As the 20th century winds to its close, Igor Stravinsky stands securely as its most important and influential composer. For more than six decades his works defined modernism in music, just as Picasso's canvases showed the essence of modernism in painting. Like that great Spanish artist, who was almost his exact contemporary, Stravinsky attained a dominating stature in his field. Only a handful of composers rivaled him in significance during his lifetime. None surpassed him.

Gerard Schwarz describes how Bela Bartok developed new rhythmic patterns modeled on Balkan and North African folk music and explored unusual instrumental colors and textures. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Bartok's innovative tendencies earned him a reputation as an uncompromising modernist, making him almost a musical anarchist who was unappreciated and largely unperformed, particularly in his native Hungary.

Gerard Schwarz explains how Chopin came to embody the Romantic Movement with his rich harmonic shadings, his intense poetic expression, and his attention to the sensual qualities of music. But Chopin did more than just write music imbued with the spirit of Romanticism. In many ways he embodied an archetypal Romantic character: a lonely genius, doomed by that most Romantic disease, tuberculosis; a visionary musician too refined to seek public acclaim.

Franz Liszt came of age with the flowering of the Romantic movement in literature and the arts, and the Romantic spirit had a profound impact on his development as both a man and an artist. Indeed, Liszt, like Berlioz, Wagner, and Chopin, gave expression to that spirit in both his life and his music. Liszt cut a larger-than-life figure, and everything he did tended towards extravagance.

Debussy was the first great composer of the twentieth century. He departed from previous musical practice to a greater extent than any previous composer. Though he completed his masterpieces Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun and the triptych Nocturnes before the turn of the century, it was not until 1902 that Debussy received widespread recognition.

The more adventurous composers of the 19th century, such as Liszt, Chopin, and Berlioz, made use of the Classical forms and procedures, though often modifying them for their own purposes. And certain composers remained dedicated to the Classical heritage. None was more devoted to this than Johannes Brahms.

Beginning in the waning years of the 19th century, Spanish composers turned to the rich tradition of Spanish folk music for materials and inspiration, and in doing so imbued their compositions with a colorful national character. The most brilliant of those composers was Manuel de Falla.

Felix Mendelssohn grew up in an extraordinary family, one distinguished by both worldly success and intellectual achievement. Mendelssohn was, in fact, the greatest child prodigy that music has known, undoubtedly helped by the early nurturing his talent received. Not even Mozart created such mature compositions at so early an age.

Berlioz had a passionate and idealistic personality, one given to incandescent enthusiasms and uncompromising struggles. Through most of this career he stood in opposition to Paris' entrenched musical establishments, which looked on his innovations in harmony, form, and instrumentation with suspicion or outright indignation. The judgment that Berlioz was a wild-eyed radical contained a certain element of truth.

Gerard Schwarz takes you through the life of Anton Dvorak, a devoted Czech nationalist who, like other composers of the nineteenth century, brought national or ethnic pride into the concert hall by using their nation's folk music to evoke patriotic sentiments.

More than any other composer, Franz Joseph Haydn deserves to be called the father of music's "Classical" style. As he came of age in the mid-18th century, musical thinking was in the midst of profound changes. The compositional forms and procedures of the Baroque era began to seem old-fashioned and composers sought fresh modes of musical expression.

Of the many remarkable violinist-composers Italy produced during the Baroque era, the most remarkable of all was Antonio Vivaldi. An artist of astonishing vigor and productivity (he wrote more than 450 concertos, 40 operas, and many solo, chamber, and vocal works over the course of his career), Vivaldi was one of the most innovative and influential musicians of his day.

The music of Franz Schubert is cherished for its beautiful flow of melody; melody that runs through the composer's songs and instrumental compositions like a clear and inexhaustible stream. But Schubert was more than just a gifted melodist. He was also the creator of exquisite symphonies in the Classical tradition.

If the vivid expression of human passion is a hallmark of Romanticism in music, then Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was perhaps the most Romantic of all composers. A sensitive, introspective, and extremely emotional man, Tchaikovsky poured his joys, sorrows, and drams into compositions that have touched listeners for over a century.

The work of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) has been called the culmination of the Classical era or the wellspring of the Romantic era in European music. Historians today see him as the heir of Haydn and Mozart, carrying their musical discoveries to a new level of complexity and integration. But the generations of composers that followed Beethoven saw him more as the headstrong radical, breaking the shackles of classicism and showing new possibilities for music.

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

The resurgence of viral clips from the long-running hit reality television show America’s Next Top Model left fans and foes alike wondering–how did a show so outrageous and at times offensive ever get on the air? For years, Americans dutifully watched as contestants faced uncomfortable situations regarding their race and gender, body-shaming, stereotyping, and problematic photoshoots. The show, which first premiered in 2003 and ran for 24 cycles, was helmed by supermodel Tyra Banks–the first Black female host of a smash network reality show.

Fresh off the success of her groundbreaking first play, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window tells the tragicomic story of a young bohemian couple in New York's Greenwich Village, struggling to do what's right in a world that rewards everything that's wrong. Sidney is a dreamer who wants his own Walden Pond; Iris is a budding actress whose own backstory is a performance. They're caught in a moment where, "the world is about to crack right down the middle," as the play tackles racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, liberal complacency, and more.

The True Story of The Coward Brothers follows two musical brothers – one English, one American, both the illegitimate sons of dubious parentage who may, as they claim to be, "one and half-brothers" – perhaps a reference to the disparity in their height and relative talents.

In the spring of 2020, as the world grappled with the deepening coronavirus pandemic, acclaimed British screenwriter and playwright David Hare was struck down by the virus himself. With brutal honesty, sharp humor, and his trademark insight, the renowned writer of modern classics like Skylight and Plenty brings us into his own experience battling the bizarre and terrifying symptoms of Covid-19.

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day.

SHELVED explores the history and drama behind albums that were deemed too controversial, too far from the beaten path, or too ahead of their time for public consumption. Through interviews with musicians, producers, record executives, and journalists, as well as archival audio, key music and personal storytelling, each episode examines the “shelved” album’s place in musical history, and the spectacles behind each missed or nearly missed release.

No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise.

From a breakout role in the smash-hit Glee to breaking barriers as the first nonbinary-identifying Tony Award winner for their featured performance in Shucked, Alex Newell is no stranger to the spotlight. Now, listen to the talented trailblazer as you’ve never seen them before in their intimate new show, Alex Newell and the Gospel of a Diva. Alex shares untold stories from their remarkable life and career alongside a selection of their favorite tunes.

In this brave and moving memoir, Corey Feldman is revealing the truth about what his life was like behind the scenes: His is a past that included physical, drug, and sexual abuse, a dysfunctional family from which he was emancipated at age fifteen, three high-profile arrests for drug possession, a nine-month stint in rehab, and a long, slow crawl back to the top of the box office.