composer

(Newser) - The life of Vivaldi, the Italian composer best known for The Four Seasons and the Gloria, is music to the ears of authors and Hollywood producers. Two new books and an upcoming movie dwell on the supposedly salacious details of his 18th-century personal life, though at least one researcher thinks...

(Newser) - It's not exactly  CSI, but the classical era now has its own forensic murder investigation. A new Austrian study has concluded that Ludwig von Beethoven died from overdoses of lead administered by his doctor with the intention of healing him. Beethoven suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, and that organ's...

(Newser) - Cellist, conductor, and one-time Soviet gadfly Mstislav Rostropovich, who used to instruct his orchestras to "play as if you are being tickled in the sides," died today in Moscow. Rostropovich, whose 17-year-run as the head of the National Symphony Orchestra tranformed it from a middling ensemble to one...