5 Reasons Why People Who Listen To Classical Music Have Better Sleep

Most people know that listening to classical music reduces stress, boosts the immune system, improves focus in learning, and can even help to lower blood pressure. But what about those who are suffering from insomnia?

Can this wonderful music really help you to have a long and restful sleep? Here are 5 reasons why these classical music fans get better sleep and how they exploit it to sleep right through the night – every insomniac’s dream!

1. They know which pieces and composers to choose

People in the know have realized that not all classical music is suitable for better sleep. They would run a mile from Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, for example, as the booming cannons would wake them up. They tend to favor Mozart, Brahms, Handel, and Bach because they can help the mind relax with their rhythms which will help to slow the brainwaves.

Experts say that music with a regular rhythm and with about 60 -80 BPM (beats per minute), low pitches, and relaxing soothing tunes work best.

Classical sleep inducing pieces are Bach’s Air on the G string, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and the Adagietto in Mahler’s 5th Symphony. Listen to Valentina Lisitsa playing Chopin’s Berceuse in D flat opus 57 here on the video but promise me you will not fall asleep before finishing reading this post!



2. They know the music will help their bodies to relax

A racing mind full of stress and anxiety will lead to increased heartbeats which will make sleep impossible. They have read the research about listening to slower music which can subconsciously slow down breathing and the heart becomes calmer too. They are now in a sort of semi-meditative state and the whole body begins to relax. That is all they need to get off to sleep and they never have to count thousands of sheep. If you are an insomniac, follow their example.

A study by Taiwan researchers has found that with older adults, listening to music significantly improved their sleep quality and there was less need to rely on sleep aids and other hacks to help them get a good night’s rest.

3. They know all about where to get their music

They know all the radio and TV channels which are broadcasting classical music, day and night, such as AccuRadio. Check out the free app on Classical KUSC – they have been broadcasting since 1947. This app has a sleep timer and you can adjust that to whatever you want. If you put it at 20 minutes, it will turn itself off when you are, hopefully, sound asleep.

You can also download and save classical music files from various sources on the Internet.

4. They know the healing power of music

They know that illness and feeling unwell will probably disturb their sleep more than usual. The healing power of music is well documented in scientific circles.

Arthritis can keep many a person awake at night. In one study reported in The Journal of Advanced Nursing, researchers found that music helped reduce arthritic pain by 21% and depression by 25%.

Similarly, stroke patients in Finland made significant advances in memory and attention span when they listened to music (classical or jazz). They were doing much better than the other group who were not listening to any music.

Watch and listen to the wonderful music of Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op.18, 1st Movement which is a favorite piece of Cinda Yager who listened to it often when recovering from surgery. She describes the effects the music had on her recovery:

“Chamber music can be anything but quiet and soothing, of course, but what I love is the transparency of the lines. I imagine them representing different systems in my body and how they work together cooperatively to create something beautiful.”- Cinda Yager


 
5. They know that music can help block out background noise

They know those yappy dogs and traffic noise, not to mention burglar alarms and noisy neighbors. They can, of course, get used to them and tune them out. However, this may mean sleepless nights while they do so. Similarly, if they are not accustomed to a very quiet rural environment, that may also disturb their sleep as it is too quiet!

The best way to cover up all this noise is to listen to classical music, especially if you know it well. In other words, we tend to sleep best when we’re surrounded by familiar sounds. All the better if it is comforting and beautiful sounds which will never bother or irritate you.

If you suffer from sleep disorders or insomnia, you are certainly not a minority. It is estimated that 40 million Americans have sleep problems and this is a global problem as well.

Maybe it is time you started to try listening to classical music more often and make it part of your bedtime routine. Sweet dreams!
 
“I swear they are all beautiful- Every one that sleeps is beautiful.” – Walt Whitman

Read more at Lifehack

Great women composers in honor of Women's History Month

Today there's a lot of debate about the role of women in classical music. Yet from Hildegard in the 12th century through to the present day, women have made a significant contribution which has often been overlooked.

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) Louise Farrenc received piano lessons from masters such as Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Following her marriage, she interrupted her studies to play concerts with her husband, the flautist Aristide Farrenc. Despite her brilliance as a performer and composer, she was paid less than her male counterparts for nearly a decade. Only after the triumphant premiere of her Nonet for wind and strings - in which the violinist Joseph Joachim took part -did she demand and receive equal pay.

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) Sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny composed more than 460 works, including a piano trio and several books of piano pieces and songs. A number of her works were originally published under Felix's name. Her piano works are often in the style of songs and carry the title, ‘Song without Words.’ This style of piece was successfully developed by Felix, though some assert that Fanny preceded him in the genre.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896) The wife of Robert Schumann and herself one of the most distinguished pianists of her time, Clara enjoyed a 61-year concert career. Her father Friedrich Wieck taught her to compose and she wrote her Piano Concerto at the age of 14. She largely lost confidence in her composing in her mid-30s. ‘I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea;’ she said, ‘a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?’

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) Harrow-born Clarke is best known for her chamber music for the viola, which she wrote for herself and the all-female chamber ensembles she played in. Her works - including a Viola Sonata - were strongly influenced by several trends in 20th century classical music, particularly the impressionism of Claude Debussy. Clarke knew many leading composers of the day, including Ravel, with who whom her work has been compared.

Read More at Classic FM

8 Reasons You Should Listen More To Classical Music

1. It makes your brain work better

At Northumbria University (UK), a research team performed some experiments on students’ brain functioning when doing tests while they listened to Vivaldi’s Spring concerto. They were answering faster and better than when they listened to the sadder Autumn concerto. The conclusion was that brain activity is improved when listening to pleasant and arousing stimuli. If you want to refresh your memory on the uplifting Vivaldi Spring concerto, you can listen to it here.

2. It helps people with dementia

If a loved one suffers from dementia or Alzheimer’s, it is well worth noting the studies showing how music can help them to regain memories and enormously improve their quality of life. Watch the video here of a man who was brought back to life by listening to music he loved in the past. If your loved one was particularly fond of any music, classical or non, they can be enormously helped by listening to the same music. The explanation is that because music affects many parts of the brain, it can reawaken those parts of the brain not affected by dementia. This is especially true when the music is linked to a particular event or memory. It is fascinating to read the book by the late neurologist Oliver Sacks called Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain which explains the phenomenon and recounts many moving stories.

“People with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias can respond to music when nothing else reaches them. Alzheimer’s can totally destroy the ability to remember family members or events from one’s own life—but musical memory somehow survives the ravages of disease, and even in people with advanced dementia, music can often reawaken personal memories and associations that are otherwise lost.”- Oliver Sacks

3. It can help you sleep better

There are many studies on the beneficial effects of classical music on sleep quality. One study shows that a group of students who listened to relaxing classical music were getting much better sleep quality than when they were exposed to an audio book, for example. Researchers are convinced that music is better than verbal stimuli for the purposes of relaxing body and mind before sleep.

4. It can calm you down when driving

Are you prone to road rage at times? The German government is worried about the high number of road accidents on the country’s motorways (2.4 million annually). Many of these accidents are caused by aggressive driving and road rage. To counteract this, the German Ministry of Transport has released a CD for drivers which features Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21. played by the Minister himself! He hopes that the soothing effects of music will calm drivers down. (Fun fact: There is no word in German for road rage). Let us hope they will not need it now.

5. It can help reduce pain

Various studies show that listening to music can reduce post operative and chronic pain especially after surgery. It will never replace painkillers of course but will be a great help in reducing depression, disability and pain. The reason seems to be that it can help to tune out the pain by increasing the brain’s reward center, thereby alleviating the sensation of pain.

“One good thing about music, is when it hits you, you feel no pain.”- Bob Marley

6. It can help you express your emotions.

“If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Music can express what we may never be capable of verbally and thank goodness for that. We may have to struggle with anger, love, depression and many other emotions and feelings. When we connect with music, we can begin to cope. It helps us to be more honest with ourselves. Research at The Southern Methodist University shows that when listening to classical music, undergraduate students were more communicative and open about their emotions. Everyone has their favorite playlist to help them when they feel romantic, lazy or exhausted. Listening to classical music helps you express your emotions in unique ways.

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” – Sigmund Freud

7. It can help blood pressure

It is fascinating to discover that cardiologists have found a connection between Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and our blood pressure levels. They found that this piece and many other classical music pieces are in natural sync with our own body’s natural rhythm and that helps to keep blood pressure at optimal levels. Professor Bernardi at the University of Pavia in Italy has done some interesting research on this.

8. It can help people on diets

You now how difficult it is to eat slowly, chew your food properly, and really enjoy it. Playing soft music and dimming lights in dining areas has been found to help people enjoy their food more and eat less! This is the main result of a study carried out at Cornell University. On the other hand, places like fast food joints use brighter lights to encourage fast eating and more profit for the business. You can improve the way you experience food by being more intentional in the way you eat, including playing soft music during meals.




Read more at Lifehack.com

The Composer and his Muse: Mendelssohn, Cécile Jeanrenaud and Jenny Lind, the 'Swedish Nightingale'

On 4 May 1836, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) happily conducted the chorus of the Frankfurt Cäcilienverein, substituting for an indisposed colleague. Although he was certainly concentrating on the music, his eyes got distracted by a 16 year-old girl in the soprano section, which he described as possessing “luxurious golden-brown hair, a complexion of transparent delicacy and the most bewitching deep-blue eyes with dark eyelashes and dark eyebrows. The young lady in question was Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, youngest daughter of the French Huguenot minister Auguste and his wife Elizabeth Souchay.

Both the Jeanrenaud and Souchay families had immigrated to Frankfurt in

1685, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted the Calvinist Protestants substantial rights in deeply Catholic France. Contemporaries described Cécile as possessing “a slender figure, and facial features of striking beauty and refinement. She spoke little, with quiet, gentle voice”. And Mendelssohn, never prone to procrastination, fell instantly in love. However, within two days of meeting Cécile, he was forced to leave for Düsseldorf in order to prepare for the premiere performance of his oratorio “Paulus”. Once the Festival had concluded, he traveled to the costal city of Scheveningen, near The Haugue, in hopes that the freezing waters of the North Sea would somehow wash away his feelings for Cécile. Alas, it was hopeless, and by 7 June he had returned to Frankfurt in order to ardently pursue Cécile in courtship.

When Cécile left town for a two-week holiday during the same month, Felix tried to console himself by composing the “Duett ohne Worte” Op. 38, No. 6 for piano solo, which scholars have described as an “instrumental love duet”.

He also began, very carefully indeed, to inform his family of his feelings towards Cécile. He told them that he had met a “beautiful girl” and that he was “dreadfully in love”. Since both Cécile and Felix were talented artists, they spend hours painting portraits of each other, and given their respective Lutheran and Calvinist faiths, that’s surely all they painted! On September 9, in a forest clearing overlooking the city of Frankfurt, Felix asked the faithful question. I suppose Cécile said yes instantly, as he immediately reported to his mother, “my head is quite giddy from the events of the day; it is already late at night and I have nothing else to say; but I must write to you, I feel so rich and happy”.

The wedding on 28 March 1837 at the French Reformed Church in Frankfurt was, entirely in keeping with the social standings of both families, a grand affair. The ceremony was performed in French, and his colleague and fellow musician Ferdinand Hiller composed a special bridal chorus. After a month-long honeymoon — during which they kept a daily journal of activities — the couple settled in Leipzig. Finally, Fanny Hensel was able to visit them, and wrote, “Cécile possessed a wonderfully soothing temperament, that calmed her husband’s whims and promised to cure him of his irritability”. And indeed, it did!

The first of five children was born in February 1838, and the composer rediscovered “a contentment that he had not known since childhood”. On numerous occasions, Cécile would accompany her husband on his professional journeys, but unassumingly stay in the background and quietly support his career. However, both longed to spend more time in the domestic and idyllic tranquility of their stately Leipzig home. Mendelssohn reports to a friend, “I am sitting here at the open window, looking into the garden at the children, who are playing. The omnibus to Königstein passes here twice every day. We have early strawberries for breakfast, at two we dine, have supper at half-past eight in the evening, and by ten we are all asleep. And, to sum up, the best part of every pleasure is gone if Cécile is not there.” Of course, Mendelssohn remained extremely busy. As artistic director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus and founder of the Leipzig Conservatory, he not only initiated the revival of music by Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart, he also assured that his brand of musical historicism was disseminated throughout Europe and beyond.

At the tender age of 36, fate cruelly intervened and claimed Mendelssohn life. Clara Schumann hastened to comfort the young widow and writes in her diary, “Cécile received me with the tenderness of a sister, wept in silence, and was calm and composed as ever. Long we spoke of him; it comforted her, and she was loath for me to depart. She was most unpretentious in her sorrow, gentle, and resigned to live for the care and education of her children. She said God would help her, and surely her boys would have the inheritance of some of their father’s genius. There could not be a more worthy memory of him than the well-balanced, strong and tender heart of this mourning widow.” Apparently, both women were completely unaware — or pretended not to know — that in 1844 Mendelssohn met and fell in love with the “Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind.

Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind, the 'Swedish Nightingale'

By 1843, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was at the pinnacle of his career. He was almost universally acknowledged as an exceptional composer, conductor and educator.

In his private life, he was married to the ravishingly beautiful Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, who not only had born him five children and established a domicile of idyllic tranquility, but also distinctly calmed her husband’s persistent irritability with her caring and soothing temperament. And then Felix met Jenny in October 1844, and his world was never the same again!

Mendelssohn’s immediate infatuation is expressed in a series of letters, where he write: “Jenny Lind has fairly enchanted me; she is unique in her way, and her song with two concertante flutes is perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that can possibly be heard”. “I have not in my life met with such a noble, genuine, true artist as Jenny Lind; I have nowhere found natural capacity, study, and deep sensibility so perfectly united.”

Whenever he could, Felix would attend her performances, and he even wrote the soprano solo for his oratorio “Elijah” specifically for Lind.

There was even talk of an opera entitled “Lorelei”, yet it was never completed. Things seemingly got somewhat more complicated in 1847. According to an affidavit in the archives of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation, Jenny’s husband Otto Goldschmidt destroyed a letter from Felix to Jenny. In this letter, Felix apparently declared his passionate love, and threatened suicide if she did not elope to America with him. We can only assume that Jenny, mindful of Mendelssohn’s family status, rejected the proposal.

Upon Mendelssohn’s death, Lind wrote, “He was the only person who brought fulfillment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again”. One might also argued that the tormented String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, composed during the final year of his life, not only responds to the death of his sister Fanny, but also mirrors the devastating rejection he received from Jenny.  

Read more at Interlude 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Measures Of Affection: Five Musical Love Letters

If you've ever written a love letter, you know it's not easy. Amid a swirl of emotions, balancing elegant language and hormone-fueled passion can be tricky. Composers for centuries have skirted this problem by doing what comes naturally — writing their love letters in the language of music.


Gustav Mahler to Alma Schindler: "Liebst du um Schönheit"



Gustav Mahler composed dozens of songs but only one, "Liebst du um Schoenheit," is an outright love song. He wrote it in 1902 as a wedding gift for his new bride, Alma. The text by Friedrich Rückert rejects the idea of love for beauty, age or treasure, concluding, "but if you love for love, then love me always, as I will always love you." Mahler's music, a beautiful mix of soaring melody and bittersweet harmonies, was eerily prescient. Little could he know then that he and Alma would eventually drift apart.


Leoš Janáček to Kamilla Stösslová: 3rd mvt from String Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters"




Talk about love letters. Leoš Janáček wrote more than 700 of them to Kamilla Stösslová, the wife of an antiques dealer 36 years his junior. The sad fact is that she was never interested in Janáček romantically. But that didn't stop him from composing music specifically fueled by his passion. In February 1928, while writing his Second String Quartet, subtitled "Intimate Letters," he wrote to her about the third movement: "It will be very cheerful, and then dissolve into a vision of your image, transparent, as if in the mist, in which there should be a suspicion of motherhood." The music rocks softly, pivots to a daydream and then cries out in a piercing scream.


Peter Lieberson to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: "Amor Mio" (from Neruda Songs)




It doesn't get more profound than this musical love letter and its back story. The text, by Pablo Neruda, starts: "My love, If I die and you don't, let's not give grief an even greater field." Lieberson set five of Neruda's love sonnets to music for his wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Less than eight months after she made this extraordinary recording she would succumb to cancer at age 52. With its warm, autumnal strings and plaintive oboe, this final song is part lullaby, part tribute to love everlasting. In the final line, Neruda says love "is like a long river, only changing lands, and changing lips."


Tchaikovsky: Tatiana to Onegin "Letter Scene" (from Eugene Onegin)



Musical love letters also get delivered on the operatic stage. In Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, there's an emotionally charged scene that resonates with almost everyone. Tatiana falls in love and takes that vulnerable step in composing her first love letter, not knowing if Onegin, the man she just met, will feel the same. Since it's opera, he doesn't — at least not until it's too late. In her letter, Tatiana says that at first she wanted to stay quiet but she can't control her feelings. "I have lived my whole life waiting to meet you," she writes, as Tchaikovsky's music rises with passion.


Edward Elgar to Alice Elgar: Variation 1 (from the Enigma Variations)



Edward Elgar began writing his "Enigma" Variations as something of a joke, improvising a short tune at the piano. Then he and his wife Alice had the idea that the tune could be altered to depict or, in some cases, caricature their various friends. Elgar loved it and spent part of two years writing 13 variations for orchestra, each one a portrait of someone close to him. He started with an affectionate sketch of Alice (identified as C.A.E. on the score), which features Elgar's lilting mystery theme lovingly dressed in warm, Brahmsian winds and strings.

Read more at NPR 

16 Inspiring Love Quotes from Great Musicians - Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of Valentine’s Day, 16 best love quotes from composers, musicians, singers and other music personalities.

Franz Schubert

Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

Benjamin Britten

These two are not two, love has made them one. Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery each is no less but more.

Hildegard von Bingen

Love, which, in concert with Abstinence, established Faith, and which, along with Patience, builds up Chastity, is like the columns that sustain the four corners of a house. For it was that same Love which planted a glorious garden redolent with precious herbs and noble flowers–roses and lilies–which breathed forth a wondrous fragrance, that garden on which the true Solomon was accustomed to feast his eyes. (Letter to the Monk Guibert, 1176)

Gian Carlo Menotti

I know of no better definition of love than the one given by Proust - Love is space and time measured by the heart.

Maurice Ravel

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

Robert Schumann

You appear in the Novelletten in every possible circumstance, in every irresistible form… They could only be written by one who knows such eyes as yours and has touched such lips as yours.

Clara Schumann

I do not want horses or diamonds – I am happy in possessing you.

Igor Stravinsky

What force is more potent than love?

Luciano Pavarotti

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

George Gershwin

For suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London town
The sun was shining everywhere…

Johannes Brahms

“I can do nothing but think of you… What have you done to me? Can’t you remove the spell you have cast over me?”

Ludwig van Beethoven

…you know my faithfulness to you, never can another own my heart, never – never – never…

Richard Wagner

We fell silent and all joking ceased. We gazed mutely into each other’s eyes and an intense longing for the fullest avowal of the truth forced us to a confession, requiring no words whatever, or the incommensurable misfortune that weighed upon us. With tears and sobs we sealed a vow to belong to each other alone.

Frédéric Chopin

Inspiration and ideas only come to me when I have not had a woman in a very long time… Ballads, polonaises, even a whole concerto may have been lost forever up your des durka, I can’t tell you how many. I have been so deeply engulfed in my love for you I have hardly created anything.

Claude Debussy

I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.

Read more at cmuse.com

Ten black composers whose works deserve to be heard!

English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912). Photograph: Unknown/Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

In the past 200 years, dozens of prominent black composers from America and other parts of the African diaspora have fought to be recognized by the western classical tradition.

The earliest example is Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-99). Born in Guadeloupe, the son of a wealthy plantation owner and a female slave, Saint-George was brought to France at a young age. As well as being a champion fencer, a violin teacher to Marie Antoinette and a colonel in the republican army, his prodigious musical talents led to him being dubbed “le Mozart noir”. He was a prolific composer (with several operas, 15 violin concertos, symphonies and numerous chamber works to his name) and a rare French exponent of early classical violin composition. (Listen to Chi-chi Nwanoku’s radio documentary about him here, available until 3 July.)

Saint-Georges would have perhaps come into contact with George Bridgewater (1778-1860), a violinist of African origin born in present-day Poland. By the age of nine, his father (who was probably born in Barbados) had taken him to London, where he was shown off as a child prodigy, performing in front of the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George IV. Several of Bridgewater’s compositions survive, although few have been recorded. His story was also the basis for a 2007 opera, written by Julian Joseph.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was born in Croydon, the son of a white English mother and a Creole man from Sierra Leone. As a violin scholar at the Royal College of Music, he was taught composition under Charles Villiers Stanford and soon developed a reputation as a composer, with Edward Elgar recommending him to the Three Choirs festival in 1896. By the time he died of pneumonia – aged only 37 – he had already toured America three times and performed for Theodore Roosevelt at the White House.




Compositions such as Coleridge-Taylor’s African Suite attempted to incorporate African influences in the same way that, say, Dvorák used Hungarian folk themes, but much more successful is Hiawatha’s Wedding, which is occasionally performed today. Even better are Coleridge-Taylor’s works for violin and orchestra, which are elegant pieces of fin de siècle romanticism.

Maurice Arnold Strothotte (1865-1937) studied in Berlin and wrote an opera and a symphony that were highly praised by Dvorák, but his work was rarely performed and has all but dropped off the musical map – he ended up making his living teaching violin and conducting provincial operettas.

Like Strothotte, Will Marion Cook (1869-1944) also studied in Berlin and was praised by Dvorák. He was acclaimed for his Broadway shows and ragtime-influenced songs, but found it almost impossible to break into “straight” composition.




Most sorrowful of all was Scott Joplin (1867-1917). The son of an ex-slave from Texas, he started as a travelling musician around the southern states, playing piano in “gentleman’s clubs”. By the turn of the century his piano rags, such as Maple Leaf Rag, had become a national sensation, but he was desperate to be taken seriously as an orchestral composer. His opera Treemonisha was all but ignored, and he died insane in 1917 after his brain was destroyed by syphilis.

Other black American composers had happier endings. William Grant Still (1895-1978) wrote 150 works, studied with Edgard Varèse, was the first African American to conduct a major US symphony orchestra (the New Orleans Philharmonic), composed for Hollywood and found his works performed by leading orchestras around the world, including his 1930 Afro-American Symphony.

Florence B Price (1887-1953) was the first African American woman to have a work played by a major orchestra – the Chicago Symphony premiered her Symphony in E minor in 1933, but despite success during her lifetime, her many compositions are rarely played today.



And George Walker, born in 1922 and still working today, was the first black American composer to win the Pulitzer prize for music (for Lilacs, a piece for voice and orchestra, in 1996). However, for all his acclaim, he still remains a cult figure in the world of contemporary composition.



Read more