Classics For Kids

The Water Music that Handel composed may be the most famous classical music associated with water, but there are lots of other composers who wrote watery pieces.

As soon as Handel got his first job of court composer to a German prince, he headed for England. Through a bizarre twist of royal succession, that prince ended up […]

As soon as Handel got his first job of court composer to a German prince, he headed for England. Through a bizarre twist of royal succession, that prince ended up becoming king of England. Instead of staying angry at Handel for leaving Germany, King George I asked him to compose music for a huge party he held on barges on the River Thames.

1685 was a very good year for German composers. Within the space of a month, two of the greatest were born: Johann Sebastian Bach, and George Frederick Handel. Handel spent […]

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov spent years as a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Many of his students became famous composers themselves: Anatol Liadov, Alexander Glazunov, and Igor Stravinsky. A lot of […]

There are many pieces of classical music — besides “The Flight of the Bumblebee” — that are about bees, birds, and other winged creatures. Composers use various instruments to imitate […]

Many pieces of music from Russian operas have become much more famous in the concert hall than on the opera stage. Some of these pieces include Tchaikovsky’s Waltz and Polonaise […]

The Flight of the Bumblebee comes from an opera called The Tale of Tsar Saltan, which is based on a story by the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. In the […]

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov became a navy officer in order to follow in his older brother’s footsteps. But his real talent lay in music. After leaving the navy, he became a teacher […]

Vivaldi is not the only composer who wrote music about the seasons, or about spring. Many other composers wrote springtime music.