Today the biggest pop stars in the world are women. Beyoncé, of course, and above all Taylor Swift, Adele, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and, in Germany, Shirin David and Helene Fischer. They don’t just inspire the masses musically with their songs; they also influence politics and society. Why is it so different in the world of classical music and so-called high culture?
Carus editor Barbara Mohn explores Carissimi’s and Handel’s musical settings of the Old Testament story of Jephthah and his daughter.
Church music was particularly dear to the Liechtenstein composer Josef Gabriel Rheinberger. But he was not a follower of the prevalent Cecilianism movement of his time. He strove instead for emotional warmth and sensuality in his musical language, rather than serene austerity. In his works he found his own individual sound, combining traditional structures with tension-laden harmonic writing in equal measure. Read more!
When George Frideric Handel crossed the English Channel the first time in 1710, London was enjoying a huge economic upturn. The building boom altered the cityscape of the second largest city in Europe, with almost 630,000 inhabitants, the financial market grew and experienced the first stockmarket crash, the social contrasts were stark, but a simple musician such as Handel could die a rich man. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of today’s metropolis, we can still set out on a walk in the footsteps of Handel.
