Masters of music

Discusses the life and career of the eighteenth-century German composer.

A biography of the man who made taking pictures child's play and made way for a whole new era in photography. Like many other Americans, George Eastman enjoyed taking photographs. But in 1877, photography was a complicated process that included chemicals, glass plates, and boxes full of equipment. George Eastman decided there had to be an easier way to take pictures. Although he had a full-time job at a bank, he devoted every spare minute to experimenting...

Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring created a near-riot when it premiered in Paris in 1913. Neither the music nor the dancing was like anything that audiences had seen before. Fistfights broke out among the spectators and their noise level was close to a modern rock concert. Three years earlier, Stravinsky was virtually unknown. He had had to overcome serious parental objections to even begin composing. Yet by the time that The Rite of Spring...