Brilliant Classics

Bach composed his St Matthew Passion in 1727. Only two of his five Passion settings have survived - the St Matthew and the St John. The St Mark survives in a realisation after the manuscript was destroyed in a bombing raid in the Second World War. Of the other two works there is no trace. The work was premiered in Leipzig where Bach was...

Bach composed his St Matthew Passion in 1727. Only two of his five Passion settings have survived -- the St Matthew and the St John. The St Mark survives in a realisation after the manuscript was destroyed in a bombing raid in the Second World War. Of the other two works there is no trace. The work was premiered in Leipzig where Bach was...

One of the best-loved of all operas, Puccini's Madama Butterfly was given its premiere at La Scala Milan in 1904, where it received a terrible reception. The chemistry of the collaborators should have ensured success -- the librettists Luigi Illica and Guiseppe Giacosa had worked with the composer on La boheme and Tosca. Puccini withdrew the work...

With hardly any documents relating to his life having survived, very little is known about the French guitarist, theorbist, lutenist and composer Robert de Visée. In 1680 he was supposedly appointed to the court of Louis XIV -- the so-called 'Roi Soleil' -- where he was admired by his benefactors as well as the great musicians influential in...

The C minor Passacaglia and Fugue is one of the great masterpieces for the instrument and one which inspired countless responses from composers great and lesser. So it's all the more astonishing to think that Bach wrote it while still a twenty-something hireling in Weimar, where his Kapellmeistership to the Duke ended badly with the composer being...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is considered one of the most influential composers of all time. The child prodigy would become the author of some of today's best loved instrumental works, and a true king of sung drama. La Betulia liberata KV118/74c, the only oratorio he ever produced, was written by a relatively young Wolfgang whose potential is...