If you are a mother or like a mother to someone, Happy Mother’s Day!

Antonín Dvořák wrote a sweet little song which is perfect for this day. “Songs My Mother Taught Me” describes the tender voice of the author’s mother singing songs with tears in her eyes – and now the teary-eyed author is singing those same songs to her child.

If you live anywhere near where  I do, the rain is really coming down today!

Art imitates life; you can find all kinds of musical attempts to capture the spirit of a good cleansing storm. You got your gentle snow storm, your generic winter storm, and then you got your classic thunderstorm, compliments of Gioachino Rossini and his opera, The Barber of Seville. Like most Italian opera, it’s light and elegant.

… they STEAL.

Frédéric Chopin had a pretty kickin’ idea when he wrote his nocturnes for solo piano. They are perfect – intimate, romantic, dreamy. Well, when Chopin kicked the bucket in 1849, Franz Liszt took his idea and ran with it. The guy wasn’t even cold in his grave, and already Liszt was penning a shameless copy of his style.