Paquita

Paquita is a ballet in two acts and three scenes originally choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to music by Édouard Deldevez and Ludwig Minkus.

Paul Foucher received royalties as librettist.

Paquita is the creation of French composer Édouard Deldevez and Paris Opéra Ballet Master Joseph Mazilier.

Sergiy Lyacevitch | Dancing flower

Léopold Robert | Romantic genre painter

Louis Léopold Robert (1794-1835) was a Swiss painter.

He was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Neuchâtel) in Switzerland, but left his native place with the engraver Jean Girardet at the age of sixteen for Paris.

He was on the eve of obtaining the grand prix for engraving when the events of 1815 blasted his hopes, for Neuchâtel was restored to Prussia, and Robert was struck off the list of competitors as a foreigner.

Radetzky March

The "Radetzky March", Op. 228, is a march composed by Johann Strauss (Senior) which was first performed on 31 August 1848 in Vienna to celebrate the victory of the Austrian Empire under Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz (the piece's namesake) over the Italian forces at the Battle of Custoza, during the First Italian War of Independence.

Augustus Edwin Mulready | From morn til night, 1889

“From morn til night” is an oil on canvas artwork by British genre painter Augustus Edwin Mulready, created in 1889.

The painting is part of the collection of the Christie's London.

Augustus Edwin Mulready (1844-1904) came from a family of artists.

Augustus Edwin Mulready | From morn til night, 1889 | Christie's

Franz Liszt | La Campanella

"La campanella" (Italian for "The little bell") is the subtitle given to the third of Franz Liszt's six Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141 (1851). It is in the key of G-sharp minor.

"La campanella" is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d'exécution transcendante d'après Paganini, S. 140.

Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where the tune was reinforced by a "little handbell".

Louis-Ernest Barrias | Romantic / Art Nouveau sculptor

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905) was a French sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school.

In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome.

Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées.

His work was mostly in marble, in a Romantic realist style indebted to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky | At School Doors, 1897

Descending from peasant class, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky dedicated a significant portion of his work to rural schoolchildren.

His heroes hover indecisively at the classroom door, solve problems at the blackboard, read books or converse with the teacher.

The master's idealistic paintings upheld the notion that education was capable of improving public morality and overcoming the backwardness of the Russian countryside.

This lovingly painted and slightly sentimental canvas was possibly inspired by the personal memories of the artist, who attended Sergei Rachinsky's village school in Tatevo, Smolensk Province.

Ilya Repin | Historical / Genre painter

Ilya Yefimovich Repin / Илья́ Ефи́мович Ре́пин, (1844-1930), Russian painter of historical subjects known for the power and drama of his works.

Born to a poor family near Kharkov, Repin learned his trade from a painter of icons named Bunakov and in 1864 became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg.

Charles Hawthorne | Portrait / Genre painter

Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872-1930) was an American painter and a noted teacher who founded the Cape Cod School of Art in 1899.

He was born in Lodi, Illinois and his parents returned to Maine, raising him in the state where Charles' father was born.

At age 18, he went to New York, working as an office-boy by day in a stained-glass factory in New York, and studying at night school and with Henry Siddons Mowbray and William Merritt Chase, and abroad in both Holland and Italy.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox: "Ridi e il mondo riderà con te. Piangi, e piangerai da solo..."

Ridi e il mondo riderà con te.

Piangi, e piangerai da solo.

Poiché il vecchio mondo triste deve prendere

in prestito la sua allegria,

ma ha già abbastanza guai per conto suo.

Canta, e le colline ti risponderanno.

Rene Magritte | La vie heureuse, 1944

Hugues Merle | The Lunatic of Etretat, 1871

"The Lunatic of Etretat" is a painting by French Academic artist Hugues Merle (1822-1881).

It is part of the collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art, in Norfolk, Virginia.

The woman’s face is a mask of suffering while she cradles, not a sleeping baby, but a wooden log!

Is Merle’s "Lunatic" mourning the loss of a child, or mad with longing for one?

Vittorio Matteo Corcos | Dreams / Sogni, 1896

Vittorio Matteo Corcos returned in 1886 to Florence, where he painted the prominent and the fashionable portrait of a modern girl, Elena Vecchi, which has become the most emblematic image of the so-called Belle Epoque.

His most notorious portrait, however, was that of his mistress, Elena Vecchi, the daughter of a naval officer who carned his fame as Jack La Bolina, the author of popular adventure stories.

Ave Maria (Schubert)

"Ellens dritter Gesang" ("Ellens Gesang III", D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6, 1825), in English: "Ellen's Third Song", was composed by Franz Schubert in 1825 as part of his Op. 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's 1810 popular narrative poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German.

Giovanni Battista Salvi called Sassoferrato (1609-1685) | The Madonna in prayer | Christie's

Hugues Merle | Genre painter

From National Gallery of Art:

Born in 1823 at Saint-Marcellin (Isère), Hugues Merle studied in Paris with the history painter Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) and devoted himself to a wide range of subjects, from religious themes and historical anecdotes to incidents from contemporary life, particularly of the urban and rural poor.

His greatest popular successes, however, were won by scenes of maternal affection and childhood innocence that he sought to imbue with impish sweetness and sentimentality.

Filippo Baratti | Orientalist painter

Filippo Baratti (1849-1936) was an Italian painter; known primarily for his Orientalist scenes.

Filippo Baratti was born in Trieste, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Little is known of his early years, however in 1868 he was exhibiting at the Esposizione di Belle Arte in Milan.

Baratti then moved to Turin, where he exhibited at the Società Promatirice di Belle Arte 1869-1872.

Angiolo Tommasi | The Emigrants /Gli Emigranti, 1986

Angelo Tommasi is a Naturalistic painter, influenced by Courbet’s realism, and played an active role spreading the technique employed by the Macchiaioli.

The monumental painting The Emigrants shows a common situation in Italy after the unification process.

The burning and dramatic theme of overseas emigration is vividly depicted by the packed crowds at the Port of Livorno, people who have resigned themselves to their fate and the expectation of embarkation. The painting's extraordinary dimensions contribute to an illustration of the theme of Italian emigration on an almost epic scale.

Pablo Neruda | Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,

take air away, but

do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,

the lance flower that you pluck,

the water that suddenly

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Dance at Bougival, 1883 | Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Richard Wagner | Tristan und Isolde (Overture)

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg.

First conceived in 1854, the music was composed between 1857-1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting.

Gustav Klimt | The Kiss, 1908 | Österreichische Galerie Belvedere

Johann Strauss | By the Beautiful Blue Danube

"The Blue Danube" is the common English title of "An der schönen blauen Donau", Op. 314 / German for "By the Beautiful Blue Danube", a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II (1825-1899), composed in 1866.

Originally performed on 15 February 1867 at a concert of the Wiener Männergesang-Verein (Vienna Men's Choral Association), it has been one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire.

Its initial performance was considered only a mild success, however, and Strauss is reputed to have said:

"The devil take the waltz, my only regret is for the coda - I wish that had been a success!"

Mihály Zichy | Ball in the Concert Hall of the Winter Palace during the Official Visit of Nasir al-Din Shah in May 1873-1874 | State Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Czárdás - Hungarian Dance

Inscribed in 2024 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the Csárdás is a Hungarian dance that is performed by couples consisting of a man and a woman, or, in some regions, of two women.

Multiple couples participate in the dance at the same time, forming one large or several smaller circles.

Each region has its own themes, gestures and figures, which are improvised according to well-known, established rules and patterns.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner | Czardas dancers, 1908 | Gemeentemuseum Den Haag