The music director of the Orléans Symphony died Jan. 10. He reportedly collapsed while rehearsing the Funeral March of Beethoven’s "Eroica" Symphony.

The Met’s new La Traviata signals the retirement of a 1998 production by director Franco Zeffirelli. In this 1983 WQXR broadcast, Zeffirelli discusses his film version of La Traviata, the rich grandeur of opera and the wisdom of “certain liberties.”

Today at 11 am New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini joins Elliott Forrest to talk about his list of the 10 greatest classical composers of all time, unveiled this weekend.

The Metropolitan Opera House settled a federal lawsuit Thursday that charged the theater with discriminating against people with disabilities.

Along with Van Cliburn, Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman, Byron Janis is a leading light in the generation of American pianists who burst onto the international scene in the 1950s. Yet almost from the start he faced incredible odds.

As we mark the bicentenary of Franz Liszt in 2011, many pianists are daring to tackle his immensely difficult and diabolical compositions. But they're not the only "extreme" pieces in the repertoire.

Can’t get enough of Chopin or Brahms? New research suggests the music you love doesn’t just sound good, it can actually provoke natural chemical reactions in the brain associated with pleasure and positive feeling.

Some 200,000 recordings, including an as-yet unknown volume of classical tracks, are now being transferred from a subterranean storage facility to the Library of Congress, in what the Library has described as "a major gift to the nation."

Raphael Hillyer, a founding violist of the Julliard String Quartet, died on Dec. 27 in Boston. He was 96.

The Schermerhorn Symphony Center has been a mecca and sanctuary to classical music fans in Nashville since its opening in 2006. After floodwaters ravaged the hall last May, it is now reopening in a concert to be broadcast on WQXR.

In 1982, the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould sat down with the critic and broadcaster Tim Page to talk about Bach's Goldberg Variations, the composition that came to define his career more than any other.

The Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet was formed almost a decade ago, but its members still exude a youthful hipness. Their concert schedule includes club dates with the band Vampire Weekend as well as more traditional performances.

Once a mostly European phenomenon, booing has become increasingly common in American opera houses and concert halls. Should patrons be free to express their disapproval with boos and catcalls?

In the summer of 1957, Jorge Bolet gave a celebrated performance with the Stadium Symphony Orchestra of New York at Lewisohn Stadium in Upper Manhattan. The program's centerpiece was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.

Commuters on the London Underground are getting a dose of Mozart this month as part of a BBC Radio 3 Mozart festival. Classical performers are taking their instruments into four stations in an effort to spread the word about the 12-day event.

As WQXR focuses on today’s rising young pianists in January, we also look back at some of the young lions of the past. In this 1958 interview, pianist Van Cliburn tells WQXR about winning the first Tchaikovsky Competition.

Marina Poplavskaya was an unknown in the U.S. just five years ago. But this season she has the unusual distinction of headlining back-to-back Metropolitan Opera premieres of major new Verdi productions. She tells us how she prepared.

Throughout the month of December, we asked you to vote for your favorite pieces of classical music at WQXR.org. After receiving hundreds of votes, we present the Top 50. Thanks to everyone who participated.

Here are the year's most popular albums according to Billboard magazine's year-end sales charts and traffic to WQXR.org. Tell us about your favorite album about 2010.