Pleasures Of Music Archives - Deep Roots MagazineDeep Roots Magazine

Musical Memories

From his MUSICAL MEMORIES memoir, CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS reflects on the legacy and standing of his Romantic-era contemporary, M. JULES MASSENET

by David McGee

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A Day With Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Ever wonder what it would have been like to spend a day with, say, Felix Mendelssoh? Especially a day when Robert Schumann shows up? George Sampson did just that, and set down the experience for posterity.

by David McGee

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Elbert Hubbard’s Mozart

ELBERT HUBBARD--writer, publisher,artist and philosopher--was about as interesting a character as the famous people he wrote about. His 1901 prose portrait of MOZART is unlike any other account of the great composer's life and ...

by David McGee

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Musical Wings to Transport the Soul

Considering the transportive effects of music, especially during a pandemic.

by David McGee

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A Day With Robert Schumann

IN this month's PLEASURES OF MUSIC, an 1884 report by May Byron on A DAY WITH ROBERT SCHUMANN. In this account, the author chronicles a day spent with the arch-Romantic composer, which includes some vivid scenes with Schumann's...

by David McGee

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Frédéric Chopin: ‘Sublimity Through Sweet Sounds’

From his turn-of-the-20th-century travels, ELBERT HUBBARD chronicles a visit to the home of composer Frédéric Chopin and uncovers a link to American novelist STEPHEN CRANE.

by David McGee

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Fisk Jubilee Singers: From Whipping Post to Throne Room

The early struggles and ultimate triumph of the FISK JUBILEE SINGERS, as reported by JAMES M. TROTTER in his 1878 book profiling 'remarkable musicians of the colored race.' '

by David McGee

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The Strange Adventures and Alluring Music of Alessandro Stradella

An exhaustive appreciation of Alessandro Stradella, one of the most enigmatic, colorful and gifted composers of the 17th Century, from whom Handel borrowed for Israel in Egypt and whose amorous inclinations led to his assassina...

by David McGee

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Contemporary Music

During a four-month concert tour of America in 1928, composer MAURICE RAVEL delivered a then-controversial lecture urging American classical musicians to incorporate African-American music into their compositions. Ahead of his ...

by David McGee

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‘Unaccountably Odd’

'Unaccountably Odd': a musical and sexual adventurer, possibly a racist, and a composer ahead of his time, PERCY GRAINGER led a most unusual life, and now lives on in a new album by the BILDER DUO. A reconsideration is in order.

by David McGee

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The Spiritual Side Of The Singer’s Art

An interview with opera singer MORGAN KINGSTON, circa 1917, in which he holds forth on 'The Spiritual Side of the Singer's Art'

by David McGee

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Prokofiev, Conflicted: Great Composer or Great Compromiser?

SERGEI PROKOFIEV was a great composer, but was he also a great compromiser when it came to bowing to the demands of the Soviet regime, which viewed him as a threat to the people?

by David McGee

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