.)

We are able to at all times rely on Erik Satie for titles that puzzle: Trois morceaux en forme de poire (Three items within the type of a pear). Debussy had been telling Satie for a while to pay extra consideration to musical kind, so Satie created these items, which he stated had been ‘pear-shaped’. In English, we hear the title as ‘3 Items within the type of a Pair’, which isn’t what Satie meant. The pun comes not solely from the concept of a pear as a musical kind (when what Debussy meant was sonata kind, or rondo kind), but additionally from the French pun on the phrase ‘poire’, which may imply ‘nitwit’. Apart from, there are 7 items, not 3, with 4 items framing the center three actions, numbered I., II., and III.

Erik Satie

Erik Satie: Trois Morceaux en forme de poire: II (Enleve) (Olof Höjer, piano; Max Lorstad, piano)

We may additionally take a look at Felix Mendelssohn’s many Songs with out Phrases. Songs, by their very definition, have phrases. Mendelssohn wrote almost 50 of those lyrical works, and, collectively along with his sister Fanny, they invented a brand new style of music. Felix Mendelssohn by no means supposed the music to be set to phrases, saying ‘What the music I like expresses to me, isn’t thought too indefinite to place into phrases, however quite the opposite, too particular’ (Mendelssohn’s italics). He knew what he was expressing in purely musical phrases and didn’t want phrases so as to add something to that concept.

Eduard Magnus: Felix Mendelssohn (Berlin State Library)

Felix Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte (Songs with out Phrases), Ebook 7, Op. 85: No. 41 in A Main, Op. 85, No. 5, MWV U191 (1847 model) (Christopher Williams, piano)

In fact, we may at all times add the American Quartet written by Antonín Dvořák, a Czech, Beethoven’s elimination of the dedication of his third Symphony and its renaming to its much less private title because the ‘Eroica’.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 title web page, with the dedicatee’s identify (Napoleon Bonaparte) forcibly eliminated.

The ultimate motion of Haydn’s Joke Quartet (Op. 33/2) performs a joke on the listener’s expectations with a grand pause on the finish…or is it the tip? The silence is adopted by a sudden, loud sixteenth word, then the violin performs the A theme, however with rests added that break up the music each 2 measures. The rests develop longer, and also you’re by no means fairly positive when the piece ends. Actually, the music ends abruptly and leaves the listener hanging in mid-phrase – is the joke that Haydn has fled the room? The oxymoron lies within the non-musical elements of a string quartet!

Thomas Hardy: Joseph Haydn, 1791 (London: Royal School of Music)

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet No. 30 in E-Flat Main, Op. 33, No. 2, Hob.III:38, “The Joke”: IV. Finale (Kodály Quartet)

It might be the title, or it might be hidden within the music, however oxymorons are in all places!

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Liszt Quotes: 15 Issues He Stated About Music, Life, and Genius

by Admin | Aug 24, 2026 | Classic, Musical Industry

Franz Liszt was many issues: essentially the most celebrated piano virtuoso of the nineteenth century, a prolific composer, a conductor, a instructor, and a Catholic abbé.

He was additionally a prodigious letter-writer, and his correspondence reveals a thoughts that was stressed, opinionated, and surprisingly self-aware.

Franz Liszt

The quotes beneath are drawn from his letters and journals throughout six a long time – from a frenetic younger man pushing himself to the sting, to an previous man who had outlived two of his youngsters and most of his contemporaries.

Liszt on Different Composers

Liszt on Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven, 1804 (Joseph Willibrord Mähler)

Beethoven wasn’t simply an affect on Liszt and his contemporaries; he was a compass.

In 1852, Liszt reached for some of the hanging metaphors in his total correspondence to clarify what Beethoven’s music meant to him.

For us musicians, Beethoven’s work is just like the pillar of cloud and hearth which guided the Israelites via the desert – a pillar of cloud to information us by day, a pillar of fireside to information us by evening, “in order that we could progress each day and evening.” His obscurity and his mild hint for us equally the trail we’ve to observe; they’re every of them a perpetual commandment, an infallible revelation.

– Liszt writing to his pal Wilhelm von Lenz, 1852 (age 41)

Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5

Liszt on Schumann

Robert Schumann

Liszt and Schumann each had nice respect for each other. The particular and enthusiastic reward Liszt provided Schumann within the late 1830s is noteworthy.

[Your] Carnaval and the Fantasiestücke have me excessively. I play them actually with delight, and God is aware of that I can’t say as a lot of many issues. To talk frankly and freely, it’s completely solely Chopin’s compositions and yours which have a strong curiosity for me. The remainder don’t deserve the honour of being talked about…

– Liszt to Robert Schumann, 1838 (age 27)

As to the Kinderscenen, I owe to them one of many biggest pleasures of my life. , otherwise you don’t know, that I’ve somewhat woman of three years previous, whom everyone agrees in contemplating angelic (did you ever hear such a commonplace?). Her identify is Blandine-Rachel… [She is] essentially the most silent youngster, essentially the most sweetly grave, essentially the most philosophically homosexual on the earth. I’ve each cause to hope additionally that she won’t be a musician, from which can Heaven protect her!

Nicely, my expensive Monsieur Schumann, two or 3 times per week (on tremendous and good days!) I play your Kinderscenen to her within the night; this enchants her, and me nonetheless extra, as it’s possible you’ll think about, so that usually I am going over the primary repeat twenty occasions with out going any additional.

– Liszt to Robert Schumann, 1839 (age 28)

Robert Schumann: Kinderscenen, Op. 15: VII. Träumerei (Dreaming) (Detlef Kraus, piano)

Liszt on Wagner

Richard Wagner

When Wagner arrived in Weimar in 1849 – a fugitive from the Dresden rebellion, broke and politically radioactive – Liszt was one of many few folks prepared to obtain him. Liszt’s evaluation of Wagner was characteristically direct.

Richard Wagner, a conductor from Dresden, has been right here since yesterday. That may be a man of fantastic genius, such a brain-splitting genius certainly as beseems this nation, – a brand new and good look in Artwork.

– Liszt writing to his pal Gaetano Belloni, 1849 (age 38)

Liszt’s piano transcription of Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

Liszt on Berlioz

Gustave Courbet: Hector Berlioz, 1850 (Musée d’Orsay)

Liszt was one in all Berlioz‘s most dedicated champions, programming his work at Weimar when nearly nobody else would. However his admiration got here with clear-eyed circumstances, as this letter exhibits.

However it will likely be crucial so that you can have a number of rehearsals – and certainly separate rehearsals for the quartet, and separate rehearsals for the wind devices. The impact of Berlioz’s works can solely be uncommonly good when the efficiency of them is passable. They’re equally unsuited to the abnormal worthy theatre and live performance maker, as a result of they require the next creative standpoint from the musician’s facet.

– Liszt writing to his pal Gustav Schmidt, 1853 (age 42)

Liszt on Craft and Problem

Franz Liszt, 1843 (photograph by Herman Blow)

Liszt on What He Practised – and Learn

At twenty-one, Liszt was in the midst of a interval of ferocious self-reinvention – linking his research of literature and music, studying all the pieces, taking part in all the pieces, pushing his pianistic approach to the sting of what was thought of potential. This letter captures that frenetic youthful temper.

Here’s a complete fortnight that my thoughts and fingers have been working like two misplaced spirits, – Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Byron, Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber, are throughout me. I research them, meditate on them, devour them with fury; apart from this I practise 4 to 5 hours of workout routines (3rds, 6ths, 8ths, tremolos, repetition of notes, cadences, and so on., and so on.). Ah! offered I don’t go mad, you can find an artist in me!

– Liszt to his pal Pierre Wolff, Jr., 1832 (age 21)

Liszt on the Variations Between Publishing Music and Literature

Right here Liszt made a quiet however pointed statement concerning the distinction between how writers and composers deal with publishing their very own work.

In literature, the manufacturing of very a lot altered, elevated, and improved editions is not any unusual factor. In works each essential and trivial, alterations, additions, various divisions of intervals, and so on., are a typical expertise of an writer. Within the area of music such a factor is extra minute and tougher – and subsequently it’s seldom executed. Nonetheless, I do think about it very worthwhile to appropriate one’s errors so far as potential and to utilize the experiences one positive factors from the editions of the works themselves.

– Liszt to his pal Alfred Dörffel, 1855 (age 44)

Liszt on Standing on Creative Ideas

That is one in all Liszt’s most candid letters: a frank admission of a mistake he made throughout his live performance touring years, and the lesson he drew from it.

The frequent ill-success of my performances of Schumann’s compositions, each in non-public circles and in public, discouraged me from together with and retaining them within the programmes of my concert events which adopted so quickly on each other – programmes which, partly from need of time and partly from carelessness and satiety of the “Glanz-Periode” [Splendor Period] of my pianoforte-playing, I seldom, besides within the rarest circumstances, deliberate myself, however gave them now into this one’s palms, and now that one, to decide on what they appreciated. That was a mistake, as I found later and deeply regretted, once I had discovered to know that for the artist who needs to be worthy of the identify of artist the hazard of not pleasing the general public is a far much less one than that of permitting oneself to be determined by its humors – and to this hazard each govt artist is particularly uncovered, if he doesn’t take braveness resolutely and on precept to face earnestly and persistently by his conviction, and to provide these works which he is aware of to be one of the best, whether or not folks like them or not.

– Liszt to his pal J.W. von Wasielewski, 1857 (age 45)

Franz Liszt: Schumann — Liebeslied, S566/R253, “Widmung” (Louis Lortie, piano)

Liszt on How A lot Pianists Ought to Program Him

Liszt live performance cartoon

Primarily based on his exuberant, extroverted, virtuosic music, you may assume that Liszt had an enormous ego – however as this wry statement from his previous age signifies, he had a noticeable streak of humility…or not less than self-awareness.

An hour and a half of my pianoforte music, nevertheless admirably performed, is greater than ample.

– Liszt to his pal Jules de Zarembski, 1881 (age 70)

Liszt on Genius

Genius is the company via which the supernatural is revealed to man.

– Liszt, date unknown

Liszt on Individuals and Disappointment

Liszt on His Buddies and Enemies

By 1838 Liszt was well-known sufficient to have amassed a major quantity of people that wished one thing from him. He had taken their measure.

I do know that an awesome most of the individuals who strategy me with a smile on their lips, and protestations of friendship on their tongues, don’t have anything higher to do than to tug me to items as finest they will as quickly as they’re exterior my door. It’s, furthermore, the destiny of all of the world. I resign myself to it willingly, as I do to all of the absurd and odious requirements of this decrease world. There may be, apart from, simply this a lot good in these unhappy experiences of varied relations with males – which is, that one learns to relish and admire higher the devotion of the few buddies whom probability has thrown in your path.

– Liszt to his pal Simon Lowy, 1838 (age 27)

Liszt on Ineffective Individuals

Christian Louis Köhler

Liszt wrote this grievance to his pal Louis Kohler in 1853. By that point, he’d largely retired from the live performance stage in favour of composing and main the Weimar court docket orchestra, however he nonetheless had points budgeting his time and power.

Suppose I may solely get rid of my time higher! However it’s a wretched distress to must spend one’s time upon so many ineffective issues and other people, when one’s head is kind of stuffed with different issues! – Nicely, it have to be so.

– Liszt to his pal Louis Kohler, 1853 (age 42)

Liszt on Struggling

By the top of his life, Liszt had survived a number of private losses and tragedies. Late in life, he grew to become reflective about methods to grapple with them.

Struggling, ache, and sorrow are the lot of mankind… Since all of us should stay and die, tell us how to take action in noble simplicity.

– Liszt to his pal Olga Von Meyendorff, 1881 (age 70)

Liszt on Making the Most of Life

Two quotes, fifty-nine years aside. The primary comes from his journal at sixteen; the second recorded by his scholar Arthur Friedheim when Liszt was seventy-five. His need to stay life to its fullest by no means modified.

Losing time is without doubt one of the worst faults on the earth. Life is so brief, each second is so valuable; but we stay as if life won’t ever finish.

– Liszt in his journal, 1827 (age 16)

You’re inclined to return too late. Watch out for lacking probabilities; in any other case it might be altogether too late sometime.

– Liszt as quoted by scholar Arthur Friedheim, 1886 (age 75)

Liszt’s Bagatelle sans tonalité, 1885

Conclusion

What strikes you, studying Liszt’s letters throughout the span of his life, is how constant he was.

The twenty-one-year-old devouring Homer and Bach and pushing himself to insanity is recognisably the identical particular person because the seventy-five-year-old warning his scholar to not come too late.

His urge for food for artwork, music, and life by no means dimmed. Neither did his readability about what mattered – and what didn’t.

For extra of one of the best in classical music, for our E-Publication

The Economics of Okay-pop – half 12: Music Streaming Providers in South Korea – Music Enterprise Analysis

by Admin | Jul 20, 2026 | Entertainment Law, Music Business, Podcast News

The worldwide success of Okay-pop wouldn’t be potential with no robust home music market. Sooner than in different nations, highly effective home music streaming providers have been in a position to set up themselves in South Korea, working intently with Okay-pop corporations and even being financially managed by them. Nevertheless, as we noticed partly 2 of this collection, international streaming providers – led by YouTube Music and Spotify – have managed to determine themselves within the South Korean market in recent times. To conclude this weblog collection on the economics of Okay-pop, we due to this fact need to take a better take a look at the 5 most necessary music streaming providers in South Korea.

The Economics of Okay-pop – half 12: Music Streaming Providers in South Korea

MelOn

The longtime market chief within the South Korean music streaming market was MelOn, a reputation derived from Melody On. MelOn was launched on 16 November 2004 by the Korean cell community operator SK Telecom as an all-you-can-eat MP3 obtain portal for KRW 3,000 to five,000 per thirty days. MelOn was an immediate success and, only one month after its launch, was already attracting a mean of 10,000 customers per day.^[1]

In 2005, SK Telecom acquired a 43.3 per cent stake in YBM Seoul Information for the equal of US $12.6 million.^[2] Seoul Information was based in 1978 by Min Yeong-bin as a file label and artist administration company, working as a subsidiary of Sisa English, a producer of language studying cassettes, and was renamed YBM Seoul Information in 2000.^[3] In 2008, YBM Seoul Information was renamed LOEN Leisure.^[4] A 12 months later, the music distribution platform MelOn was additionally built-in into LOEN.^[5]

This label and company conglomerate, which was additionally listed on the Seoul Inventory Alternate, caught the eye of one in every of Asia’s largest non-public fairness companies, Affinity Fairness Companions, which acquired a 52.56 per cent stake in LOEN in July 2013 by its Hong Kong subsidiary Star Make investments, thereby decreasing SK Telecom’s stake in LOEN to fifteen per cent.^[6] In December of that very same 12 months, Star Make investments additionally acquired the 8.83 per cent stake that RealNetworks held in LOEN, thereby growing Star Make investments’s stake in LOEN to greater than 60 per cent.^[7] With monetary backing from Star Make investments, LOEN was in a position to purchase a 70 per cent stake within the Okay-pop group Starship Leisure in December 2013.^[8]

The massive coup, nevertheless, was the takeover of LOEN by Kakao Company in January 2016 for the equal of US $1.64 billion.^[9] Consequently, LOEN grew to become a part of one in every of South Korea’s largest web and leisure teams. Kakao has its roots within the web messenger KakaoTalk, which was launched in 2006 by Kim Bum-soo.^[10] This grew into a bunch that now contains, amongst others, an internet fee service (Kakao Pay), an web financial institution (Kakao Financial institution), a video games developer (Kakao Video games) and a taxi service (Kakao Mobility).^[11]

One in all Kakao’s largest enterprise divisions was LOEN, which was renamed Kakao M in 2018, with “M” standing for MelOn, music and media^[12] and thus referred to the three divisions of the corporate: (1) the MelOn music streaming service, (2) the Music Content material Firm, comprising the labels acquired by LOEN through the years, the ticketing platform MelOn Ticket and the Okay-pop company 1theK, and (3) the Video Content material Firm.^[13] Nevertheless, in March 2021, the corporate construction was modified as soon as once more when Kakao M merged with the digital content material platform Kakao Web page, which permits customers to create their very own movies, audio recordsdata and fictional texts.^[14] A part of the merger additionally concerned the combination of MelOn into the brand new firm, Kakao Leisure, which now combines music manufacturing and rights administration with MelOn’s music distribution. On the time of the merger, MelOn had 33 million lively customers and 5 million paying subscribers.^[15] As we now have already seen, this made MelOn the biggest music streaming service in South Korea.

Nevertheless, this modified with elevated competitors from overseas. Shortly after Spotify’s market entry on 1 February 2021, the primary showdown befell. Spotify eliminated all Okay-pop tracks from Kakao Leisure’s (then nonetheless referred to as Kakao M) catalogue from its platform worldwide, as the 2 events have been unable to achieve an settlement on a licensing deal. The boycott was, nevertheless, short-lived, as Kakao and Spotify reached a licensing deal as early as March 2021, bringing the Okay-pop repertoire again to Spotify.^[16]

One may dismiss the battle as a storm in a teacup have been it not for the truth that it highlights the weak place of Korean streaming providers in relation to the worldwide market leaders. MelOn and its rivals owe their success primarily to Okay-pop, however they have been unable to compete with the worldwide repertoire important for a profitable music streaming service for a very long time.

Genie Music

Genie Music, with 2.57 million lively customers per thirty days, is South Korea’s second-largest home music streaming service. Genie has its roots within the music division of Bluecord Know-how, a Korean tech agency based as early as 1991 that has additionally diversified into the leisure and media sectors.^[17] Initially, Genie Music’s predecessor was concerned in music manufacturing and file distribution in South Korea. In 2000, it additionally acquired a serious music publishing firm by the takeover of Doremi Media Co. Within the mid-2000s, Muz.co.kr – the nation’s main music obtain platform – was launched,^[18] which was to turn into the nucleus of the Genie Music streaming service.

In 2007, KT Freetel Co., one in every of South Korea’s largest telecommunications corporations, acquired a 35.28 per cent stake in Bluecord Know-how and spun off the music division as an impartial firm beneath the title KTF Music. In 2009, KT Company and KTF merged to type KT Music.^[19]

In 2012, KT Music acquired KMP Holdings, Korea’s largest music distributor, which marketed the productions of Okay-pop giants SM Leisure, YG Leisure and JYP Leisure.^[20] This led to the combination of digital music operations with bodily music gross sales, which triggered a pointy surge in development due to the booming Okay-pop business.

In March 2017, LG U+, South Korea’s third-largest telecommunications firm, acquired a 15 per cent stake in KT Music, which was subsequently renamed Genie Music.^[21] By means of this strategic partnership, the Genie Music app has been bundled with additional cell and broadband providers. Moreover, Genie Music has been efficiently built-in into the infotainment methods of the South Korean automobile producers Kia and Hyundai,^[22] which additional expanded the person base.

In October 2018, Genie Music merged with CJ Digital Music, a subsidiary of the South Korean leisure and media conglomerate CJ ENM, which thereby acquired a 15.35 per cent stake within the new firm.^[23] In April 2025, following an inner restructuring, it was renamed KT Genie Music Company. KT Genie Music Company is a publicly listed music group that owns quite a few music catalogues, is lively in music manufacturing and distribution, and operates a serious music streaming service.^[24] Nevertheless, regardless of partnerships with Tidal, Anghami, Tencent Music, Huawei Music and TikTok, Genie Music failed to realize a foothold internationally.^[25] Additional, the Okay-pop enterprise remained Genie Music’s principal income, which restricted its development potential and resulted in a decline in market share in South Korea.

FLO

The music streaming service FLO, which is owned by the Seoul-based Dreamus Firm, is dealing with related issues. Dreamus Firm has its roots in ReignCom, which was based in 1999 by Yang Deok-joon and 6 different former Samsung engineers to fabricate a transportable CD participant able to storing MP3 music recordsdata.[26] The primary gadgets have been launched in November 2000 and proved such a success that the Korean tech start-up additionally attracted consideration from overseas. ReignCom due to this fact entered right into a partnership with SonicBlue, an organization primarily based in Santa Clara, California, which had beforehand launched the Rio MP3 participant on the US market beneath the title Diamond Multimedia. ReignCom then started manufacturing transportable CD gamers with built-in MP3 gamers for the American market as properly, which have been bought beneath the Rio model.[27]

Nevertheless, SonicBlue went into administration in 2002, leaving ReignCom with no distribution accomplice within the US as a result of the Finest Purchase chain refused to promote a South Korean no-name product with out the Rio model. In June 2002, following protracted negotiations, Finest Purchase lastly agreed to inventory ReignCom merchandise within the US, supplied the corporate might develop an MP3 participant geared up with a high-capacity flash reminiscence stick by September of that 12 months. Yang Deok-joon and his group rose to the problem and, in August 2002, offered Finest Purchase executives with a tool able to storing no less than 30 songs. This was a technical breakthrough, and ReignCom emerged as the primary challenger to Apple’s iPod, securing a 20 per cent market share within the US.[28] In South Korea, ReignCom was already the market chief in MP3 gamers and was in a position to checklist on the Seoul Inventory Alternate in 2003.[29]

Nevertheless, the optimism at ReignCom quickly evaporated. Losses had already been reported for the 2005 and 2006 monetary years, which had a detrimental affect on the share worth. On this already troublesome financial local weather, the information of Apple’s launch of the iPhone in the summertime of 2007 got here as a crushing blow. Actually in a single day, the marketplace for MP3 gamers had turn into out of date. The iPhone started to cannibalise the MP3 participant market. For 2009, ReignCom reported an working lack of KRW 23.9 billion (US$21 million). In response, ReignCom’s total administration group was changed and the corporate was restructured as iRiver Ltd. as a way to embark on a strategic recent begin.[30]

Nevertheless, this didn’t succeed. The brand new e-book readers and e-dictionaries bought poorly, and a smartphone and a pill – supposed as rivals to Apple’s equivalents – by no means made it to market.[31] Consequently, iRiver’s share worth plummeted by nearly 65 per cent between 2010 and 2012.[32] This stoop made traders nervous, and rumours of a takeover quickly started to accentuate. In June 2014, the second lastly arrived. SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest telecommunications group, bought a block of shares value KRW 29.5 billion from iRiver’s largest shareholder, Vogo-Rio Funding Holdings, and have become the principle shareholder with a stake of round 40 per cent.[33] Following its takeover by SK Telecom, iRiver underwent a elementary restructuring. The main target shifted from music {hardware} to music content material. Consequently, in January 2015, Music Mate – a music streaming service initially supposed as a radio streaming service for cell gadgets – was launched.[34] That modified in July 2017 when SM Leisure, one of many largest Okay-pop conglomerates, grew to become iRiver’s second-largest shareholder.[35] SM Leisure recognised the potential of the streaming platform, and so forth 31 January 2018, a deal was struck between SK Telecom on the one hand and the three Okay-pop corporations – SM Leisure, JYP Leisure and Large Hit Leisure – on the opposite, to create a B2B and B2C music service platform by which the three corporations might distribute their music content material.[36] To this finish, Music Mate was utterly revamped and launched on 11 December 2018 beneath the brand new model title FLO.[37]

Subsequently, iRiver was reorganised into Dreamus Firm, which now comprised two enterprise models: the music streaming service FLO and iRiver’s high-end audio participant division.[38] The following restructuring befell in 2021, after SK Telecom had transferred all its non-telecoms investments to SK Sq. Funding. This additionally affected Dreamus Firm, with its streaming service FLO, which now grew to become a part of SK Sq..[39] It was to turn into obvious that this was merely an interim step and that, following sustained losses within the audio participant division, Dreamus bought this division to Miwang Firm for KRW 5 billion in December 2024,[40] to place itself as a pure music service platform for Okay-pop. This marked the symbolic conclusion to an extended historical past during which a market chief in MP3 gamers, beneath the management of a telecommunications group, had advanced right into a music streaming service focusing totally on Okay-pop.

Bugs Music and Naver VIBE

Alongside MelOn, Genie Music and FLO, the music streaming providers Bugs Music and Naver VIBE additionally play a major position within the South Korean streaming market. Bugs Music is the nation’s oldest music streaming service and was based in Seoul in November 1999 by Park Sung-hoon beneath the title Tremendous Sound Bugs.[41] To avoid the copyright points related to a music obtain platform, Bugs was arrange as a music streaming platform, however with out coming into into any licensing agreements with the rights holders.[42]

With 16 million registered customers, Bugs rapidly grew to turn into the nation’s largest music platform and secured KRW 1.5 billion in enterprise capital to fund its enlargement.[43] Nevertheless, South Korean music labels prevented this enlargement from going forward. In February 2003, 32 labels filed a lawsuit in opposition to Bugs Music for copyright infringement.[44]

In August 2004, Bugs Music tried to calm the state of affairs by signing a licensing take care of the Korean IFPI (Recording Business Affiliation of Korea, RIAK), which allowed the streaming service to stream 58,000 songs by way of the platform. Nevertheless, this was solely a fraction of the 270,000 recordsdata that Bugs Music had made accessible for streaming, which additionally originated from smaller indie labels. The South Korean music majors – Warner Music Korea, Sony Music Korea, SM Leisure, Yedang Leisure and YBM Seoul Information – opposed the settlement and maintained their authorized motion in opposition to Bugs Music and its founder.[45]

In January 2005, the showdown befell at a district courtroom in Seoul. The main labels prevailed, and the courtroom discovered Bugs Music and its founder responsible of mass copyright infringement. Park Sung-hoon was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay damages of KRW 20 million (US$19,900).[46] In the long run, Park Sung-hoon bought off evenly, however in March 2005 he was pressured to step down as managing director of Bugs and promote his 60 per cent stake within the firm to a South Korean label consortium led by Yedang Information.[47]

In December 2008, Bugs Music was acquired by Neowiz Web Corp., a subsidiary of South Korea’s largest video games developer, Neowiz Company, with a view to merging it with the music obtain platform JukeOn – which had been in operation since April 2004 – and persevering with to function it beneath the Bugs model.[48] Underneath Neowiz’s management, Bugs Music rose to turn into South Korea’s second-largest music streaming supplier and attracted the curiosity of NHN Company, which had been based in 1999 as a video games developer beneath the title Hangame and merged in July 2000 with Naver, South Korea’s largest search engine – South Korea’s Google.[49] In August 2015, NHN Corp. acquired Neowiz Web, together with Bugs Music, with a view to persevering with the brand new division as NHN Bugs.[50]

With the backing of its new proprietor, Bugs was in a position to press forward with its enlargement. In August 2016, it acquired a 53.9 per cent stake within the South Korean music streaming service Groovers and, a month later, secured 70 per cent of the shares within the administration company HOW Leisure, which had Okay-pop star Hwang Chi-yeol beneath contract, amongst others.[51] Consequently, Bugs Music shifted its focus from the B2C to the B2B music enterprise and misplaced market share within the South Korean streaming market within the years that adopted.

Nevertheless, competitors additionally got here from throughout the group itself. Since 2009, Naver.com had been working the music service Naver Music, which had initially been launched as a obtain portal. In 2017, Naver Music entered right into a strategic partnership with YG Plus, a subsidiary of the Okay-pop group YG Leisure, to distribute Okay-pop songs.[52] Nevertheless, Naver Music was by no means in a position to meet up with the market chief, MelOn, and so in 2020 the mum or dad firm merged its music service with VIBE, an AI-based music streaming service.[53] That marked the top of Naver’s music obtain enterprise, and from then on the web group centered completely on music streaming.[54]

As we now have already seen, Naver.com is a part of NHN Holdings, that means that two music streaming providers now function beneath the NHN umbrella: Naver VIBE and Bugs Music. Nevertheless, each streaming platforms play solely a minor position within the South Korean music streaming market. This most likely additionally explains Naver.com’s announcement in November 2025 that it could be incorporating Spotify’s Premium service into the Naver Plus Membership programme, as a way to grant subscribers entry to Spotify’s huge music catalogue.[55] This marks the beginning of a partnership by which Spotify might additional strengthen its place within the Korean market, while on the identical time posing a problem to NHN/Naver’s music streaming providers.

An evaluation of South Korean music streaming providers reveals, on the one hand, their shut hyperlinks to the telecommunications and web sectors and, on the opposite, their interdependence with Okay-pop conglomerates. The rise of MelOn, Genie Music and FLO to turn into the nation’s main music streaming providers is due, firstly, to the bundling of those providers with cell phone contracts supplied by main telecoms equivalent to SK Telecom and KT Freetel Firm, and secondly, to their collaboration with Okay-pop corporations. MelOn even owns a Okay-pop company itself – Starship Leisure – and is a subsidiary of Kakao Company, which in flip is firmly rooted within the Okay-pop enterprise. Genie Music has shut ties to the so-called ‘Large Three’ of the Okay-pop business: SM, YP and JYP Leisure. SM Leisure additionally holds a stake within the music streaming service FLO. Lastly, it’s value mentioning the streaming service Naver VIBE, which was launched in cooperation with a subsidiary of the Okay-pop firm YP Leisure.

This shut hyperlink to the Okay-pop business is each a blessing and a burden for South Korean music streaming providers. They’ve been in a position to develop quickly due to the worldwide Okay-pop growth, however are additionally depending on the success of this music style. South Korean streaming platforms have failed to realize a sustainable foothold internationally and now face stiff competitors from international rivals equivalent to YouTube and Spotify, which have managed to seize market share in South Korea in a really brief house of time. YouTube has even risen to turn into the nation’s main music streaming service. As makes an attempt to fend off this competitors have thus far failed, South Korean music streaming platforms are actually in search of to collaborate with their international rivals, though this carries the danger of being dominated by them.

Endnotes

[1] Yang, Hyung-wook. 2004. SK’s MP3 music portal exhibits indicators of being a smash hit. Monetary Information, 14 December. https://n.information.naver.com/article/014/0000153995. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[2] Billboard. 2005. Korean Telco Takes Management Of Seoul Information. 27 Might. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/korean-telco-takes-control-of-seoul-records-1411719/. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[3] YBM. 2013. 1978: Founding of Seoul Information. YMB Homepage, 28 December. http://www.ybm.co.kr/sisa/photograph.aspx?seq=14&Web page=1. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[4] Naver. 2018. Kakao M Co., Ltd. Naver Organisation Dictionary, 22 October 2018. https://net.archive.org/net/20210520050332/https://phrases.naver.com/entry.naver?docId=651823&cell=&cid=43167&categoryId=43167. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[5] Ibid.

[6] Han, Woo-ram. 2026. Affinity Fairness Companions hit the jackpot with Kakao-Loen deal. Mail Financial Day by day, 13 January. https://n.information.naver.com/article/009/0003663386?sid=004. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[7] Lee, Jae-young. 2013. Affinity acquires a stake in Loen Leisure owned by Actual Networks. The Bell, 17 November. https://www.thebell.co.kr/free/content material/ArticleView.asp?key=201311070100009740000585&svccode=00&web page=1&kind=thebell_check_time. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[8] Lee, Solar-min. 2013. Loen acquires massive stake in Starship. Korea JoonAng Day by day, 19 December. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/information/article/article.aspx?assist=2982315. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[9] Lee, Se-young. 2016. Kakao to purchase South Korea’s prime music streaming operator for $1.6 billion. Reuters, 11 January. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kakao-m-a-loen-ent-idUSKCN0UP01620160112/. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[10] Kim, Nam Kyu. 2010. iWylab launches ‘KakaoTalk’, a messenger app for iPhone. Financial system At this time, 18 March. http://www.eto.co.kr/information/outview.asp?Code=20100318145504490&ts=233011. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[11] Kakao. n.d. About. https://www.kakaocorp.com/web page/about/subsidiaryCompany. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[12] Power Financial system. 2017. Loen will change its title to KakaoM. 26 December. https://www.ekn.kr/net/view.php?key=332761. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[13] Han, Susan. 2018. Kakao M, previously Loen Leisure, reveals new company id + appoints new CEO. Allkpop, 23 March. https://www.allkpop.com/article/2018/03/kakao-m-formerly-loen-entertainment-reveals-new-corporate-identity-appoints-new-ceo. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[14] Joara, Hankyung. 2021. Kakao Enterprises formally launched with ‘One trillion in gross sales’. The Korea Financial Day by day, 4 March. https://www.hankyung.com/article/202103048042g. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[15] Kakao Leisure. 2021. Kakao Leisure merges with Korea’s No. 1 music streaming platform Melon because it eyes international development. Press launch, 1 September. https://newsroom.kakaoent.com/information/kakao-entertainment-merges-with-koreas-no-1-music-streaming-platform-melon-as-it-eyes-global-growth/. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[16] Stassen, Murray. 2021. Spotify reinstates Okay-Pop tracks from Kakao Leisure as corporations attain international licensing deal. Music Enterprise Worldwide, 11 March. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-reinstates-k-pop-tracks-from-kakao-entertainment-as-companies-reach-global-licensing-deal/. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[17] Grokipedia. n.d. Genie Music. https://grokipedia.com/web page/Genie_Music. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Grokipedia. n.d. iRiver. https://grokipedia.com/web page/IRiver. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[27] Moon Ihlwan. 2004. Korea’s ReignCom: Shifting Up The MP3 Charts. Businessweek, 26 January. https://net.archive.org/net/20071015174000/http://businessweek.com/journal/content material/04_04/b3867071.htm. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[28] Ibid.

[29] Korea JoonAng Day by day. 2003. 3 companies set for IPOs this week. 8 December. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2003/12/08/business/3-firms-set-for-IPOs-this-week/2069035.html. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[30] Search engine optimisation, Ji-eun. 2012. After the smartphone, MP3 makers wrestle to outlive. Korea JoonAng Day by day, 29 March. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2012/03/29/business/After-the-smartphone-MP3-makers-struggle-to-survive/2950714.html. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[31] Bäumer, Simon. 2011. Iriver plant zwei neue Androidgeräte: Ein Pill und ein Smartphone. PCMasters, 14 July. https://www.pcmasters.de/information/13373968-iriver-plant-zwei-neue-androidgeraete-ein-tablet-und-ein-smartphone.html#:~:textual content=Daspercent20geleaktepercent20Bildpercent20zeigtpercent20daspercent20geplantepercent20Androidsmartphonepercent2C,undpercent20aufpercent20einempercent203percent2C5percent20Zollpercent20Touchscreenpercent20basieren. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[32] Search engine optimisation, Ji-eun. 2012. After the smartphone

[33] Kang, Yoon-seung. 2014. SK Telecom to amass Iriver for 29.5 bln gained. Yonhap Information, 25 June. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20140625005100320. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[34] NamuWiki. o.D. FLO. https://en.namu.wiki/w/FLO. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[35] Kwon, Yong-min. 2017. SM Enters iRiver as 2nd Largest Shareholder in “World Content material Market”. Seoul Financial Day by day, 17 July. https://www.sedaily.com/NewsView/1OIIDB8KM5/GD0501. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[36] Kim, D. 2018. SM, JYP, And Large Hit To Launch Joint Music Enterprise. Soompi, 31 January. https://www.soompi.com/article/1117157wpp/sm-jyp-big-hit-launch-joint-music-enterprise. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[37] Hankyung.com. 2021. ‘Previous iRiver’ deficit exonerated by SKT. The Korea Financial Day by day, 18 Might. https://www.hankyung.com/article/2021051866611. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[38] Choi, Hyun-seok. 2019. iRiver modified its title to ‘Dreamers Firm’. Naver Information, 28 March. https://n.information.naver.com/article/001/0010726293. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[39] The Korea Herald. 2021. SK Telecom names new CEO following non-telecom spinoff. 1 November. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/2716859. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[40] Lee, Jinhwi. 2024. DreamUsCompany, sells ‘iriver’ enterprise for five billion gained. High Day by day, 30 December. https://en.topdaily.kr/articles/4090. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[41] Park, Hyun-jung. 2003. Park Sung-hoon, President of Bucks Music, “leaps to turn into the most effective portal in Korea in 2-3 years”. Naver Information, 24 April. https://n.information.naver.com/mnews/article/029/0000025349?sid=105. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Billboard. 2005. Korean Labels Win Bugs Battle. 15 March. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/korean-labels-win-bugs-battle-1415784/. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[45] Lee Kyong-hee. 2004. Music income swirling down digital drain. Korea JoonAng Day by day, 1 October. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2004/10/01/options/Music-profits-swirling-down-digital-drain/2475425.html. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[46] Billboard. Korean Labels Win Bugs Battle.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Neowiz. n.d. Historical past. https://www.nwhcorp.com/holdings/en. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[49] NHN Corp. n.d. We’re NHN, a World IT Firm Pioneering into The World Taking part in Discipline. https://www.nhn.com/en-US/firm?tab=about. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[50] Ibid.

[51] Yoon Sung-won. 2016. Bugs increasing to leisure company biz. The Korea Instances, 31 August. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/enterprise/tech-science/20160831/bugs-expanding-to-entertainment-agency-biz. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[52] YG Plus. 2017. YG PLUS-NAVER collectively implements music enterprise venture. Press launch, 18 October. https://yg-life.com/archives/94413?lang=en. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[53] Sportsseoul.com. 2020. Consuming Naver music sources, from buy to subscription… Finish of Naver Music. 3 October. https://www.sportsseoul.com/information/learn/963447. Translated with DeepL. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[54] Since December 2014, Naver.com has been working the music streaming service Line Music by its Japanese subsidiary, Line Company. See: Russell, Jon. 2015. Messaging App Agency Line Is Testing A $2 Per Month Music Streaming Service. TechCrunch, 21 Might. https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/21/line-music/. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

[55] Korea YoonAng Day by day. 2025. Naver launches new music streaming program in partnership with Spotify. 28 November. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/information/2025-11-28/enterprise/business/Naver-launches-new-music-streaming-program-in-partnership-with-Spotify/2465879. Accessed 26 Jun 2026

The Finest Classical Music for Working From Residence (Matched to Your Activity)

by Admin | Jul 13, 2026 | Classic, Musical Industry

Once you’re working from house and on deadline, not all classical music is created equal.

At this time, we’re one of the best classical music to take heed to whereas working from house, organised by the type of work you’re attempting to do.

For Deep Focus: Evaluation, Writing, and Advanced Downside-Fixing

When work calls for your full cognitive consideration – whether or not you’re untangling a posh coding downside, drafting a sophisticated doc, or analysing spreadsheets – you want music that’s difficult to masks distractions, however structured sufficient to not shock you.

These three items are particularly dependable for jumpstarting sustained focus.

Bach’s Goldberg Variations

Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations for a harpsichordist employed by an insomniac rely who needed one thing to occupy his sleepless nights.

The thirty variations share an underlying harmonic construction however by no means get repetitive, providing simply sufficient selection to maintain the thoughts gently engaged with out ever demanding its full consideration.

Bach’s The Properly-Tempered Clavier

Bach’s Properly-Tempered Clavier consists of two volumes of preludes and fugues for solo keyboard, every in a special key.

That is Bach that’s each systematic and meditative. The voices enter, reply, and interweave in patterns that really feel inevitable – your mind tracks them simply sufficient to remain calm, however not sufficient to be pulled away out of your work.

Haydn’s String Quartets

Between 1755 and 1799, Classical-era composer Joseph Haydn wrote practically 70 string quartets. In reality, he got here to be often known as the “father of the string quartet.”

By and enormous, they lack the drama or cutting-edge dissonance of Beethoven’s, and are typically extra genial: two traits that make these items particularly intriguing for these working at house.

Any of the quartets will work, however attempt the Op. 76 set of six, which incorporates two nicknamed “Emperor” and “Dawn.”

For Repetitive Duties: E-mail, Information Entry, Administrative Work

Fortunately, not all work-from-home calls for the total weight of your focus.

For the type of duties which can be needed however not significantly demanding – issues like working in your inbox, updating a spreadsheet, filling in a kind, and so on. – you need music that is a bit more energising: one thing with momentum and a transparent pulse that carries you ahead with out interrupting your practice of thought.

Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons

These days, that is essentially the most well-known Baroque-era work ever written, and for good motive: its rhythmic power, mixed with its evocative melodies, is infectious.

Every of the 4 concertos has its personal character, however they share a ahead movement and a brightness that makes them glorious companions for ploughing by the much less glamorous elements of the working day.

When you get uninterested in the 4 Seasons, you’ll be able to all the time check out Vivaldi’s different concertos. He wrote over 5 hundred!

Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos

Bach’s Brandenburg concertos include six concertos, every scored in another way, all sharing the identical irresistible buoyancy.

The third concerto particularly – scored for strings and continuo – has a relentless, joyful power.

The Brandenburg concertos are additionally a handy size: at round ninety minutes for the whole set, they are often scheduled for any mid-afternoon droop.

Mozart’s Divertimenti

Mozart’s divertimenti have been written for leisure: gentle, cheerful, undemanding music for social events.

That makes them ideally suited for the workday: they’re all nice firm that by no means overstay their welcome or require your whole consideration to take pleasure in.

The Divertimento in D main, Ok. 136, is a perennial favorite of musicians and music-lovers – for good motive, given its cheer and bustle.

For Inventive Work: Writing, Design, or Something Requiring Inspiration

Inventive work is in a wierd center floor on the subject of creating work playlists: you want sufficient psychological quiet to let concepts floor and your inside monologue to run, however silence by itself can really feel oppressive.

Music that’s barely impressionistic – that implies moods and atmospheres, moderately than the Baroque period drive and construction – tends to work greatest for this function.

Satie’s Gymnopédies

Erik Satie’s most well-known works are so spacious and unhurried that they appear to exist exterior of time itself.

The Gymnopédies – three quick piano items written when Satie was a twentysomething composer in 1888 – are virtually weightless, hovering in a type of mild ambiguity.

For inventive work the place you want your individual ideas to floor, this music is good.

Debussy’s Préludes

Debussy’s piano music is extremely evocative with its impressions of water, mist, moonlight, and even submerged cathedrals.

The 2 books of Préludes are significantly good background music – each bit is brief and assorted, so the gathering presents mild change with out jarring interruption.

Chopin’s Nocturnes

Chopin’s nocturnes occupy a really explicit emotional territory: pensive, lyrical, often melancholy, however by no means overwrought.

The later nocturnes – Op. 55, No. 1 in F minor and Op. 62, No. 1 in B main – have an particularly ruminative high quality that’s nice background music for sustained inventive effort.

Remaining Ideas

Listed here are a number of recommendations as you set collectively your work-from-home classical music playlist.

Keep away from music with vocals in a language you perceive. Your mind’s language facilities will course of the phrases whether or not you need them to or not, and that may affect your capability to jot down or learn. We wrote about that right here: https://interlude.hk/8-surprising-ways-classical-music-can-help-you-focus-and-study/.

Be careful for dramatic dynamic contrasts – sudden fortes after a quiet passage are the enemy of focus. Baroque music and minimalism are typically the most secure selections for that reason.

Familiarity helps! Classical music that you just already know properly is much less more likely to demand your consideration than one thing you’re listening to for the primary time. The primary time you hear the Goldberg Variations, you’ll in all probability be listening to each observe. The fifteenth time? You’ll go the entire morning with out being distracted by it – and simply comforted as a substitute.

Take pleasure in these works, and blissful working!

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