18th century · Skopia

Showing 8 albums from the 18th century

1741

The pianist Glenn Gould plays it fast and dry and hums audibly throughout, which the engineers could never get him to stop doing.

★ 9.6

1727

Two choirs and two orchestras face each other across the church and answer one another, while a boys' choir cuts through both from above.

★ 9.6

1791

An anonymous stranger commissioned it and Mozart died before finishing. A pupil completed the rest, and arguments about which bars are his continue.

★ 9.5

1749

Bach assembled it late in life partly from music he had written decades earlier, and never heard the whole thing performed in his lifetime.

★ 9.4

1787

Mozart is said to have written the overture the night before the Prague premiere, and the orchestra sight-read it at the first performance.

★ 9.2

1741

Handel wrote it for a Dublin charity concert, and the hall asked women to come without hoops in their skirts so more people could fit.

★ 9.1

1725

Vivaldi spent most of his career teaching at a Venice orphanage for girls, whose orchestra became famous enough that travelers came to hear it.

★ 8.3

1795

Haydn was nearly sixty and had spent thirty years in a prince's service before a promoter took him to London, where he became famous overnight.

★ 7.3