Aztec music: Did you mean...?

The Aztec Sun Stone (or Calendar Stone) depicts the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology. The stone is not, therefore, in any sense a functioning calendar, but rather it is an elaborately carved solar disk, which for the...

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso noted for his solo piano music. Chopin's work helped make the piano the most popular musical instrument of the 19th century. One of the great composers of Romantic music, Chopin's...

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a German composer of Romantic music best known for his symphonies, overtures, concertos, piano pieces, and songs. Amongst his most popular works are his Wedding March from his score for A Midsummer Night's...

A detail of the celebrated Aztec double-headed serpent. It is made from wood covered in turquoise mosaic, spondylus (red) and conch (white) shell. The eyes would have been rendered with inlay, probably of iron pyrite. The piece is believed...

The lighting of fires during the Aztec New Fire Ceremony of 1507, a ritual held every 52 years to ensure the continuation of the Sun. The priests carry fire bundles and wear turquoise masks in imitation of the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli, as do...

Close-up of a red-figure vase painting depicting a music lesson. In this section, two men play music while a boy and cat (alternately identified as a young panther) sit on the side. Attributed to "The Agrigento Painter". Produced in Attica...

The Aztec civilisation spanned from around 1300 CE until 1521, and at its greatest extent, the empire covered most of Northern Mesoamerica. Although we refer to these peoples as ‘Aztecs,’ that is not what they called themselves. They were...

An 1862 oil on canvas painting, Music in the Tuileries Gardens, by Edouard Manet (1832-83), the French modernist painter. This work has often been called the first modern painting since it broke the artistic convention that artists avoided...

The striking turquoise mask now in the British Museum in London is thought to represent Xiuhtecuhtli, the Aztec god of fire, and dates to the final century of the Aztec empire, c. 1400-1521 CE. It is made from hundreds of small pieces of...

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German organist and composer whose work is today regarded as amongst the finest of mature baroque music (c. 1600-1750). More famous as an organist than as a composer in his own lifetime, Bach's rich...