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Zara Katznelson was born in Winnipeg to the family of a professional musician, Gregor Katznelson, who was a flutist performing under the name Nelsov. Zara's performing name is the Russian feminine form of her father's stage name. The family had emigrated to Canada in 1910.

She said she would like to play cello as early as four and a half years old. Her father got a viola converted to hold in gamba position like a cello and gave her lessons. She recalled that his lessons technically prepared her, as well as teach her discipline and how to practice.

And she did well: When she was five years old, her family formed the Canadian Trio with her two older sisters who played violin and piano. At the age of six, she was sent to study with cello teacher Dezso Mahalek. When she was 11, she entered a talent competition. One of the adjudicators was Sir Hugh Roberton, who advised that Zara and her sisters be taken to London to complete their musical education. The family took the advice and relocated in 1930. At that point, the family Anglicized its name to "Nelson."

She became a pupil of Herbert Walenn at the London Violoncello school. She studied with him for six years and gained very secure technical training and the start of her repertoire. Early in her studies with Walenn, she made her debut at a charity concert of the Royal College of Music, wich led to an engagement with Malcolm Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra performing Lalo's cello concerto.

She held off making a formal solo recital debut until she was 17 (Wigmore Hall, 1936). The conductor and former cello player Sir John Barbirolli was impressed with her playing and gave her considerable musical advice. She attributed the development of her sound -- a narrow, very singing tone -- to Barbirolli's suggestions. He took her to play for Casals, who predicted a successful solo career. Casals at the time did not teach, but when he started teaching about ten years later, the now 29-year-old musician went to study with him in Prades, spending two seasons polishing her technique. She also had short periods of study with Feuermann and Piatigorsky.

The family moved back to North America at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, settling in New York. She did not make a debut recital there until 1942, at Town Hall. The critics gave her the highest praise and her career was finally launched in a decisive way. It has been a brilliant one, as predicted by Casals. She was the first American soloist to tour the Soviet Union, playing the Kodály and Rachmaninov sonatas. The audience greeted her performances rapturously and like a long-absent returning daughter.

She has been a strong supporter of twentieth century repertoire. She gave the British premieres of the Shostakovich and Hindemith sonatas and the Samuel Barber cello concerto, which she had learned in three weeks for the occasion. After that, she recorded the concerto under the baton of the composer. After the sessions, one of the cellists of the orchestra leapt to his feet, brandishing the instrument, and screamed that he could never play again after hearing her. At that, he smashed the cello against the wall to the cheers of his colleagues. It dawned on Nelsova that the orchestra had gotten a cheap cello with which to make this gesture, but also was a true expression of their admiration. She also recorded Ernest Bloch's Schelomo under its composer's baton, as well as his Prayer, Supplication Jewish Song.

She embarked on a teaching career at New York's Juilliard School and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and gives master classes. Her teaching is directed to working not so much on technical matters like fingering and bowings, but to concentrate on emotion and intellectual involvement in the music. She plays the 1726 Marquis de Corberon cello of 1726, a beautiful instrument loaned to her by Audrey Melville of London.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a central institution of the British classical concert scene, performing major repertory works, British standards, contemporary music, and more. Especially on recordings, the group has also engaged with music from beyond the classical sphere.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra was formed in 1932 in response to a consensus that London's major orchestras, lacking strong artistic leadership, were inferior to those in Germany and even the U.S. So conductor Sir Thomas Beecham assembled a crack membership of 106 players, and the new orchestra was successful from the start. Beecham steered the group through financial difficulties at the beginning of World War II before resigning for health reasons and due to conflicts over the ensemble's artistic direction. Postwar conductors included Eduard van Beinum (1947 to 1951) and Sir Adrian Boult (1951 to 1958); the latter inaugurated an active recording program, releasing albums that remain standards to this day.

In 1966, Bernard Haitink became the orchestra's principal conductor; his tenure, lasting until 1979, was longer than that of any other conductor of the group until Vladimir Jurowski. The orchestra renovated a disused church, renamed it Henry Wood Hall, and began to use the space for rehearsals and recordings in 1975. Haitink's successor was another giant, Sir Georg Solti, who served as principal conductor from 1979 to 1983 and continued as conductor emeritus afterward, often appearing and recording with the orchestra. Solti was succeeded by a trio of Germans, Klaus Tennstedt in 1983, Franz Welser-Möst in 1990, and Kurt Masur in 2000. Welser-Möst officially installed the orchestra as the resident ensemble of the Royal Festival Hall, which remains its main concert venue.

The orchestra has also had numerous guest conductors over the years, and these have been responsible for many of its crossover releases. Although not as active in this field as the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic has made high-visibility film soundtrack recordings. These include soundtracks for such films as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Fly (1986), and the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, as well as the anthology Academy Award Themes (1984). The orchestra has released albums devoted to the music of progressive rock bands Pink Floyd and Yes, and as far back as 1959, it released the album Hawaiian Paradise. In 2011, the London Philharmonic recorded 205 national anthems in preparation for the London Olympic Games of the following year. The orchestra's album releases, classical and otherwise, numbered 280 by 1997 and has increased by well over 250 albums since then; in the year 2001 alone, the orchestra released 21 albums. The London Philharmonic established its own LPO label in the mid-2000s decade and has issued large amounts of music, both classical and not, including Genius of Film Music: Hollywood Blockbusters 1980s to 2000s, in 2018.

In 2007, the London Philharmonic was in the forefront of taking advantage of the wave of talented Russian musicians who had emigrated to the West, installing Vladimir Jurowski as principal conductor. He remained in the post until 2020, becoming the orchestra's longest-serving conductor and leading the group in a 2021 recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand"). In 2020, Karina Canellakis became the orchestra's first female principal guest conductor. Jurowski was succeeded in 2021 by Edward Gardner, who became the group's first British principal conductor for decades. ~ James Manheim

For 50 years he directed an orchestra that was second-rate in tone and technique, yet Ernest Ansermet drew performances from it that cut right to the heart of the music. A musician of catholic taste, Ansermet was a reliable, insightful interpreter of composers from Mozart to Martin. His recordings in the 1950s and 1960s with the Suisse Romande Orchestra, which he founded, retain strong interest for collectors who value nuance over tonal sheen. These recordings are of especial interest as they provide a link to composers active in Paris in the early twentieth century, with whom Ansermet was closely associated.

As a child, he studied math with his father, a teacher, and music with his mother. Ansermet's early training seemed to add up to a career in mathematics; he specialized in that subject at Lausanne University, graduating in 1903. Ansermet served as a professor of mathematics from 1905-1909. But during this time his interest in music only increased; he kept an eye trained on the technique of local conductors, and took courses in music with Alexandre Denéréaz, Otto Barblan, and Ernest Bloch. Ansermet sought further advice on conducting from Felix Mottl in Munich and Artur Nikisch in Berlin, then concentrated mainly on teaching himself the art of the baton.

His first professional efforts were leading the summer Kursaal concerts in Montreux (1912-1914), and conducting symphonic concerts in Geneva (1915-1918). In 1918 he organized the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, from the start performing a substantial amount of contemporary French and Russian music. Ansermet befriended many of the great progressive composers of the time, especially Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky. Through Stravinsky, Ansermet met Serge Diaghilev and was appointed principal conductor of the latter's Ballets Russes, touring with the company to Paris, London, Italy, Spain, South America, and the United States. During a 1916 tour Ansermet made his first recordings with the Ballets Russes orchestra -- the beginning of a half century of making intriguing records with less-than-stellar ensembles. Through his association with the Ballets Russes, Ansermet was able to premiere many of the period's most important dance scores, including Falla's Three-Cornered Hat, Prokofiev's The Buffoon, Satie's Parade, and Stravinsky's Pulcinella. As an extra-curricular wartime diversion, on September 28, 1918, Ansermet premiered Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat in Geneva.

He developed the reputation of -- in the words of Nicholas Slonimsky -- "a scholarly and progressive musician capable of fine interpretations of both classical and modern works." Although the Suisse Romande Orchestra, with which he recorded for Decca in the 1950s and 1960s, could be criticized for its wiry strings and sour woodwinds, the group delivered to Ansermet highly accurate performances notable for their clear textures and delicate timbral balances.

Ansermet was, not surprisingly, a gifted conductor of Classical-era music, but he had little opportunity to record it. He is best remembered for his sui generis recordings of the music of his French contemporaries Debussy, Ravel, and Roussel, and his Swiss compatriots Honegger and Martin. But Ansermet was also a strong champion of such other contemporary composers as Bartók and Britten, premiering the latter's opera The Rape of Lucretia. He retired from conducting in 1967, to the end performing and committing to disc such rarities as Magnard's Symphony No. 4.

Ansermet's compositions include a symphonic poem, Feuilles de printemps; he also orchestrated Debussy's Six épigraphes antiques, among other pieces. His publications include Le Geste du chef d'orchestre (1943) and Les Fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine (1961), in which he used mathematics to discredit 12-tone and other advanced compositional techniques.

Samuel Barber, one of the most prominent and popular American composers of the mid-20th century, wrote effectively in virtually every genre, including opera, ballet, vocal, choral, keyboard, chamber, and orchestral music. His music is notable for its warmly Romantic lyricism, memorable melodies, and essentially conservative harmonic style, all of which put him at odds with the prevailing modernist aesthetic of his time.

Barber was a member of the first class at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1928, the 17-year-old Gian Carlo Menotti came to study at Curtis, and the two formed a personal and professional bond that would last most of Barber's life. As a student, Barber wrote several works that have entered the repertoire, including the song Dover Beach and Overture to the School for Scandal for orchestra. A fine singer and pianist, as well as composer, much of his work throughout his career featured the voice.

After his graduation from Curtis, Barber wrote a string quartet, the second movement of which became his most famous work, Adagio for Strings. Toscanini performed the Adagio with the NBC Symphony in 1938, and Barber's career was effectively launched. His 1939 Violin Concerto further established his international reputation. During the Second World War, Barber served in the Army Air Corps, where his duties included writing a symphony, his second. Works that followed over the next two decades include the Capricorn Concerto; a Cello Concerto; a Piano Sonata; Knoxville: Summer of 1915, an extended song for voice and orchestra with a text by James Agee; Hermit Songs, for voice and piano, using medieval texts; the chamber opera A Hand of Bridge; Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, taken from the ballet Cave of the Heart, written for Martha Graham; Summer Music, for wind quintet; the opera Vanessa; and a Piano Concerto. Some of the most prestigious musicians in the world performed his music and became champions of his work, including Leontyne Price, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Eleanor Steber, Martina Arroyo, Vladimir Horowitz, Arturo Toscanini, Eugene Ormandy, Bruno Walter, George Szell, and Serge Koussevitzky.

Barber received his first Pulitzer Prize for Vanessa, which had been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, had its premiere in 1958, and was hailed as the first great American "grand opera." His 1962 Piano Concerto won the composer his second Pulitzer Prize. The Metropolitan Opera commissioned Barber to write an opera to inaugurate its new opera house in Lincoln Center in 1966. Antony and Cleopatra, based on Shakespeare with a libretto by Franco Zeffirelli, proved to be a failure due at least as much to flaws in the production as to the music. Barber was so devastated by the intensity of the animosity toward his work that he never regained his confidence. He was temperamentally disposed to melancholy, which turned into clinical depression, and although he continued to compose sporadically, he produced few further works of substance.

In spite of the indifference or contempt of critics and the academic establishment, Barber's expressive and directly communicative music has never lacked support and devotion from concert audiences, and he remains one of the best-known and beloved American composers. His Adagio for Strings has achieved iconic status as a profound and universally understood expression of grief and remains a testament to Barber's ability to write music of the highest artistic standards that can also touch the heart. ~ Stephen Eddins