The Legacy of Music

Now, prepare yourself for an examination of:

THE GREAT COMPOSERS, THEIR YEARS, NATIONALITY AND BIOGRAPHY

KINDS OF MUSIC, IN ERAS

Baroque: Textural Irtricacy, (1600-1750)
Classical: Structural Clarity, Virtuistic, formal, (1750-1830)
Early Romantic: Virtuistic, Emotive, Harmonic, Nationalist, Natural, (1830-1860)
Later Romantic: Expressive, Naturally Inspired, Dramatic, National, (1860-1920)
Modern: Varietal, Diverse, Experimental, (1920-Today)

ALBENIZ, Issac  1860-1909 SPANISH
One of three great Spanish Romantic composers. Created the national style of Spain with the famed Suite Iberia.

BACH, Johann S.  1685-1750 GERMAN
Baroque composer of the highest magnitude. Worked in Leipzig at St. Thomas Church, he wrote the famed Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and the Brandenburg Concertos, among many other works.

BALAKIREV, Milij  1837-1910 RUSSIAN
Grand Romantic composer, responsible for the oriental fantasy Islamey. His own success as a composer was intermittent, largely owing to eccentricites of character and a tendency to make enemies through his own overwhelming enthusiasm and intolerance of other ideas. He was the nationalist leader of ‘The Five,’ or ‘Mighty Handful,’ a Russian nationalist group consisting of Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky Korsakov, based in St. Petersburg, who were the principal nationalist group in Russia, following their forefather, Glinka.

BARBER, Samuel  1910-1981 AMERICAN
Though considered a Modern, he is not without Neo-Romantic feeling. His great work is the Adagio for Strings.

BARTOK, Bela  1881-1945 HUNGARIAN
Great Post-Classical Progressive composer. He an Kodaly transcribed Hungarian and neighboring folk music, he is also responsible for Concerto for Orchestra. He wrote with mathematical presision, evident even in the energetic Romanian Dances.

BEETHOVEN , Ludwig Van 1770-1827 GERMAN
Supreme Composer. He carries music from Classical to Romantic. He was taught by Haydn at a young age in Vienna, later had hearing loss and eccentricities of character. He was controversial, revolutionary and responsible for the incredible expansion of the Classical form with Symphony 3 Eroica, a celebration of Napoleans Republican Achievements, 5, 9 the Choral, Fidelio, Egmont Overture, and the Ruins of Athens. A man of deep feeling, as evident in these, as well as Fur Elise, Pathetique Sonata, Moonlight Sonata and more.

BELLA, Jan Levoslav  1843-1956 SLOVAK
Respected by Brahms, he is the greatest Slovak composer, though his fame is largely confined to Slovakia. Wrote for piano, and was ordained a priest.

BERLIOZ, Hector  1803-1869 FRENCH
Leading Early Romantic composer, the most outstanding French Romantic. He was an outsider in his time, wrote with deep desperation for lost love, like Beethoven. He wrote the Symphonie Fantistique, Rakoszy March, Roman Carnival and Harold in Italy, and Les Trojians, the story of the taking of Troy.

BERNSTEIN, Lenoard 1918-1990 AMERICAN
He attempted a modern synthesis of American music, and championed the music of Mahler. With his West Side Story, changed American musical tastes.

BIZET, Georges  1838-1875 FRENCH
Famous Romantic composer famous for the opera Carmen, one of the greatest of all operas. He lived in Paris and was gaining better success as he died young.

BORODIN, Aleksander 1833-1887 RUSSIAN
Grand Romantic composer of St. Petersburg school, responsible for Prince Igor, one of the Nationalist ‘Five,’ his exotic Steppes of Central Asia, and Polovtsian Dances are among the best of nationalist music, along with Symphony 2. Some music unfinished at his death was completed by his friends Rimsky Korsakov and Glauzanov.

BRAHMS, Johannes  1833-1897 GERMAN
Classical composer of the highest magnitude, last great exponent of the tradition. Early on, he was pupil of Schumann, the two were good friends. He moved to Vienna where he became the successor to Beethoven, champion of those anti-Romantics, opposed to Liszt and Wagner, who valued the structure of the Classical style. He is responsible for the great Acedemic Festival Overture, Hungarian Dances, and Symphonies. Also a Tragic Overture, and a Lullaby.

BRITTEN, Benjamin  1913-1976 ENGLISH
Great Modern composer. Most outstanding English composer of the 20th Century. His Peter Grimes and Requiem are considered his best works, with the Guide to Orchestra.

BRUCKNER, Anton  1824-1896 AUSTRIAN
Later Classical and then Romantic composer of high magnitude in Vienna, where he taught at the Vienna Conservatory. He continued the Austro-German Symphonic tradition on a massive scale. The best bieng Symphony 4 Romantic and 7.

CHOPIN, Fryderyk  1810-1849 POLISH
Leading Early Romantic composer. Left Poland after the failed 1831 Rising against Russia, and found himself with other Polish exiles in Paris, playing for leading circles. He was the greatest of all composers for piano, using nationalist inspiration to create the Revolutionary etude, which has been called ‘guns hidden in flowers,’ Minute Waltz, Winter Wind, Nocturnes, Mazurkas and Polonaises. The whole body of Chopin’s work is of the greatest musical importance, among which is the immortal Piano Sonata #2, the story of his fatherland.

CIURLIONIS, Mikolaj 1875-1911 LITHUANIAN
The greatest Lithuanian composer, a Romantic studying in Warsaw, then becoming a painter, before returning to music to create the symphonic poems The Sea and The Forest.

COPELAND, Aaron  1900-1990 AMERICAN
Great Modern composer, famous for Appalachian Spring and Fanfare for the Common Man, he is quintessentially American, writing of the Old West with Billy the Kid, and has won an unassailable position as the dean of American composers.

COUPERIN, Francois  1663-1733 FRENCH
Baroque composer, royal organist and musician under Louis XIV, he is from a family of musicians and known as ‘Le Grand.’ He composed church music and his music for harpsicord ranks of the best ever. He occupies a prime place in French music.

DEBUSSY, Claude  1862-1918 FRENCH
Later French Romantic composer of highest magnitude, wrote Clare De Lune, La Mer. He has exercised widespread influence over later generations of composers, as the musical equivalent of an ‘Impressionist.’ He was trained at the Paris Conservatoire, and his music is very French in inspiration, some of the time it created scandals, such as the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, an evocation of a pagan world of satyrs. Also a piano writer.

DVORAK, Antonin  1841-1904 BOHEMIAN
Most famous of Bohemian Nationalist composers. Successor to Smetana who was his mentor, he was responsible for Slavonic Dances and Symphony 9 New World. True to his roots, he settled after an American adventure where he was director of the American Conservatory, to a tiny Bohemian village, resisting Brahms’ invitation to live and work in Vienna.

ELGAR, Sir Edward  1851-1934 ENGLISH
Romantic composer. He was arguably the leading English composer of his generation, with the Enigma Variations and the Pomp and Circumstance March 1.

ENESCU, Georges  1881-1955 ROMANIAN
Greatest of Romanian musicians, this Romantic composer was mentored by Faure, and wrote piano music. He is most famous for his Romanian Rhapsody 1.

ERKEL, Ferenc  1810-1893 HUNGARIAN
Descended from a family resident for generations in the then Hungarian city of Pozsony (Bratislava), Ferenc Erkel was a leading figure in Hungarian music in a period of growing national fervour. This is evident in his piano music, much of it written in the 1840’s during the revolts against Austria.

FALLA, DE, Manuel  1876-1946 SPANISH
One of three great Spanish Romantics who have won international recognition. The music of Spain has exercised an exotic fascination, but often in forms adapted by foreign composers. Falla is responsible for the Three Cornered Hat.

FAURE, Gabriel  1845-1924 FRENCH
Famous Romantic composer of the Requiem. In the rigid official musical establishment of Paris in the second half of the 19th century he won acceptance with difficulty. He was a pupil of Saint-Saens, and mentor to Ravel and Enescu. Fauré is a song-writer of importance, capturing in his settings the spirit of his time, the mood of nostalgic yearning for the unattainable. Some of the songs, such as After a Dream, have achieved even wider popularity in instrumental working.

FRANCK, Caeser  1822-1890 FRENCH
Famous Romantic composer, had difficulty in a Paris that wanted opera in the mid-later 19th Century, was something of an outsider, originally from Belgium. He was a man of gentle character, who wrote a Symphony and organ music.

GERSHWIN, George  1898-1937 AMERICAN
Great Modern composer, famous for Rhapsody in Blue and a Piano Concerto. In a period in which American music was developing with composers of the calibre of Aaron Copland, he went some way towards bridging the wide gap between Tin Pan Alley and serious music. He won success as a composer of light music, Rhapsody in Blue unites neo-Classical with American jazz. Porgy and Bess explores black American themes.

GLUZANOV, Boris  1865-1936 RUSSIAN
Grand Romantic composer, inhereted St. Petersburg tradition. Was a pupil of Balakirev at a young age, but bickered with him later. He was a good friend of Rimsky-Korsakov, and when for political reasons RK had to leave his post at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Glauzanov reinstated him.

GLINKA, Mikhail  1804-1857 RUSSIAN
Early Romantic, began the Russian nationalist school of music. He had a huge influence on Balakirev and the Five, after uniting western opera with Russian melodies. He is responsible for Ruslan and Ludmilla, and a Life for the Tsar. His Spanish Nights use a Slavic variation to describe Madrid.

GORECKI, Henryk  1933-2001 POLISH
The greatest living composer, he is a Modern with innovation, but also anachronistic. He is responsible for the legendary expressionist Symphony 3 ‘Of Sorrowful Songs.’  He has remained in Katowice, Poland nearly his entire life, and was tutored in the tradition of Szymanowski.

GRANADOS   1867-1916 SPANISH
One of three great Spanish Romantics, transcribed native music to make dances. He is responsible for the immensly effective Spanish Dances. He collaborated with Albeniz and Saint Saens. Afraid of the ocean, he came to the USA in 1916 for the premier of his music outside Spain. On the way back, his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat.

GRIEG, Edvard  1843-1907 NORWEGIAN
The greatest Scandinavian Romantic composer, responsible for Peer Gynt and one of the most famous of Romantic piano concertos, the Holberg Suite, and transcribing Norwegian folk melodies into music.

HANDEL, George F.  1685-1759 GERMAN
Baroque composer of the highest magnitude. He competed with Scarlatti, settled in London, wrote music for kings. He is resposible for Water Music, Fireworks Music, operas, keyboard scores and the oratorio Messiah.

HAYDN, Josef  1732-1809 AUSTRIAN
Classical composer of the highest importance, introduced symmetry and sensibility. Haydn is the father of the symphony, of the Classical form, and the sonata. He mentored Beethoven and Mozart. His greatest is Symphony 104 London. He worked for Hungarian princes after a time at St. Stephen’s in Vienna. He died as Napolean’s soldiors entered the city.

HOLST, Gustav  1874-1934 ENGLISH
Great Romantic-Modern English composer, he wrote the masterpiece The Planets, during World War I. He influenced later English composers, but during his lifetime, his music did not receive the attention that it has since.

IPPOLITOV-IVANOV 1859-1935 RUSSIAN
A later Romantic, he continued the nationalist traditions established by the Five, but at the Moscow Conservatory. Like Balakirev and Rimsky Korsakov, he had a fascination with the exotic, and his most famous work is the Caucasian Skeches. He lived in Georgia, and was interested in the various peoples inhabiting the Russian Empire.

JANACEK, Leos  1854-1928 MORAVIAN
Famous Romantic, friend of Dvorak, brought Romantic period to invigorating close with the Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, and Glagolitic Mass. His early career was in Brno, where he was from, and later went to Prague.

KHACHATAURIAN  1903-1978 ARMENIAN
A Soviet composer of Armenian origin, he was trained at Moscow Conservatory.  He later assumed important positions in the Union of Soviet Composers and continued to implement one aspect of official cultural policy in his use of regional Armenian thematic material, although his name was joined to those of Shostakovich and Prokofiev in the condemnation of formalism promulgated in 1948. He is best known for his grand ballets.

KODALY, Zoltan  1882-1967 HUNGARIAN
Neo Romantic composer. A colleague of Bartók in the collection of folk music in Hungary and neighbouring regions, made his later career in his own country, where the system of musical education he devised has had a profound effect, as it has abroad.  Háry János, deals with the alleged exploits of an old soldier, János, who has a vivid imagination and no regard for truth or probability. These include his single-handed defeat of Napoleon and the French armies. He also wrote dances.

LISZT, Franz   1811-1886 HUNGARIAN
Leading early Romantic composer. He was born into the Esterhazy family, patrons of Haydn, and moved to Vienna at a young age to study under Salieri. As Paganini did with the violin, Liszt did with the piano. He was an astonishing pianist, touring Europe, and ending up in Budapest, where he was considered a national hero. He wrote Faust, Hungarian Rhapsodies, and the Memphisto Waltz, and transcribed operas by his friend Wagner.

LUTOSLAWSKI, Witold 1913-1994 POLISH
A Modern composer, he was born and studied in Warsaw, winning a distinguished international reputation particularly from the 1950s onwards, he was highly original.The genius of Lutosl¦awski was early evident, then the years after the war brought a return to more conventional national modes of composition.

MAHLER, Gustav  1860-1911 AUSTRIAN
Great ‘Musical Romantic’ composer of Vienna, he deviated and wrote eccletic and wide-ranging symphonies, such as Symphony 1 Titan. The symphonies, in their variety of mood, offer a reflection of the world, with music that may occasionally be garish and yet often reaches unsurpassable heights. He lived in Vienna and made reforms there that did not agree with the press, and was forced to resign.

MENDELSSHON, Felix 1810-1847 GERMAN
Leading Early Romantic composer. Prolific and precocious, Mendelssohn had many gifts, musically as composer, conductor and pianist. His style of composition combined something of the economy of means of the classical period with the romanticism of a later age. He worked in Leipzig, and is responsible for the public awakening to the music of Bach. A Midsummer Night's Dream, a work in many ways typical of the composer's deftness of touch in its evocation of the fairy world of the play for which he later wrote incidental music.

MOSZKOWKSI, Moritz 1854-1925 POLISH
A Romantic pianist, he was born in Poland and left to Berlin and Paris. He is responsible for piano concertos. He lost his entire fortune during WWI, and had no family. He went to the USA and his friends held a benefit concert for him.

MOZART, Wolfgang A. 1756-1791 AUSTRIAN
Classical composer of the highest importance, greatest master of structural clarity. He was a child prodigy who went from Salzburg to different parts of Europe with his father, and returned to Vienna and wrote some of the greatest music of all time. An eccentric in life, he did what he wanted too do, and was in and out of favor in the Viennese social circles. No one however, could doubt his power of composition. Don Giovanni, Eine Kline Nacktmusik, The Marrige of Figaro.

MUSSORGSKY, Modest 1839-1881 RUSSIAN
Grand Romantic composer of St. Petersburg, famous for Night on Bare Mountain, Boris Godunov, and Pictures at an Exibition. He was one of the Five, under the unreliable Balakirev, and wrote on thoroughly Russian subjects. He was eccentric in his work, discovering personal ways of uniting music to subjects. Much of his work was unfinished when he died, it was continued by Rimsky Korsakov.  

NIELSON, Carl  1865-1931 DANISH
Scandinavian late Romantic and Modern composer, the greatest Danish composer. He lived at the Copenhagan Conservatory, where he wrote his best works, symphonies, such as 2 and 4, the Inixtinguishable.

NOVAK   1870-1949 BOHEMIAN
A Romantic composer and fellow-student of Josef Suk in Dvorak's composition master-class at the Prague Conservatory. He found inspiration in the folk-music of Moravia and Slovakia, which strongly influenced his music. His piano tone-poem Pan, later orchestrated, represents Novak at the height of his powers.

PACHELBEL, Johann 1653-1706 GERMAN
An important Baroque composer, he wrote protestant church music, and is responsible for the famous Canon. He was a great organist and held many important posts in German cities, and also wrote a large amont of sacred music, and gigue.

PADEREWSKI, Ignacy 1860-1941 POLISH
A nationalist late Romantic composer, he toured Europe and the USA as a virtuoso pianist in support of Polish independence. He was prime minister of Poland in 1918 and helped negociate the Varsailles treaty. He is responsible for wonderful piano music, Symphony 2 Polonia, Melodie, and Polish Fantasy.

PAGANINI, Nikolo  1782-1840 ITALIAN
The ultimate virtuoso, he created a sensation wherever he went with his extraordinary talent for the violin. It was even romoured that he had diabolical assistance in his playing. His compositions were written for his own playing, and represent a compendium of vehicles for dazzling displays.

PENDERECKI, Krzystof 1933-2001 POLISH
A Modern composer, he occupies an important position in the music of his native Poland, while establishing an international reputation with music that had a wide effect. His earlier more experimental musical language was later subtly modified by his return to earlier traditions as a source of inspiration.

PROKOFIEV, Sergei  1891-1953 RUSSIAN
Great Modern composer, famous for Romeo and Juliet and Alexander Nevsky. He entered the St. Petersburg conservatory and shocked the director, Glauzanov, but was too good to send away. After the revolution of 1917, he was out of favor with the authorities and spent much time in America and Paris. He died on the same day as Stalin and was deprived of the relaxation in Soviet-realist formalism, in tone, he is ironic.

PUCCINI, Giacomo  1858-1924 ITALIAN
Great Italian opera composer, the most important opera composer after the time of Verdi, he with Madam Butterfly, and La Boheme. He worked in Milan.

PURCELL, Henry  1659-1695 ENGLISH
He was one of the greatest English composers, flourishing in the period that followed the Restoration of the monarchy after the Puritan Commonwealth period. Purcell spent much of his short life in the service of the Chapel Royal as a composer, organist and singer. With considerable gifts as a composer, he wrote extensively for the stage. He died in 1695, a year after composing funeral music for Queen Mary.

 RACHMANINOV, Sergei 1873-1943 RUSSIAN
Of Tchaikovskian tradition, he was the last of the great Romantics. After study at the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories, he embarked on a career in Russia as a composer, pianist and conductor. Exile from his own country after the Communist Revolution of 1917 forced an increased concentration on performance. The 2nd of his four piano concertos holds an unchallenged position among romantic works in this form, its popularity closely rivalled by the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, for piano and orchestra.

RAVEL, Maurice  1875-1934 FRENCH
Later French Romantic and Modern composer of highest magnitude, responsible for Bolero. French, he combined skill in orchestration with meticulous technical command of harmonic resources, writing in an attractive musical idiom that was entirely his own, in spite of contemporary comparisons with Debussy.

RESPIGHI, Ottorino  1979-1936 ITALIAN
Great Italian Romantic composer, wrote the Pines of Rome. He studied music in his native Bologna and later, briefly, with Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg. A viola-player and pianist, as well as a composer, he settled in Rome in 1913, earning a reputation for his vivid symphonic poems, in particular Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals, the last even more a celebration of the revived spirit of nationalism in the Italy of his time.

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, Nikoli 1844-1908 RUSSIAN
Grand Romantic composer of St. Petersburg, one of the Five, the leading group of 19th century Russian nationalist composers, he embarked at first on a career as a naval officer, following the traditions of his family, later resigning from the service to devote himself entirely to music. He was proficient as an orchestrator and set himself to smoothing out some of the apparent crudities in the work of some of his fellow-composers, such as Borodin and Mussorgsky. He was respected a teacher, his pupils including Stravinsky. Mention may be made of  Snow Maiden, Maid of Pskov, and Tale of Tsar Saltan. excerpts from some of these may be very familiar, including the famous Flight of the Bumble Bee, from Tsar Saltan. For orchestra, Spanish Caprice and the Arabian Nights Sheherazade are his best known, followed by the Russian Easter Festival Overture.

ROSSINI, Gioachiamo  1792-1868 ITALIAN
Classical opera composer, he occupied an unrivalled position in the Italian musical world of his time. Of three dozen or so operas, Barber of Seville is probably the best known, a treatment of the first play of the Figaro trilogy by Beaumarchais on which Mozart had drawn thirty years before in Vienna. Other well known comic operas include The Silken Ladder, The Italian Girl in Algiers, The Turk in Italy, Cinderella and The Thieving Magpie, also the serious William Tell. The Overtures to many of these operas are nothing less then outstanding. The revolution of 1830 prevented the fulfilment of French royal commissions for the theatre, but in his later life he continued to enjoy considerable esteem, both in Paris, where he spent much of his last years, and in his native Italy.

SAINT-SAENS, Camille  1835-1921 FRENCH
Famous Romantic composer, wrote a zoological fantasy, Carnival of the Animals. Known as the French Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns was a talented child, with interests beyond music. He made an early impression as a pianist. Following established French tradition, he was for nearly twenty years organist at the Madeleine in Paris and taught at the Ecole Niedermeyer, where he befriended his  Faure, his student. Versatile as a composer, by the time of his death in 1921 his popularity in France had diminished, as fashions in music changed. Famous works are Samson and Delialah, Organ Sympony, and Danse Macabre.

SALIERI, Antonio   1750-1825 ITALIAN
Thanks to Pushkin and Rimsky-Korsakov, Salieri has been cast as the villain in the tragedy of Mozart's early death. However, he occupied a position of great importance in the music of Vienna. From 1774 he was court composer and conductor of the Italian opera in Vienna, the greatest city of music. He won similar success to the latter also in Paris with operas for the French stage. His pupils included Beethoven and Schubert

SATIE, Erik    1866-1925 FRENCH
Famous Impressionistic, Modern composer, wrote Gymnopedie 1. A French composer as eccentric in his way of life as in his music, Satie exercised considerable influence over some of his more distinguished contemporaries, including Debussy and Ravel, particularly through his tendency to extreme simplicity. A number of his compositions have become very famous.

SCARLATTI, Dominico  1685-1757 ITALIAN
Baroque composer, was born in Naples in 1685, the year of birth of Handel and Bach. After an period in Italy he moved to Portugal and then to the service of the Infanta Maria Barbara in Madrid, after her marriage to the Spanish Infante. He remained in this service even after her husband's accession to the throne and died in Madrid in 1757. He is chiefly known for the large number of short sonatas he wrote for the harpsichord, many of them for his royal pupil and patron.

SCHOENBERG, Arnold  1874-1951 AUSTRIAN
Great ‘Musical Romantic, of Vienna, he has exercised very considerable influence over music in the 20th century, through musical unity that is provided by the use of a determined series of semitones, their order also inverted into retrograde form, and in transposed versions. His early works are post-romantic in character, followed by a period in which he developed atonality, music without a key or tonal centre. Born in Vienna in 1874, he spent his early career in Berlin, until the rise to power of Hitler made it necessary to leave Germany and find safety in America, where he died in 1951. He is the father of the ‘Second Viennese School.’ His most famous work is ‘Transfigured Night.’

SCHUBERT, Franz    1797-1828 AUSTRIAN
Late Classical composer of high magnitude. The son Viennese schoolmaster, he was qualified as a schoolteacher, joining his father in the classroom.  He lived with friends in Vienna, but never held any position in the musical establishment or attracted the kind of patronage that Beethoven had twenty years earlier. His final years were clouded by illness, he died young leaving much unfinished. His gifts had been most notably expressed in song, his talent for melody always evident in his other compositions, such as Sym. 9 Unfinished and Ave Maria.

SCHUMANN, Robert   1810-1856 GERMAN
Leading Early Romantic composer. The son of a bookseller, publisher and writer, Robert Schumann showed early abilities and was encouraged by his father to play piano. The year of his marriage, 1840, his young wife encouraged him at more ambitious forms of composition. Settling first in Leipzig and then in Dresden, they moved in 1850 to Dusseldorf, and Schumann became director of music. In 1854 he had a serious mental break-down, followed by two years in an asylum at Endenich. As a composer Schumann's gifts are clearly heard in his piano music such as Carnaval, and other famous works include Scenes of Childhood.

SCRIABIN   1872-1913 RUSSIAN
Romantic composer of Tchaikovskian tradition. A friend of Rachmaninov in Moscow, he enjoyed a very different and much shorter career, at first as a concert pianist. His interest in philosophy and the theosophical theories of Madame Blavatsky influenced the later form of his composition, particularly the larger scale orchestral works, while his later piano music explores new musical territory. His life was vitiated by a growing self-absorption, coupled with eccentricity of beliefs. Success came with his 1896 Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 3 "Le divin poème", Le poème de l'éxtase and Prométhée, and piano music from a style that develops from the influence of Chopin to a sensuous idiom entirely his own.

SHOSTAKOVICH, Dimitri  1906-1975 RUSSIAN
Great Modern composer, wrote symphonies. He belongs to the generation of composers trained principally after the Communist Revolution of 1917. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory as a pianist and composer, his First Symphony won immediate favour. His subsequent career in Russia varied with the political climate. The initial success, was followed by official condemnation, emanating apparently from Stalin himself. The composer's Fifth Symphony, brought partial rehabilitation, while the war years offered a propaganda coup in the Leningrad Symphony, performed in the city under German siege. In 1948 he fell foul of the official musical establishment with a Ninth Symphony thought to be frivolous, but enjoyed the relative freedom following the death of Stalin in 1953. He occupies an important position in music of the 20th century. Katerina Ismailova is his greatest opera, hated by Stalin.

SIBELIUS, Jean   1865-1957 FINNISH
Scandinavian Romantic composer responsible for Finlandia, Valse Triste, and Karelia Suite, he is the greatest symphonist of the 20th Century. Sibelius grew to maturity at a time of Finnish nationalism, as the country broke away from its earlier Swedish and Russian overlords. Brought up in a Swedish-speaking family, Sibelius acquired a knowledge of Finnish traditional literature and the early Finnish sagas proved a strong influence on his subsequent work as a composer. He was awarded a state pension. Although he lived until 1957, he wrote little after 1926, feeling out of sympathy with current trends in music.

SMETANA, Bedrich   1824-1884 CZECH
Early Romantic, Bohemian nationalist composer. Smetana holds an important place in the development of musical nationalism in his native Bohemia. His career was interrupted by a period of self-imposed exile in Sweden, after the political disappointments that followed the turmoil of 1848. He established the Czech national opera and a Czech national style, in particular in his symphonic poems. He was deaf in later life, but continued to compose. His great opera is The Bartered Bride, the overture of which makes a brilliant opening to any orchestral concert programme. His great work is the cycle of symphonic poems Ma Vlast, of which Vltava, which follows the historic course of the river as it flows towards Prague, is the most wonderous.

SOUSA, John Phillip   1854-1932 AMERICAN
Sousa astounded Europe by introducing ragtime on his 1900 tour, touching off a fascination with American music which influenced such composers as Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky. The principal commodity Sousa sold however, was pride in America and American music. In the quarter century before radio, improved electronic records, and finally, the miracle of talking pictures. Sousa and his Band and Sousa and his music, was America’s greatest musical attraction. Sousa’s output was created simultaneously for theatre orchestra as well as for band, including such marches as The Stars and Stripes Forever, El Capitan, Washington Post, and Semper Fidells, universally acknowledged as the best of their genre.

STRAUSS, Richard   1864-1949 AUSTRIAN
Great ‘Musical Romantic’ composer in Vienna, he wrote eccletic and wide-ranging material, of great importance is Thus Spake Zarathustra. influenced by the work of Wagner. He developed the symphonic or tone-poem to an unrivalled level of expressiveness and after 1900 achieved great success with a series of impressive operas on a grand scale, but later tending to a Classical restraint. His relationship with the National Socialist government in Germany was at times ambiguous, a fact that protected him but led to post-war difficulties and self-imposed exile in Switzerland, from which he returned home to Bavaria only in the year of his death, 1949.

STRAUSS, Johann II   1825-1899 AUSTRIAN
Grand Viennese Romantic composer, he gained an unrivaled reputation for being the greatest light music creator of Vienna or anywhere else. His music such as Die Fieldermaus and the Blue Danube are grand examples of dance music, and the light harted Tales from the Vienna Woods is also renown.

STRAVINSKY, Igor  1882-1971 RUSSIAN
Great Modern composer, responsible for Petrushka, Rite of Spring, Firebird, and Jeu des Cartes. He studied Rimsky-Korsakov but made a name for himself first in Paris with commissions from the impresario Dyagilev, for whom he wrote a series of ballet scores. He spent the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 in Western Europe and in 1939 moved to the United States. There in the post- war years he turned from a style of eclectic neo-classicism to composing in the twelve-note technique propounded by Schoenberg. A versatile composer, inventive in changing styles, he may be seen as the musical counterpart of the painter Picasso.

SUK, Josef     1874-1935 BOHEMIAN
Suk was a Later Romantic, he was son in law to Dvorak, and is not very well known outside of his native country. He is responsible for the natural fantasy A Summers Tale, Winter’s Tale.

SZYMANOWSKI, Karol  1882-1937 POLISH
This Romantic and Modern composer was born in the Ukraine, once part of the kingdom of Poland.  He studied in Warsaw, influenced by Chopin and then by Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Brahms. From a very cultured family, he read widely, particularly during the years of the Great War, when he remained on the family estate in the Ukraine, a property destroyed in the civil war. The breadth of his cultural knowledge is reflected in his music and in particular in his settings of literary texts of one kind or another. Musically he draws usually on specifically Polish material, coupled with his perceptions of Arabic and Persian culture. The principal opera of Szymanowski is King Roger, and Polish tradition is retained in his piano music, and Symphony 3 Song of the Night.

TCHAIKOVSKY, Pitor Illich 1840-1893 RUSSIAN
Pre-eminent Romantic of all time, responsible for masterpieces such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker (first staged in St. Petersburg in December 1892), Sleeping Beauty, 1812 Overture (written on the 70th Anniversary of the Russian defeat of Napolean), Marche Slave and Romeo and Juliet. He studied at St. Petersburg Conservatory, and then taught at Moscow, until a rich woman funded his composing, under the condition that they would never meet. He was a man of neurotic diffidence. His music is thoroughly Russian in character, but, although he was influenced by Balakirev and the ideals of the Five nationalists, he may be seen as belonging rather to the more individual international school of composition fostered by the Conservatories. He had a disasterous marrige, short, during which he wrote Eugene Onegin. In total effect, Tchaikovsky’s music must be considered some of humanities greatest achievements.

TELEMANN   1681-1767 GERMAN
Leading baroque composer, responsible for ‘Tafalmusik’ in Germany, which was played at dinners, special occasions, and celebrations. Among most famous composers of his generation, he went to University of Leipzig, where he founded the Collegium Musicum. He was beaten out by Bach for director of music in Liepzig, and moved to Hamburg where he got the post. In his long career, he wrote a great deal of music of all kinds in a style that extends the late Baroque into the age of Haydn. A number of instrumental compositions were brought together in the famed Tafelmusik of 1733.

VANGELIS    1943-2001    GREEK
A Modern composer of innovative technical music. He is responsible for Heaven and Hell, Pulsar, Conquest of Paradise and the world renown Chariots of Fire.

VAUGHN WILLIAMS, Ralph 1872-1958 ENGLISH
With Elgar, saved England from not having any signifigant composers of the Romantic era. He was a pupil of Ravel. In his work as a composer he went some way towards creating a specifically English musical idiom, influenced by his interest in folk-song, but coloured by his own personal vision and language. His is famous for the Sea Symphony, with words taken from Walt Whitman, the second "A London" Symphony and the third a "Pastoral" Symphony, and Fantasia on Greensleeves.

VERDI, Guiseppe   1813-1901 ITALIAN
Leading Romantic composer, famous with Wagner, for nationalist operas. He dominated the world of Italian opera from his first considerable success in 1842 with Nebuchadnezzar until his final Shakespearean opera Falstaff, mounted at the same opera-house in 1893. His career coincided with the rise of Italian nationalism and the unification of the country, causes with which he was openly associated. He also wrote Macbeth, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, The Sicilian Vespers, Simon Boccanegra, A Masked Ball, The Force of Destiny, Don Carlos, Otello and Falstaff. His greatest is Aida. He also wrote a requium for the death of Rossini.

VILLA-LOBOS  1887-1959 BRAZILIAN
A Romantic composer, he came to occupy a leading position in the musical life of his native Brazil, where he absorbed varying musical traditions by extensive and travel throughout the region. After a period in Paris, he returned home in 1930,  winning official recognition and becoming the countries greatest musician. His varied compositions include stage-works, choral and instrumental compositions, chamber music, songs and piano music. His instrumental works include a series of Bachianas brasileiras and Chôros, the latter called after the traditional street-music of Rio de Janeiro.

VIVALDI, Antonio   1678-1741 ITALIAN
Baroque composer of the highest magnitude. He was born in Venice embarked on an intermittent career in the service of an institution for the education of orphaned girls. As a composer Vivaldi was prolific, with some 500 concertos to his credit, in addition to a quantity of works for the church and for the theatre. He left Venice in 1741 in the apparent hope of finding new patrons in Vienna, where he died shortly after his arrival in the city. The most famous of all Vivaldi's concertos are I quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), characteristic compositions to which the composer attached explanatory programmatic sonnets.

WAGNER, Richard   1813-1883 GERMAN
Supreme Arch-Romantic composer, with Verdi, made nationalist opera famous, and became one of the most influential composers ever. Wrote the Ring Cycle, taking operatic form and content to its very peak. Wagner was a remarkable innovator in harmony, creating compositions in which the arts were brought together into a single unity. As a man he was prepared to sacrifice his family and friends in the cause of his own music, and his  anti-semitism has attracted unwelcome attention to ideas that are remote from his real work as a musician. He was able to establish his own theatre and festival at Bayreuth in Bavaria later in his career. He developed a dramatic musical structure depending on the interweaving of melodies or fragments of melody associated with characters, incidents or ideas in the drama. His Prelude to the love tragedy Tristan und Isolde led to a new world of harmony. Other great works are The Flying Dutchman, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,  and Tannhauser, which was staged in Dresden in 1845. Wagner's involvement in the revolution of 1848 and subsequent escape from. The four operas that form the tetralogy The Ring: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods) is a monument of dramatic and musical achievement that occupied the composer for a number of years.

WEBER, Carl Maria Von  1786-1826 GERMAN
A Romantic, this cousin of Mozart's wife, the son of a versatile musician, he was bred as a musician from childhood. He became music director at notably the opera-houses of Prague and Dresden. Here he introduced various reforms and was a pioneer. As a composer he won a lasting reputation with the first important Romantic German opera, Der Freischütz, first staged in Berlin 1821, blends many of the ingredients typical of German Romanticism, simple peasant virtues mingling with the magic and latent evil of the forest, where the hero's magic bullets are forged at midnight. He aslo wrote the grand heroic-Romantic operas Euryanthe and Oberon, for London in 1826. Aufforderung zum Tanz is a charming polite piece.

WIENIAWSKI  1835-1880 POLISH
The Polish Romantic violinist began his career at the Paris Conservatory, and as a great virtuoso in 1851. He spent time in Russia giving concerts and writing music for his own use, then accepted an invitation from Anton Rubinstein to join the staff of the St Petersburg Conservatory. He toured extensivly in the United States, and then became director of the Brussels Conservatory. His compositions were principally for his own use. Two important violin concertos and a number of pieces designed to display his technical and romantic musical accomplishments.

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