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Last week we heard from some composers who, through luck or prescience, were able to escape the authoritarian regimes of 20th-century Europe. This Sunday we’ll hear music from seven who were not so fortunate.

In the years before World War I, Paris impressario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned three ballets from Igor Stravinsky. We’ll look at the Paris ballets over the next three weeks on Mozart’s Attic, and we’ll begin with The Firebird this Sunday with the others to follow.

Also: Suspect in ricin letters described as conspiracist and Elvis impersonator; North Korea "sets conditions" for return to talks; and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords expresses her anger after gun bills fail in Senate.

We’ve been working our way through the Beethoven piano sonatas over the past few months, and this week we’re up to Number 14, the famous Moonlight Sonata.It was written in 1801, and that was a big year for the thirty-year-old transplant to the big city of Vienna. Audiences were taking notice, and patrons were commissioning works. There was a troublesome ringing in his ears, but maybe that would go away.

Director Ridley Scott has made two of the best science fiction films of modern times, Alien and Blade Runner. Prometheus is more involving than this year's summer blockbuster competition, but by the standards of the director's earlier films, it's a disappointment.

It’s only natural that there should be an affinity between various genres of music, and that includes classical and more popular formats — musical comedy, for example, or jazz. This week, we’ll look at some composers and songwriters who have shared more than one limelight. The names will all be familiar but the selections might be somewhat extra-curricular. Or maybe not. It depends on your point of view.

In 1955, the 22-year old Canadian pianist Glenn Gould arrived at the Studios of Columbia Records to record the — not much better known — Goldberg Variations of J.S. Bach. Sixty-six years later, the recording is still in print. It launched Gould’s career, and in 1981, he book ended that career with another recording of the same work. It was to be his last recording.

This was a big year in politics. But readers also devoured stories on avoiding mosquitoes, raising courageous kids, and why taking notes by hand is still your best bet.

Gen. Robert Neller will step down as Marine Corps commandant this fall. In a wide-ranging interview, he talks about Russia and China, cyberwarfare, female Marines and sexual assault in the Corps.

The actions snarled Londoners' morning rush hour, sparking frustration among people who rely on the train. Police have made at least 1,711 arrests in the climate activists' 12 days of protests.