When we think of Johannes Brahms, we often imagine a serious, bearded composer sitting at his desk, writing music that is powerful, complicated, and sometimes difficult to understand.

One of the things I find fascinating about Frédéric Chopin is that, behind the extraordinary beauty of his music, there was a man whose personality was full of curious contradictions. Chopin was a brilliant pianist, yet he was intensely shy and uncomfortable performing before large audiences. In fact, he preferred to play the piano in complete darkness, sometimes blowing out candles or asking others to extinguish them, even when he was playing at a social gathering! Imagine being invited to a party and discovering that the pianist has decided that everyone must sit in the dark. Yet, in a way, I think this tells us something important about Chopin. He did not necessarily want people to look at him; he wanted them to listen. His music was so personal and intimate that perhaps he felt most comfortable when he could forget the audience and simply enter the world of sound.

In the same way that building a career involves becoming acquainted with marketing techniques and an understanding of social media, it is just as important to build social and professional relationships. There is a lot of truth to the old adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”  Another, and perhaps even more precise version of this phrase however is “It’s not who you know, but who knows you.”

As classical musicians, we spend so much of our lives studying, practicing, and trying to become better artists. We spend hours at the piano learning notes, understanding the intentions of a composer, developing technique, and searching for the right sound and expression. All of this is essential, and nothing can replace the dedication required to become a fine musician. 

Earlier this year, Mr. Cosmo told me how wonderful it was to see I Puritani live at the Met Opera. I wasn’t able to see it at the time, so when I found this opportunity to see the production, I was so happy that I immediately bought a ticket.

Earlier this month, I went to the movie theater to see the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

Working on a piece with such vast historical and musical significance is a real challenge, but one I think is very much worth it. Here are some of my recommendations for approaching this work so that the final result is a performance that takes into consideration all of its many dimensions.

My very real fascination with “Mazeppa” as a piano work continues, particularly when I consider the fact that Liszt was known to be interested in the idea of an instrumental work could actually tell a story without words.

As I continued to study the actual person on whom Liszt’s “Mazeppa” is based, the composition became even more interesting, while also giving me a lot to think about in terms of how the music develops as a story.

As I began turning my attention to the Liszt Transcendental Études, the research around it proved fascinating.

I have been working a great deal on Fanny Mendelssohn’s Das Jahr over the past few months, and have learned a lot about her as a composer. Today however I would like to share with you some of the things I discovered about her as a person. Here are some interesting facts for which I thank author and scholar Emily E. Hogstad, whose great passion is researching the history of women in music.

The movement bears the subtitle Am Flusse — “By the River.” I feel that the continuous stream of sixteenth notes in the right hand evokes the ceaseless flow of the river, while at the same time suggesting thoughts and emotions that continue endlessly, without resolution.

In striking contrast to July, August has such a bright and brilliant atmosphere. Mr. Cosmo and I were talking about how August in Italy is extremely hot, and is also the season when everyone goes on vacation and heads to the seaside, so it seems to be filled with such exuberant energy.

The poem is inspired by a painting that depicts the sun god Phoebus (Apollo) driving his chariot across the sky at the end of the day, yearning for rest as the earth cools down in the evening.

Since it is summer and the weather is perfect for gelato, I recently found myself remembering a gelato shop called Noi Due I discovered when I was in New York this spring. I later learned that they were the North American representative at the Gelato Festival World Masters 2026.

Recently I went out with my family to enjoy the summer seaside and some remarkable seafood.

A cadenza is a moment toward the end of a movement where the orchestra stops playing and the soloist takes over, with music based on the themes of the particular movement.  Originally cadenzas were improvised by the soloist, but as time went on composers added their own versions, as Beethoven has done with the First Movement of this Third Piano Concerto.  Other performers have weighed in and written their own cadenzas including such notable musicians as Franz Liszt, Clara Schumann, Ernest Hutcheson, Edwin Fisher, Carl Reinecke, Wilhelm Kempff and Charles-Valentin Alkan to name a few. At the premiere of the Concerto in 1803, Beethoven improvised the cadenza, but in 1809, he wrote it out most probably for his student, Archduke Rudolph.  Although a cadenza is based on one or more themes from a movement, it should be played differently in that it should sound improvised.  

Having worked through all of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, I am now spending time examining the different movements in order to better determine how the work fits together as a whole, which offers some very interesting observations.

The first movement Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, marked Allegro con brio, is challenging because of the delicate balance Beethoven asks the pianist to create between power and extraordinary control. The opening is dark and serious, beginning in C minor, and the music gradually builds enormous tension before the piano finally enters. Many musicologists have made comparisons between this work and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, which Beethoven knew and performed, and any pianist would do well to be very familiar with the Mozart work in order to study the Beethoven.

Since beginning to study Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, I am finding the history surrounding its composition fascinating. Although Beethoven had learned from Mozart and Haydn, in this concerto his voice to me is much more his own, based on the concerti that will follow, almost as if he had begun to create his own musical signature.