Great Composers and Their Lives

This composer was born in Paris to a family that had been active in the field of music for generations. He was the son of an organist, Charles Couperin, from whom he began his musical training from a very young age. He also learned a great deal from his uncle with the same name, François Couperin. At the age of 10, his father died and he was then taught by an organist by the name of Jacques Thomelin.

His family had a musical tradition going back two centuries before he had been born. In fact, the family’s church, St. Gervais, had successively employed a member of the Couperin family as organist, non-stop, for a period of 173 years. As a sign of how advanced his musical ability had been, it is interesting that the post was officially offered to François at the age of 10 upon his father’s death, yet postponed until his 18th birthday. At the same time, there is information leading to the assumption that that the young Couperin played for services and received wages even before he was eighteen years of age

In 1689, at the age of 21, he married a woman by the name of Marie-Anne Ansault. Only a year later, he received a royal license to publish his only 2 organ masses. Shortly after, he composed a set of 4 sonatas, thereby marking the beginning of his career as a composer. In 1693, he became one of the four organists to King Louis XIV and succeeded Jean-Baptiste Lully as court composer. Along with this, his reputation as a teacher immensely was growing, teaching not only the kings children but a great deal of French nobility. He was not only busy teaching, but also performing, which was very demanding upon him personally.

In 1696, he was presented with his own coat of arms and only six years later, he received the Order of Chevalier de Latran, a form of knighthood and became the king’s harpsicordist. Even after the king’s death in 1715, he remained secure in the court of Louis XV. He died in Paris in 1733

Couperin was quite a prolific composer. Some of his best works were Concerts royaux, L’apothéose de Lully, Leçons de ténèbres and his Organ Masses. Yet, without a doubt, one of the most significant things he composed would be the four books of harpsicord works written between 1713 and 1730. The book contains various pieces which Couperin called ‘Ordres’. These ‘Ordres’ were a succession of dance music and were structured very similar to suites. Each piece of music or ‘Ordre’ had a particular name depicting a person, object, scene or a mood. ( Examples of such titles were: La Visionaire [The dreamer]; Les Ombres Errantes [The Moving Shadows]; Papillons [Butterflies] ). These pieces are representative of great technique as well as demonstrating what Couperin is most known for, namely fusing Italian and French music of the time.

François Couperin was a great composer, an organist, and a harpsicordist that was responsible for bringing together the musical elements and style of France and Italy. In addition to this, his innovative ideas and compositions are said to actually bridge two musical eras, the Baroque and the Classical. A truly great composer!

To listen to a piece by François Couperin click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:26 AM | Permalink

For a little change, I thought I would write about a great composer that is still to be admired, for he is still living a prolific life.

Hans Werner Henze is a German that has gone through a lot but has been able to give the world a great deal, not only a lot of songs, but a new type of musical style. His works are comprised of a mixture of various musical styles having evolved into their own. Among them are: twelve-tone technique, serialism, neo-classicism, jazz, and even rock.

Above all, this is a person that is not only great, but had to deal with plenty of prejudice and alienation throughout his lifetime in order to bring his music to the world.. Being a pacifist, he not only grew up during the rise of Nazism in Germany having a father who was a Nazi supporter, he also had to deal with being a homosexual in these harsh times. Born in Gütersloh, Germany, the oldest of 6 children, he got interested in music at a very early age. His father, who was quite conservative, was against him going into the music field. Nevertheless, he ended up going to a state-run music school at the age of 16, studying piano and percussion. He was unfortunately drafted into the army 2 years later and had to serve in Poland just before the end of the war, ending up as a British prisoner.

At the end of the war, he did not let his musical talent go to waste. After working for a while as a theatre pianist, he continued his studies at the Heidelberg Institute for Church Music (German: Das kirchenmusikalischen Institut in Heidelberg) under Wolfgang Fortner in 1946. He later studied 12 tone technique under René Leibowitz in Darmstadt and Paris. 12 tone technique, originally thought up of by Arnold Schoenberg, is a method of composing a song by using all 12 notes of a chromatic scale, all of them equally sounded, typically avoiding a certain key.

Although writing one beforehand called ‘das Wundertheater’, his first full opera and significant work which made him famous was named ‘Boulevard Solitude‘ and was written in 1952. It comprised of the various styles, aria, jazz, blues, and recitative, all united by the same 12 note sequence.

Henze was the ballet director at Wiesbaden State Theatre for a while in 1950, but got tired of living in Germany and went to live in Italy. He ended up in Naples where he concluded his operas ‘König Hirsch’ and ‘Der Prinz von Homburg’. The latter was composed along with a close friend of his, Ingeborg Bachman, an Austrian author and poet who played a leading role in post-war literature. She was the librettist for the opera. For those of you reading that do not know, a librettist is the person that creates the words to be set to music for an opera.

In 1961, Henze moved to Rome. It was here that he became an international figure. He started teaching master classes in composition at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria and became a visiting professor at Dartmouth college in New Hampshire. It was at this time that he wrote his fifth symphony for the New York Philharmonic and went to the US to see his work premier under the direction of Leonard Bernstein.

One very interesting aspect of Henze’works is the ability to express and intertwine his political beliefs and social critic in his music. Music and politics have been intertwined for quite some time, but this is a prime example of how music can enter into the political world. During the 1960’s, Henze became quite interested in communism and wrote ‘Das Floss der Medusa’( The Raft of Medusa) based on the painting with the same name by artist Théodore Géricault. This oratorio was intended to be a requiem for Che Guevara. The grand premier in Hamburg actually failed on account of the fact that the players from West Berlin refused to play under the portrait of Che Guevara with a red flag draped across the stage. The police ended up coming and not only some students were arrested, but also the opera’s librettist. Since then, he has written other politically motivated pieces, such as his 6^th Symphony, written during a year-long stay in Cuba where he was teaching and researching new ideas. This piece encompassed and interesting mix of Greek and Vietnamese freedom songs.

Hans Werner Henze has written a great deal of works since this time and still lives in Italy. He has given a lot to humanity and the musical world; to list all of his achievements on this blog would be impossible. A great composer of today’s present, a truly great musical personality who has not only dedicated, but put his whole life into his music.

 “I have evolved a concept of beauty nurtured by experiences both terrible and wonderful.” ----Hans Werner Henze

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 05:39 AM | Permalink

This composer, the most important Spanish composer of our time, was born on November 22^nd, 1901. November 22^nd is the feast day of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. This is a composer that seems to have done the impossible, for he was not only incredibly gifted, but also blind. He lost his sight at the age of three on account of diphtheria. It is said that when one loses the ability to see, a keen development of the senses takes place, and among them the sense of hearing. This composer definitely shows cogent evidence of this, for his works were great. Among them, his masterpiece, the Concerto de Aranjuez, is probably known by even the most ignorant to classical music. It’s second movement, Andante, has not only been used in many documentary films on Spain, but also in a great deal of films.

When Rodrigo was 8 years old, he started to learn violin and piano. At the age of 17, he attended the Valencia Conservatory and wrote his first works in 1923. The question is, how was he able to compose being blind? Answer – he first wrote in Braille, thereby dictating the finished work to a scribe. In 1927, following the example of many Spanish composers of the time, he moved to Paris to study under Dukas for five years at the École Normale de Musique. He and his works were well known at this time and so was encouraged by other composers such as Ravel, Falla and Stravisnsky to continue making such great progress. It was during this time period when he made the acquaintance of the Turkish pianist Vicotria Kamhi, a significant woman in his life, for she became his wife in 1933.

He returned home to Spain for a short time only to find out that he was to be bestowed a grant to study Musicology at the Paris Conservatoire and at the Sorbonne. Back to France! Unfortunately, on account of the civil war which broke out in 1936, his grant was cut off, leaving him in grave financial difficulties. Luckily, he was able to survive this; he moved back to Spain at the end of the war and brought his gift of music along with him, namely the Concerto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra, immediately making him Spain’s leading composer. He composed many other beautiful works, although nothing has quite compared to the Concerto de Aranjuez. Of course, his gift was not only to Spain alone. To date, it is the most frequently played guitar concerto in the world and has greatly helped contribute to the guitar’s recognition as a concert instrument. The next time you listen to this great work by Joaquin Rodrigo, take a second in your mind to thank him for writing it.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:53 AM | Permalink

Here is a wonderful composer that did quite a bit. Not only had he composed a immense quantity of works, but he composed each of them with stunning quality. Due to his extensive travels throughout his life, he gained a lot of experience which he was able to intertwine into his music. Along with his own ingenuity, he was able to combine several styles of music including those originating from Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium, making his music full of variation.

Orlande de Lassus was born in the Franco-Flemish province of Hainaut located in present day Belgium. His hometown and birthplace was a city by the name of Mons. He was incredibly talented and had been blessed with a gorgeous voice. As a child, having been a choir boy at the Church of Saint Nicolas in Mons, his voice was so amazing that he had supposedly been abducted three times by people looking for talent to play in the courts of Europe. His parents were able to have him returned two of the three times. At the age of twelve, this time with the parents’ consent, he started working for Ferrante Gonzaga, a general to the emperor at the time, Charles V. It was through him that he had the opportunity to travel throughout Italy, experiencing it in its fullest in the higher classes.

Early on, he had spent a great deal of his youth in the service of many churches and princes. In his twenties, he travelled to Naples where he worked for a very well-to-do family as a singer and a composer, after which he travelled to Rome to work for the Archbishop of Florence who resided there at the time. It was shortly after this that his talent, along with the power of the church established him as choir director of the Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran Church), which was a pretty amazing position for someone in his twenties.

Only a few years later, he was forced to travel home to see his dying parents. Following their death, he stayed in Antwerp for a while, where he was able to publish several of his earlier works. It is interesting that up until his death at around the age of 60, he had published more than 2000 sacred and secular works.

He moved on to Munich, Germany, where he took a singing position in the chapel of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. He got married to a woman named Regina Wächinger, a noble’s daughter and eventually became choir master for the Duke. Part of his job had also been to recruit other musicians. It was for this reason that he had to travel throughout Europe extensively. His fame had grown and he had received a lot of job propositions (even from the King of France himself), yet he loved his family too much and stayed in Munich for the rest of his life. In spite of this, he still went down in history as the most famous and influential composer during the end of the sixteenth century. In fact, along with the composer I wrote about in a previous article, Palestrina, Lassus’s works are actually representative of polyphonic vocal music in the 16^th century.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:24 AM | Permalink

Born in Genoa, Italy, Niccoló Paganini was given a violin by his parents. His father wanted to excel so badly that he locked him in a room for many hours and forced him to practice. At the age of 11, he made his first public performance and was already going on tour at thirteen. By the age of 16, he was already quite successful, yet he also developed a drinking habit that followed him throughout the rest of his life.

Niccoló Paganini is a perfect example of how making a child prodigy of your child is just a bad idea. Of course, there are a lot of children who have a natural talent at playing and compel themselves to make progress on the instrument, but in many cases, they are forced by the parents to be great on the instrument as a result of “hyper-parenting”. This term is used in psychology to describe what some parents, who would of course like their children to become great, do. This includes, for instance, forcing a child to take lessons on an instrument or forcing them to develop any such ability. Unfortunately, many parents nowadays do this because they believe that it is the only way to survive in our competitive world. In my own belief, it may make the child an incredible person that can do a lot of things, but the question is: Do they really enjoy it? Is it making their lives more wholesome? It is a debate that many will continue to have. There is no doubt that Paganini had a fascinating life… but at what cost?

At the age of 19 he moved to Lucca to become the leader of the new national orchestra. It was at this time that he started playing guitar on account of being talked into it by his lover at the time and wrote several compositions for it. Along with this, he wrote many things for the violin and even pieces for violin and orchestra. One of the most amazing things that he wrote were the 24 Caprices for solo violin. For a long time, the technical difficulties posed by these great works were thought of as only being able to be played by Paganini himself, whose technique was truly astounding. He was actually capable of performing entire pieces on the violin with the use of only one or two of its strings. He was known to be one of the greatest violinist ever in the history of the instrument, yet this cannot be proven, for there are no recordings of him.

At the age of 27, he left the city of Lucca and toured all over Italy, impressing with his amazing technique and his ability to sight-read just about any piece of music put in front of him. There was nothing to difficult! One of the most interesting facts about Paganini is that he had had a very scruffy appearance and kind of an evil glare. Due to this and on account of his amazing abilities on the violin, many used to think that he may have sold his soul to the devil and was give the name ‘il figlio del diavolo,’ a phrase in Italian that means ‘the son of the devil.’

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:03 PM | Permalink

This composer came from a very poor family and a completely unmusical background. Born and raised in Bergamo, Italy, he was taken from the streets and given a proper musical education by the composer and conductor Johannes Simon Mayr. At the time, Mayr had the position of music director at the Santa Maria Maggiore, Bergamo’s main church. He was a person who had been quite fond of his spirit and recognised his talent straight away. As a young adult, Donizetti travelled to Bologna to study with a priest, Padre Mattei, who had been a renowned counter-point teacher. Yet, Donizetti never took a liking to him and returned to Bergamo in 1817, still harbouring a great deal of affection for his first teacher, Johannes Mayr.

It was during this time that he started composing a great deal of works, at times accomplishing an entire piece in the course of a single day. His string quartets were excellent, but it was his opera works that showed the ability of a true master. A year after his return to Bergamo, he was called in for compulsory military service, which he was able to get out of due to an exemption bought by a wealthy admirer.

In 1822, Donizetti wrote what was to become his first success, Zoraida di Granata. It was a commission from Rome that was passed down to him by his teacher, Johann Mayr. It was on account of this that he received a series of commissions from Naples, including a contract for writing four operas a year. Although the music for these operas was quite well written, due to the fact that the librettos - the playscripts for the opera performances -were badly done, these never resulted in true masterpieces.

It was not until 1830 that Donizetti had written Anne Bolene, the piece that took him to international stardom. This year altogether had been wonderful for Donizetti. The famed composer Rossini had just retired from opera composition thereby making room for Donizetti to dominate the field. Donizetti took on his bel canto style with the usage of coloratura passages.(* bel canto- A melodic style of operatic singing. *coloratura -Singing with elaborate and showy ornamentation.)

Shortly after, Donizetti’s relationship with his Neapolitan patrons became problematic, whereby he eventually broke his contract in 1832. Although a new contract had been drawn up in 1834, the public authorities objected to his next opera, Maria Stuarda, and revised it to the point of ruining the first production. The only positive happening during this time was his composition and the debut of Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835, an opera based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott. It is probably what he was most known for writing, being a prime example of a bel canto opera as well as a masterpiece in itself.

In 1836, both of Donizetti’s parent died. To make matters worse, his wife of 9 years, Virginia, ended up dying of cholera. He had had 3 children by her, none of whom survived. His next work, Poliuto, was then banned for portraying the martyrdom of a saint. It all became to much disappointment, discouragement, and grief for even a great composer. He moved to Paris.

He was greeted with open arms by the Parisians. They immediately put his works into four theatres around the city. This was not taken lightly by a great deal of the French composers of the time. Donizetti retorted to this by composing some of his greatest works of all time, leading up to his final masterpiece, Don Pasquale, which was first produced in Milan in 1843.

Up until this point in his life, Donizetti had reached international fame and recognition, even receiving the position of Kapellmeister(music director) to the Habsburg Court in Vienna. He had written a incredible amount of masterpieces. This was quite a spectacular feat if you consider the fact that he came from an impoverished and unmusical background. He came quite a long way to give us his gift of music.

Unfortunately, he also suffered from a syphilitic illness. In 1843, the symptoms were so bad that he had to stop composing. Only a year later, he was declared insane. Luckily, he had been taken back to his hometown of Bergamo. There, his friends took care of him until his death in 1848.

To watch some of Donizetti’s music performed, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:56 PM | Permalink

Kurt Weill was born to the son of a Jewish cantor in Dessau, Germany in the year 1900. His father, Albert Weill, wrote liturgical music and gave lessons in religion at the Synagogue in Dresden. Concerning religion, due to the fact that both of his parents were devout Jews, he had a strict upbringing. In regard to his musical education, he grew up with the Hebrew music tradition. At the early age of nine, he started learning piano from his father. Duke Friedrich II showed a lot of liking for the boy in 1910 and allowed him not only free entry to the performances in his theatre, but also let him go to the rehearsals. This surely had quite an influence upon Weill.

At the age of 12, Kurt Weill started to compose. He seized every opportunity possible to visit the Duke’s theatre as well. From 1918 to 1923, he studied in Berlin under Humperdinck, Busconi and one of Busconi’s students, Phillip Jarnach. The debut performance of his first opera, “the Protagonist” in Dresden in 1926 made Weill quite well known. Right after that, he was truly made famous on account of his next work, “The Threepenny Opera”.

In 1933, Weill was forced to flee to Paris when the Nazis took control of Germany. Then, two years later, he settled down in New York where he started composing for Broadway.

The time in which Kurt Weill lived, namely the 20th century, was not only a time of artistic change, but a time of general upheaval. Horses were the principle means of transportation. Farming was the most prevalent means of earning a living, even in the most developed countries. In 1914, there was war going on in Europe. The Nazis took power in 1933. On account of Arnold Schönberg and Stravinsky(composers I plan on writing about later), music took new shape and form known as atonal music. In addition to this, the radio and phonograph brought a new type of ground-breaking music to listeners; jazz.

Kurt Weill wrote the Threepenny Opera along with the author Bertolt Brecht, who was a great writer at the time, known for his criticism upon the society’s social system. The opera is actually a modernisation of the Beggar’s Opera by the composer John Gay. Weills wife, Lotta Lenya took the main role of Jenny in Weill’s version. It was interesting that he applied elements of jazz and cabaret to the opera as well. I would say that this is one reason why the opera has not only lived on throughout time, but is also known even by amateurs in the field of music. Alongside Bertholt Brecht’s ideas of epic theatre, this opera not only changed the style and the way people looked at opera, but it also made it an instant success.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 09:09 AM | Permalink

There have been a great deal of classical composers that were centred in Vienna, Austria, whom we associate with the city itself. Among them are Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart, although Franz Schubert was only one of the above-mentioned who was actually born in the city. Unfortunately, he was also the only one of these composers who had never received the well-deserved recognition and fame during his lifetime. On the other hand, his works and everything he created cannot be appreciated enough today.

Having been born in a suburb in Vienna, known as Lichtental, he was the fourth son of a schoolmaster. He actually learned to play piano and violin from his family, although he had already surpassed them at a very early age. At age eleven, he won a choral scholarship to the Konvikt, Vienna’s Imperial College, a type of elite boarding school. Schubert was taught by Antonio Salieri, a famous composer at the time, who recognised the talents of the young man. By the age of 15, Franz Schubert had already written a great deal of string quartets as well as an opera. It was shortly after this that he left school to start training to be a teacher, after which he taught in his father’s school. During this period in time, he wrote a large amount of works, including five symphonies, 6 operas, and what he was most noted for, his songs - Lieder. (* German- ‘Das Lied’ plural ‘die Lieder’ is a term used to describe a German art song of the 19^th century for voice and piano.)

In 1914, he was very taken back by a literary work that had inspired a large number of musicians at the time, namely Faust by Goethe. This work gave him the inspiration he needed to write Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) and Erlkönig, two great masterpieces. Having been so enthralled by the works of Goethe, it led him to read a great deal of other distinguished poets of the time. Putting so many of the poets feeling and ideas into his ‘Lieder’ or songs did what no other musician could have imagined. It was once said that Schubert, “unleashed a Shakespearean canvas of characters.”

- He had the ability to incorporate the power of these literary works into his songs. The works he created were a product of the great deal of literature, painting, and music of the time, along with all the ideals that stood behind them. He wrote pieces as if he had not only been a musician, but a storyteller at the same time. The great composer Brahms once wrote, “There’s not one of Schubert’s songs from which you cannot learn something.”

In 1816, Schubert stopped teaching and went to Vienna to live with his friend, Franz von Schober, who admired his music quite a bit. In Vienna, Schubert made the acquaintance of a famous baritone player, Johann Michael Vogl, a famous baritone singer at the time. Meeting him was quite significant on account of the fact that Vogl performed a lot of Schubert’s pieces for the public.

To his great despair, Schubert contracted syphilis in 1823. He was working on his Eighth Symphony, which he had begun a year before his illness. It is still debated, but many believe that his illness had contributed to the fact that he never finished it.

His illness did not stop him from writing altogether though. It was during this time that he wrote a great deal of works including Winterreise (Winter Journey), the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux. In the last years of his life, he wrote the Piano Sonatas in C minor, A major, and B flat, as well as his String Quintet in C. The latter was the last piece he composed before his illness entered its last stage and he died in 1828 at the age of 31. Franz Schubert had unfortunately been destined to have a short life, but gave so much to the world to be enjoyed for an eternity.

To listen to music by this great composer, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 09:02 AM | Permalink

Born in the village of Novospasskoe near Smolensk in Belarus Russia to a wealthy family, this composer’s first contact with music had to most certainly be Russian folk songs and the sound of church bells which rang every day in his small and quaint little village. At the age of 13, he was sent to a school in St. Petersburg for noble families where he studied for a period of five years. During this time, he had his first piano lessons with composer John Field, who was residing in St. Petersburg and teaching. He only had a few lessons with Field until he continued his instruction with a pianist by the name of Charles Meyer. Mikhail Glinka started composing music on his own shortly after. His early compositions were not very refined on account of the fact that he had never really studied composition seriously, yet the characteristics of folk melody in his pieces could easily be recognised even at this time. After completing his studies in 1822, he ended up staying in St. Petersburg until 1830, having received a governmental appointment that was not very demanding, thereby being able to pursue earning a living as a pianist and a singer as well.

Being drawn to music to such a great extent, it was his wish to further his studies. Making a trip to Italy with a tenor by the name of Invanov in 1830, he ended up in Milan, where he studied at the local conservatory. He encountered a great deal of composers and learned a lot, yet he never really cared for Italy. Before returning to Russia, he had studied composition under Siegfried Dehn in Berlin for a period of five months. This was his first formal composition instruction and unfortunately, it had to be cut short on account of his father’s death.

Up until this point, music life in Russia was principally full of a lot of Italian composers. They, of course, were not fond of putting elements of Russian folklore into their music. Consequently, Russian folk music was disregarded. Glinka realized that it was his life’s goal and calling to go back to Russia and combine what he had learned in Italy with the music of his Russian roots.

In 1835 and 1836, Glinka’s first opera, A Life for the Tsar, was written. It was based on a story by Zhukovsky which told about how a man, Ivan Susanin, risked his life to save the first Romanov Tsar from a gang of Poles. It was so successful that Glinka was named the Imperial Director of Music in Russia by Emperor Nicholas I himself only a year after the opera’s first performance.

Although he started his next opera right away, it did not actually get completed for another six years. Earlier on, upon Glinka’s father’s death and returning to Russia, he got married to a woman named Maria Petrovna Ivanova . The marriage turned out to be somewhat of a disaster, seeing that she was not very supportive of his career in the field of music. After his divorce, he moved in with his mother. This whole process slowed down the completion of his second opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila which turned out not to be such a great success. Although it contained a great deal of Glinka’s best and very influential music, the fairy tale by Pushkin, on which the plot was based, was not suitable for opera.

After the short-coming of Ruslan and Lyudmila, Glinka did not compose a great deal of significant music with the exception of one masterpiece, Kamarinskaya, a musical piece which had a great influence upon future composers including Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the group of Russian composers known as ‘The Five.’ (* -The latter, also known as ‘The Mighty Handful’ was an important group of composers in music history with the aim of producing a kind of Russian art music without European influence. The group consisted of the following composers: Mily Balakirev who led the group, Modest Mussorgsky, César Cui, Alexander Borodin, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.)

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:29 PM | Permalink

Little is known about the early life of Gregorio Allegri. At the age of 9, he was a choirboy in Rome until his voice broke. He then went on to become a tenor at San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, where he remained between the ages of 14 and 22. It was during this time that he started studying music under the composer Giovanni Nanini, who was believed to have been a former student of Palestrina. Palestrina’s music was of a very great influence on Allegri’s style of composing. His studies were carried out quite intensely up until he was 30 years of age.

At the age of 35, he was a singer and composer at the cathedral of Fermo, then at Tivoli. It was not until he was 46 years old that he was given the rank of Maestro di Cappella (Choir Director) at the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia located in Rome. By this time, he had had 37 years of practice and training in the field of music. A large number of motets and sacred music were composed during that time.

Two years later, he joined Urban VIII’s papal choir. The experience in the choir did not only help to develop his singing ability , but also led Allegri to write a number of works for the choir’s use. Among these compositions was the one that makes him so famous to this very day, namely Miserere. It is one of the best pieces ever written during the period and is a great example of what is know as the Palestrina style of composition, whereby it was incredibly important to emphasise the texts of musical works and at the same time emphasising the beauty in music itself.

The Miserere has quite a history. It was written for the Holy Week (the week before Easter) celebrations at St. Peter’s in Rome. It proved to be such a success and such a powerful piece that its performance became a traditional part of the Holy Week service sung in the Sistine Chapel every year after. Only three copies of the piece are known to have existed. The musical score was kept under close guard of the Vatican. Copying the work was considered an offence punishable by excommunication. It was not until the time of Mozart that the piece was performed on a wider scale. It was the young 14 –year-old Mozart who wrote out the entire piece from memory after hearing only one or two performances.

To listen to more information about Miserere and hear it performed live click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:24 PM | Permalink

Now, I thought it was time to write about a composer from the Romantic period again. The person we are going to talk about today is a Frenchman. Interestingly enough, during his childhood, Hector Berlioz was not considered to be a very talented musician, better said, he was talented but not the typical child prodigy composer. He tried playing the piano and the flute, but to no avail. Yet, he started playing guitar, and found a passion for the instrument and became quite good on it. It is interesting that although he learned the guitar and flute, he never learned to play the piano, which is quite a rarity for a composer.

Born in Grenoble in the French Alps, he was know to be an intensive reader. He read all the classics; among them Virgil, Shakespeare and Goethe. As time went by during his childhood, he had had a growing desire to play music and become a musician. His parents, of course, wanted him to take up medicine and sent him to study in Paris. And yet, his will to become a musician had been much too strong. Thusly, he ended up leaving the school against his parents wishes and going to study music at the Paris Conservatoire. Berlioz was financially cut off by his parents on account of this and he was forced to take up a job singing in a choir.

At the Paris Conservatoire, he was noted to be a difficult student. He had conceptions of music that were so grand, most of the things that he conceived were thought to be very difficult if not nearly impossible to perform. This did not stop him from eventually being awarded the Prix de Rome in 1830, a prize which had been coveted by many to a great extent. This had been something he really wanted. He had actually competed four times before finally winning. It was because of this prize that his father finally gave in and recognised his son as a composer. This also gave him the opportunity to go to Rome, an experience which had influenced not only his life a great deal, but also his music.

Around this time, Berlioz became obsessed with a woman, Harriet Smithson, who had been a well-known actress in Paris. Berlioz had seen her perform Shakespeare and became quite infatuated with her. Even though they had never formally met, he wrote letters to her all time proclaiming his love for her. Unfortunately, she was not very interested in him and would not give him the time of day. Berlioz did not just give up… He wrote a piece named Symphonie fantastique. It was program music. - During the Romantic Era, the type of music known as ‘program music’ was quite popular. This is music that is meant to evoke images or memories of past events within the listener. - The second movement of Symphonie fantastique for example describes a ball; the third movement is a portrayal of nature. The main idea of the entire piece was unrequited love; Harriet Smithson being the principle musical idea and the source of his inspiration. When Harriet finally heard the symphony, she fell in love with the composer and married him. They had a son together named Louis.

His compositions at the time included at work commissioned by Paganini, Harold in Italy, and a requiem commissioned by the French government. As mentioned before, Berlioz had a great ability think up and compose for incredibly large-scaled instrumentation. The piece that he wrote for the French government required 220 players and 200 voices. An interesting fact is that Harold In Italy, a piece for viola and orchestra, was actually rejected by Paganini on the grounds that it did not give him enough to play. In spite of this, he remained friends with Berlioz and fancied his musical ability, actually awarding him a great deal of money, which gave him much more time to concentrate on composing.

His marriage to Harriet Smithson ended up being a failure due to Harriet’s failing career and the drinking problem that she developed as a result of it. He got a divorce in 1844, only to shortly after marry a woman by the name of Marie Recio. During the same year, he composed Les Nuits d’Été(Summer Nights) as well as writing an essay on the subject of orchestration that is still used as an important source of information for today’s composers. It is known as the ‘Grand Traité d’Instrumentation et d’Orchestration Modernes’(Treatise on Instrumentation).

It was not until 1856 that Berlioz wrote his masterpiece, Les Troyens(The Trojans), one of the grandest works he had ever written. Taking an entire three years to complete, it was actually divided up into two parts on account of its length. The two parts, each one divided into a further two acts were named La Prise de Troie(The capture of Troy) and Les Troyens á Carthage(The Trojans in Carthage).

Berlioz has long since his death in 1869 been recognised as one of the most important composers in the Romantic period, having made advances in symphonic form and orchestration in general. Yet, although he had been successful throughout Europe during his lifetime, it took a long while for his homeland France to recognise his ability. This did not happen until long after his death. Having experienced a life full of both great successes and failures, he carried all the attributes the typical romantic composer was known to have. Above all, his music is a prime exemplar of French music during the Romantic period; a master of orchestration.

To listen to music by this great composer, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:15 PM | Permalink

To understand the composer Guillaume de Machaut, it is essential to understand the period in which he lived. It was the time when the Ars nova(new art) Period of music was flourishing in France and then throughout Europe. The term itself correlates to its predecessor the Ars antiqua (old art) Period(1240-1320). Both of these periods refer to the earliest developments of polyphony, the usage of several voices in music. Before this, the idea of playing music was still based on a single voice and melody(monophonic - plainchant). - If you can imagine a single or a group of priests chanting in Catholic church(Gregorian Chant), this is exactly what that was.

The first attempt at polyphony was called Parallel-Organum. It was VERY simple… A second voice was used to ornament the chant, but did not vary its rhythm whatsoever. It was almost like a ‘shadowing voice’. After this, composers started to make this second voice a bit more rhythmically independent and more voices were added, although it was not until the period of Ars antiqua that each of the different voices were actually given a different text. All of these happenings led up to the period of Ars nova and Guillaume de Machaut, one of the first and foremost composers of the movement which lasted from approximately 1320 - 1380. This was a period in which the idea of rhythmically and harmonic independence of various voices was taken to the next step.

Not much is known about his early life. He was probably born in Rheims or possibly in Machaut, France. From 1323-1346, he worked as a secretary for Johann von Luxemburg, the King of Bohemia. He was quite well known not only as a composer but also as a poet. His first composition, a motet, was written in 1324 for the Archbishop of Rheims. In 1337, his service to the king led to his position as priest of the gothic cathedral in Rheims. Three years after his appointment, he ended up taking residency in Rheims, leaving his normal duties but staying in service to the king up until the monarch’s death in 1346. From 1961-1969 he resided on Cyprus at the court of Pierre de Lusignans, not returning to Rheims until 1369.

All in all, he wrote more than 140 compositions, most of which were polyphonic. He was known to experiment with both religious as well as secular music. Guillaume de Machaut was one of the leading composers, if not one of the best composers, during this period. He was the first person believed to utilize the syncopated rhythm (*- a rhythm stressing or accenting a weak beat.) His patrons included John, Duke of Berry and the future King Charles V of France. His best work, Messe de Nostre Dame, written in 1364, is one of the most noted compositions of the entire period. It is believed to have been written for the crowning of King Charles V. (* - A mass is a musical form consisting of the five movements: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Snactus / Benedictus, and Agnus Dei.) Machaut wrote Messe de Nostre Dame polyphonically rather than plainchant. In addition to this fact, he was the first person to compose an entire mass all on his own. It was customary during the time period to have several different composers write various parts of a mass. This along with his rhythmical and musical techniques made him one of the main contributors to the mass becoming a musical form in itself. This composer, also known as “the last great poet who was also a composer,” was talented and innovative, contributing to the development of music in general. Due to this, he became representative of the entire period and was a great influence on many composers to come.

To listen to a piece by this composer, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:07 PM | Permalink

This Italian composer, Giovanni Pierluigi Sante da Palestrina, known by musicians today simply under the name of Palestrina, started his musical career at the Cathedral of Saint Agapita in his hometown Palestrina, a city outside Rome, which he was actually named after. He became a church choirboy there, soon after to join the choir at Santa Maria Maggiore(Saint Mary Major) in Rome, studying music under Firmin le Bel.

After his studies, he came back to his hometown and worked as a choirmaster and organist in the Cathedral of Saint Agapita. He married in 1547. Then, in 1550, his mentor at the time, Cardinal del Monte, was elected pope and appointed Palestrina to be a conductor at the Julian Chapel in St. Peter’s. It was at this time that he wrote his first book of masses printed in 1554. This was unique because it was the first book of masses written by an Italian composer. In Italy at the time, most all of the sacred music came from the France, Spain, or the Netherlands.

Shortly a year after, he became a member of the Papel choir in the Sistine Chapel, whereby the choir unanimously accepted him without the need of an examination. This shows evidence of his great skill and the respect he had gained up to that point in his life. Unfortunately, with the changing of the pope, he was forced to leave this job on account of him being a married man. The new pope namely enforced a celibacy ruling. Although he consecutively had two very important positions following this, being a choirmaster at St. John Lateran, and then at the Santa Maria Maggiore, he ultimately was appointed back to the Julian Chapel. It was during this time that he lost his wife, two children and brother to three separate outbreaks of the black plague. He wanted to become a priest after this, but ended up remarrying; this time to a very wealthy woman. On account of her being rich, he had become very independent and was able to truly dedicate his life to composition. He retained this position up until his death due to pleurisy in 1594.

To truly understand his life, one has to look into the fact that the time he lived, the sixteenth century, the Renaissance, a term which means rebirth. It was this time at which man discovered himself and considered himself to be at the center-stage of the world amongst all things. There is a term which describes this way of thinking, namely Humanism. Many things were happening in the world at this time: Columbus discovered America, Kopernicus, Galileo Galilei among others were shedding light on the natural sciences, Gutenberg developed the printing press.

This was a time at which the church rule was omnipresent and people started to question it. The main invention supporting this movement was newly found “printed word“ and with it the ability to inform. People wanted the church to be different. This came to be known in history as the Reformation and caused the church to retaliate by trying to reform itself from within. The Catholic church formed the Council of Trent, which convened three times between 1541 and 1563. They wanted to go back to ideals of an older day. There was the need to repress the arts, for they believed that through the arts, people were being corrupted. This included music.

At the time, a lot of polyphonic music was being composed, the Council of Trent wanted the spoken word to have a greater importance in the music, largely repressing it. They wanted the music to become purer and wanted its only function to be the celebration of religion. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to increase the amount of text in music, which largely hindered the capacity to make the music polyphonic. The technique used at the time to produce polyphonic music was to employ the use of shorter words or phrases, whereby the music took precedence over the meaning of the words themselves. For example, instead of producing complete sentences, there was the constant repetition of the words (e .g .Sanctus or Amen) in various voices. In addition, the church wanted to cut down the amount of instrumentation in music and hinder the use of compositional abilities during the time, one of them being counter-point used in music. They wanted all the voices in a piece to sing the same text, going back to the ideals of Gregorian Chant.

Palestrina, although a great follower of the church and a very religious man fully agreed with the Council of Trent, with the exception of one thing. The polyphony and the instrumentation was of great importance to him. He wanted to use counter point in his music and did not want all the voices singing the same text, thereby going against the ideals of the council. To do this required the utmost of his creativity. He homophonically combined voices and short motifs corresponding to the text, thus reducing the domination of the music. The words were so clear that he was able to use a great deal of counterpoint to the highest of his abilities; he had formed a new style of music grasping the audience into prayer, but at the same time, not repressing the music. In other words, he found the perfect musical balance to glorify the word. His works and style have been respected by musicians throughout the centuries. Not only did he compose so many pieces that it would be impossible to list them all onto this page, many of which are still performed to this very day, but he was also the developer of the “Palestrina Style,” a great gift to humanity. Even today his works are the basis of counterpoint taught in universities, his style of writing music being the epitomy of renaissance counterpoint. In the 19^th century, romantic period, where a great rebirth of his music took place, he was described as “the savior of church music.”

To listen to some music by this great composer, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:49 PM | Permalink

Born with the name Jacob Gershowitz in 1898 to a poor Jewish family that immigrated to the United States from Russia in the year 1891, George Gershwin was a very unique composer and gained not only fame but the respect of many great musicians and listeners from around the world. His music is also representative of American society between WW I and WW II.

Posted by Michael Ferris at 02:06 PM | Permalink

Hello and wecome to this composer info page! If you like this and are interested, please visit the main site and www.ferrisguitar.com

Posted by Michael Ferris at 02:02 PM | Permalink

Our next composer, Frédéric Chopin, was originally from Poland. Born near Warsaw in Zelasowa Wola, he started studying music at the age of six. Only a year later, he started giving concerts and even published his first composition. At 16 years old, he was accepted by the Warsaw Conservatory to study under Józef Elsner and graduated with honours only three years later, at the time a young man of 19 years and already an accomplished pianist. By the age of 20, he had already composed two piano concertos which were quite demanding for the piano soloist. (* concerto – a word coming from Italian word for concert; in English meaning a composition for orchestra and a soloist.)

The first concerts that he gave abroad were in Vienna, Austria. He was charmed by life outside his country and eventually ended up leaving Poland for good, settling in France in 1831. His father was originally a Frenchman, hence the name he was given Frédéric Chopin.

(*His name is pronounced by correctly reading the following in English accenting the bold print: fre der eek – shou pa)

In France, although he became known as a very good player among a great deal of people, he had a difficult time developing his career as a pianist in the beginning. On account of the fact that he was such a shy person, it damaged his ability to perform on stage. In fact, his first performance in France was not a huge success. People just didn’t take to his introverted presence on stage. He then resorted to playing in the Parisian salons for smaller groups of people which eventually led to his reputation of being arrogant. At the same time, playing for these small groups of influential people, teaching, and composing soon made him one of the most popular and well-paid musicians in Paris. He didn’t need the concert halls to make a living.

At the age of 27, he met the French writer George Sand and ended up living with her for a period of ten years before breaking up. George Sand is known to have inspired him a great deal during the period when he wrote some of his best pieces. She had also cared for him during the times that he became bedridden with tuberculosis.

Frédéric Chopin’s music is something very special. He was, of course, influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach and Vincenzo Bellini, yet a great deal of his compositions were the product of the sounds of the folk songs and dances of his native Poland. Due to the fact that these were so unique with respect to their unusual melodies and rhythms, borrowing them for his compositions also made Chopin’s pieces quite individual in themselves. In fact, along with having influence composers such as Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Johannes Brahms, the music of Frédéric Chopin is still listened to and loved and cherished to this very day.

To listen to music by Frédéric Chopin click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:14 AM | Permalink

Franz Berwald was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1796. Having been largely self-taught, he did study music with his father, who had been a German violinist in the Royal Opera Orchestra, and composition with J. B. E. De Puy, the conductor of the court orchestra. The story of this composer is unique on account of the fact he never gave up as a musician. He achieved greatness and made his name in history despite many setbacks and disappointments.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the Royal Opera Orchestra at the age of 16, having held the position until he composed his Grand Septet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, and string quartet in 1828. It was at this time that, due to the lack of enthusiasm for his music in Sweden and financial difficulty on account of his father’s death in 1825, he travelled abroad to make his career in music. After a tour in Norway, he studied in Berlin for a time, having received a scholarship from Sweden’s king. To make a living, he started an orthopaedic and physiotherapy clinic in Berlin in 1835 and was able to get by quite well. He had even invented a great deal of orthopaedic devices which were still used in the following century.

Determined to make a career in music, Berwald set forth to Vienna, Austria, where his opera, Estrella di Soria, was performed. He also ended up getting married there to a woman named Mathilde Scherer. In 1842, he got the chance to hear the performance of a symphony he had written, La Sérieuse. This was to be the only one of his symphonies that he will have seen during his lifetime.

He then returned to Sweden, where he was not received with open arms. In fact, despite his success abroad, the audiences in Sweden were less than impressed. The Royal Opera performance of his operetta(-a short opera), Modehandlerskan, in 1845 turned out to be a complete flop. Nevertheless, Berwald maintained his love for music and composed three more symphonies, including one of his best works, Sinfonie singuliére. This work, in particular, shows his superior orchestration skills, and although it only contains three movements instead of the usual four in a symphony, it is probably one of the best works he had ever written.

Travelling throughout Europe, he did experience bouts of success. In Vienna, one of his operas named Ein Landliches Verlobungsfest in Schweden (A Swedish Country Engagement Party), was performed. He was even made an honorary member of the Mozarteum Academy for Music in 1847. Nonetheless, once again, upon his return to Sweden, his efforts to become a musical director at Uppsala University as well as the director of the court orchestra turned out to be a string of failure and disappointment.

During this time, to get by, he had been forced into a series of jobs to earn a living. For example, he became a manager of a Swedish glass factory in Angermanland for ten years starting in 1849. Despite the consumption of time set forth by his job as manager, this did not keep him from devoting as much time as possible to teaching and composing. After publishing a series of chamber works, the Stockholm Royal Opera ended up performing Estrella di Soria in 1862.

After completing his last opera in 1864, Drottningen av Golconda(the Queen of Golconda), he had finally been accepted into the Fellowship of the Swedish Academy, becoming a professor of composition in 1867. His dream of being truly accepted as a great musician in his own country had become a reality. Unfortunately, within a year, at the peak of his career, he passed away due to pneumonia. A truly sad ending for such a great man, yet his dreams really did become reality. One of the, if not the best Swedish composer of all time, he will not only be remembered for his gift of music to humanity, but also for the perseverance he had shown in times of hardship.

To listen to music by Berwald, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:10 AM | Permalink

Here is what I call an interesting musician. Erik Satie, a pianist and composer, grew up in a bicultural family, having a mother who was Scottish and a father who was French. Although he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and was always a very gifted musician, in the beginning of his career, he had reputation to be very lazy and unreliable, even to the point of being untalented. Despite this, he wrote 3 Gymnopédies.

In 1890, living in Montmartre, France, he met his life-long friend Claude Debussy. He used to like to go to a lot of cafés to meet other musicians and have discussions with them. It was in this year that he wrote Gnosssiennes, which sounds very oriental.

For a long time, he was very low on money and had to live in very humble accommodations, although his desire was to always do more with his music. Not being very satisfied with his knowledge of composition, he went back to school and studied basic compositional technique in 1905. It was during this time that his musical style truly matured, leading up to 1911, when among others, Maurice Ravel, a great composer and one of the friends he got to meet going to the cafés, brought him into the spotlight. His career as a musician began to grow rapidly.

Erik Satie, in a way, was quite a rebel within the musical world. For example, he once co-produced, along with the playwright and poet Jean Cocteau a ballet, Parade. This ballet caused quite a debate in the musical world on account of the magnitude of comedy it contained. In the pit orchestra for this ballet there were, for example, typewriter-players, people playing pistols, and even steamboat whistle players.

He was ridiculed by many during his lifetime, yet some people truly looked up to him as being ahead of his time, a real genius that did not just want to play the same things as everyone else. He was, in other words, as he is for many musicians even today, an inspiration.

To listen to music by this composer, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:06 AM | Permalink

Claudio Monteverdi was born in Cremona, Italy in 1567 becoming the fifth member of a family of four. Along with his mother and father, he had also had a brother and sister. He had somewhat of an eccentric childhood, to the point of being a bit strange and tragic. His father was a chemist but actually practiced medicine, which of course even at this time was illegal. His mother actually died when he was nine years of age. His father remarried again, but his second wife died when Monteverde was 16. His father remarried once again. You can imagine how difficult this must be on a child. Nevertheless, he received a fine musical education at the cathedral’s Maestro di Cappella. By the age of 16, he had already published many musical works, among them a three-part motet and eight books of madrigals.

A year after publishing his works, he started working for a powerful family, known as the Gonzaga family, in Mantua, working as a string player. It was because of this that his name grew. He played played the viola da gamba, a type of stringed renaissance instrument. You can only imagine what connections can be made working for such a court. He also travelled around Europe performing, having joined the Duke of Mantua’s travelling court. At the age of 34, he married one of the court’s singers whose name was Claudia. They had 3 children together, but unfortunately, one had died, leaving them only two remaining. Around 1607, after only 6 years of marriage, Monteverdi’s wife ended up dying.

It was around the time of his wife’s death that one of his great works ‘la favola d’Orfeo’ was premiered in Mantua. Although the piece was originally written by Jacopo Peri, Monteverdi’s version used a lot of instruments and focused more on musical aspects to perform the opera. Better said, he is ascribed as being responsible for this work’s orchestration. He used stringed instruments for example to portray the character Orpheus, a character which had always been associated with the lyre.

Eleven years before his death, he became a catholic priest. Even this did not take him away from his music. In 1637, due to the opening of the first public opera house in Venice, he was inspired to write two more works, ‘Il ritorno d’Ulisse’ and ‘L’incoronazion di Poppea.’ After visiting Cremona for the last time and shortly after returning to Venice, he died that very year.

Monteverdi lived during an interesting time of transition, namely the transition of the renaissance and baroque eras. It was a change that he encouraged with his genius and musical composition abilities, helping to change and develop existing musical styles. He is a man that lived through a lot of hardship in life, family death, a broken up family, losing the love of his life, but this did not stop him from being one of the most significant composers in history.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 07:01 AM | Permalink

Don Carlo Gesualdo was not only a wonderful and amazing composer, lutenist and harpsichordist, he was also a ferocious and violent man. Not much is known about his life. There is evidence that he spent most of his life in Naples, Italy, where he lived the life of a noble man. He was namely known at the time as Prince of Venosa. His mother was the niece of Pope Pius the IV and his uncle Carlo Borromeo was later to become a saint.

When he originally started composing, he disguised his own name using a pseudonym, although soon after this was known by a great many for the following reason. You see, Gesualdo not only became known for writing tremendous music, but also violently and brutally killing his wife, who was actually his own cousin, and her lover, having found them both in bed together. After the murder, he decided to let the cat out of the bag and compose under his real name.

After this horrible event, he married another woman, Leonara d’Este, the niece of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. The Ferrara court, known to have been very conscious of the arts and quite a thriving center of musical activity, enabled Gesualdo to publish four books of madrigals. A madrigal is an unaccompanied part-song for 2 or three voices, following a strict poetic form. These madrigals are what put him on the musical map in history.

He dedicated much of his life to music, even to the point of not having much contact with anyone, not even his wife. Many had considered him to be insane. There were also many rumours that his marriage was going to break up. His only son, Alfonsino, died in 1600, making him truly worry about his family line having to end with him.

Gesualdo had gone through a lot of horrible experiences, yet this had quite an effect upon his music. He tended to use a lot of chromaticism in his music, using notes not belonging to a basic musical scale, in quite a violent manner, making them very unique for the Renaissance Period, which had been strict in its writing style. For this reason, he had been recognised as a great experimenter in the history of music. He brought forth music that was much ahead of its time, not to be heard again until the 19^th century. His music was not only filled not only with incredible skill and technique, but a ton of emotion as well.

To listen to music by this great composer click here.

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:58 AM | Permalink

This Italian composer was actually born into a family full of artists. Amazingly enough, he wrote 300 chamber works, 18 symphonies, and 93 string quartets. His chamber works also included 9 guitar quintets, which guitarists are quite grateful for.

What made this composer special was the fact that he not only came from Italy during the classical era, which was full of liveliness and elegance, but he travelled to Vienna and discovered the beginnings of the Romantic Era. Along with this, he went to Spain, discovering the guitar music of Andalusia along with its rhythm , which influenced his music a great deal.

This passion and drama he found in Vienna with regard to music and literature was part of a movement known even in English under the German phrase ‘Sturm und Drang’. This was also known as the ‘Time of Genius’. In order to understand this term, it is important to know what was going on during the 18^th century, namely another movement known as the Age of Enlightenment, the time where man discovered himself and began to use reason to reappraise social institutions and ideas. ‘Sturm und Drang’ was a furthering of this, being the time when a genius was considered a superior human being raised up amongst the masses and glorified as a creator of art. By the way, in German ‘Sturm’ means ‘storm’, and ‘drang’ means either ‘stress’ or ‘urge.’

Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy. His whole family were filled with great artists. His father, being a double-bass and cello player, taught Boccherini to play the cello at a very young age. At 13, he studied with the Maestro di Cappella(choir director) at St. Peter’s in Rome. Before the age of 21, he had already made 3 visits to the Viennese royal court.

Along with his best friend and violinist, Filippo Manfredi, he formed a string quartet. At the age of 23, the group started giving a concert tour in the north of Italy. Only a year later, they were received in Paris at the Concert Spirituel, which was a public concert series, the first of its kind which lasted from 1725-1790. It was actually the Spanish ambassador to Paris who originally invited Boccherini to come to Spain, for which he started working for as a composer for the Spanish Court under Don Luis.

Following the death of Don Luis in 1789, he went to the court of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, but ended up returning to Spain on account of Wilhelm’s death. In Spain, he organised concerts and composed for the French consul Lucien Buonaparte, Napoleon Buonaparte’s brother.

All in all, there was a point in Boccherini’s career where he had become so famous that his publisher in Paris started putting out music by other composers under his name. Yet, following the deaths of not only Prince Wilhelm, Lucien Buonapart, his wife and two daughters, despite the fame he was awarded, which had been to the extent of influencing Mozart and Haydn and winning Gluck’s admiration, Boccherini ended up dying in 1805 in complete poverty.

To listen to music by this great composer click here.

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:54 AM | Permalink

Auber was the son of a hunter that became quite wealthy by going into the business of dealing art in Paris. Auber was actually born in Normandy. This was on account of his parents once making a trip from Paris to Caen, the capital of lower Normandy.

Showing a great deal of talent on the piano at an early age, by the time he was a teenager, he had already written concert arias(-elaborate songs for solo voice), a piano sonata(-composition containing 3 or 4 contrasting movements), and a string quartet(-instrumental containing 2 violins, a viola and cello). Nevertheless, his father was quite determined to make his son a businessman like himself.

It was in 1802, that France signed a treaty with England, known as the Treaty of Amiens. Auber’s father seized the chance to send his son to England to study commerce. Yet, seeing that the treaty was breached after only one year and war broke out, Auber was forced to return home, giving him the opportunity to concentrate on his music.

Auber had written a pasticcio named L’Erreur d’un Moment (-an opera whose music derives from various composers or a single composer’s various works). This opera was performed in Paris in 1805 and seen by the famous Italian composer Cherubini, who, having recognised his talents, wished to give him further instruction. He began writing a great abundance of works in various forms. With Cherubini’s guidance, he had composed his first successful operas, namely La Bergére châtelaine in 1820 and Emma in 1821.

Having written these great works, eventually led to meeting and making friends with Eugéne Scribe, an important and well-known librettist(-a person responsible for writing the texts for an opera to be set to music). Meeting Eugéne Scribe was very significant in Auber’s life. Over the next 40 years, of the 45 operas by Auber performed in Paris, 37 had been the result of teaming up with Scribe.

The great composer Rossini was also a great influence upon Auber’s music. In light of the fact that Rossini’s operas had received a great deal of recognition and success in Paris, it is no wonder that Auber had admired his work so much. Auber had since used a great deal of Rossini’s ideas in his own music, thereby enriching his own style.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber was one of the most significant 19^th century composers, most known for his works revolving around the opéra comique (-comic opera, an opera performed with regular spoken text instead of the ‘sing-song recitative’ which usually has a happy ending. The word comic refers more to satire than comedy, seeing that many of these types of operas are not funny at all in nature and at times can be quite tragic.)

In 1825, Auber was bequeathed the Légion d’Honneur by Charles X. In 1842, following Cherubini, he became the director of the Paris Conservatoire. Ten years later, in addition to directing the latter, one of the most significant music conservatories in the history(a position he kept up until a year before his death in 1871), Napoleon III made him the music director of his Imperial Chapel. He was not only a great composer, yet was given a great deal of well-deserved honour throughout his lifetime.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:51 AM | Permalink

This composer has been praised by Richard Wagner as being ‛the only composer who could measure up to Beethoven.’ Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden, Austria. Although he appeared to have great musical ability as a child, his first aspirations were not directed at going into the field of music. Wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps, he became a school teacher at the St. Florian monastery near the city of Linz. It was there, having once been a pupil himself, that he indirectly started his musical career. Part of his teaching duties included playing the organ.

During this time, he became quite fascinated with music and pursued several disciplines. It was not until 1855 that he applied for the position of organist at the cathedral of Linz, Austria. Even at this time, he was quite unsure of the decision to make a living solely from music alone and was greatly persuaded to apply for the job. Surely enough, his application was successful and he was a full blown professional musician.

Although his work in Linz took up a great deal of his time, he sought out lessons in counterpoint and harmony with Simon Sechter by means of a correspondence course at the Vienna Conservatory. Subsequently, in 1861, he graduated with honours. At his final examination, one of his examiners, astounded by his ability, remarked that Bruckner should have judged them.

Only seven years later, Anton Bruckner became professor at the Vienna Conservatory, thereby leaving his organist position in Linz. To make the decision to change jobs was a difficult thing for him to decide. He enjoyed a great deal of security as cathedral organist. It was not until the Vienna Conservatory said that his salary would be much higher that he decided to take up the professorship.

Bruckner wrote a great deal of sacred music, yet was most noted for his symphonies. His pieces were very long and rich in polyphony(*-Music arranged in parts for several voices or instruments. )It is an interesting fact that his symphonies at the time were regarded as wild and unplayable. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra refused to play his works on account of this. Bruckner then allowed revisions and cuts to his compositions. This led to the attack of his pieces by a famous music critic, Eduard Hanslick, due to their inconsistency. Not until the present day have they started to play his works in their original form.

The one composer that always supported him had been Richard Wagner. This was much appreciated and for this reason, following Wagner’s death, Bruckner dedicated the Adagio from his Seventh Symphony to his memory. It was this very work which brought his music into light of the international community and finally received the recognition it deserved. His Eighth Symphony was not received quite as well, yet the first 3 movements of his Ninth Symphony are truly his most spectacular. It is such a pity that this great man was not capable of finishing it before his death in 1896.

To listen to music by this great composer, click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:49 AM | Permalink

Segovia has been give the name, ‘Father of the Classical Guitar,’ not only because he played beautifully, but because he did so much to further its name and reputation as a concert instrument. Andrés Segovia did compose a few selected pieces for the guitar and they are very interesting and very beautiful. I am putting him into this blog, Great Composers and their Lives, not because he was a composer who composed a ton of pieces, but also because he contributed so much not only to music itself with his performances, but he went through a great deal for my favourite instrument. The guitar had always been a known instrument, but it was an instrument for the lower classes, for dances, and taverns, and had never been really recognised as a concert instrument, except in its own circles of course. Although, this is no longer the case due to Segovia, there are even some musicians today that criticize the instrument’s ability on stage. You can probably guess that during his time, Segovia had to go up against a ton of opposition to achieve his goal, yet succeeded.

When Segovia was five years of age, his uncle with whom he was living had tried to entice him to play a musical instrument. Attending the Grenada Musical Institute, he was encouraged to play the piano and the violin, yet with no avail. Segovia fell in love with the guitar on account of its unique sound. It had surely been flamenco that he had first heard. After a little bit of persuasion, taking a period of years, he was actually able to have his own guitar. By doing this, he was going against not only his family but also his teachers at the Grenada music school. It can be seen that during this period, the guitar had not been taken very seriously. Nevertheless, he became enthralled with the instrument and spent every moment he had practicing, being forced to basically teach himself. Yet, one has to take into account that he had a great deal of musical knowledge deriving from the music school in Grenada. He was in no way ignorant to music. This knowledge had to be applied to the guitar, whereby he developed his own technique of playing. He ended up moving to Córdoba to live with his brother and mother. It was here that he made a lot of friends with other musicians, among them the two pianists: Luis Serrano and Rafael de Montis.

Montis had encouraged him greatly, for he was very taken back by Segovia’s guitar transcriptions. Having given his first public recital at the age of 16 at the Granada Art Centre,

he decided to quit school to make the guitar his life. You can only imagine what his family thought about that! Well, that did not stop him. He moved to Seville where, along with playing recitals, he met a great deal of influential people who were to be the patrons of his near future. Additionally, he also played concerts in many other Spanish cities, receiving a large amount of criticism as well as praise.

During the course of his career, he also met up with Miguel Llobet, a former student of Tárrega, a guitarist for whom Segovia always had fascination. During this time, both of their techniques were similar in one respect. Contrary to a great deal of other guitarists, who used the fleshy part of their fingers OR their nails, these two players used both the fleshy part and the nail, giving a larger variety of sounds to their pieces. Nowadays generally, although sometimes still a debate, both are still used when playing.

By 1919, Segovia had earned a great deal of respect in Spain and got the opportunity to go on international tours by means of a concert promoter who was very impressed with his playing. The first tour of South America had gone wonderfully and did a great deal for his reputation. He furthered his concerts to the rest of Europe, then to the rest of the world. His playing aroused a great deal of interest for the instrument for the first time. He also encouraged other great composers to write music for the guitar. Among them were: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Federico Moreno Torroba, Manuel Ponce, and many more. They did not just composer for solo guitar, but also for guitar and orchestra. Segovia did not stop there. He also encouraged universities and musical institutes around the world to include guitar into their curriculum. It is because of him that the classical guitar is played by concert musicians today in just about every one of the great concert halls around the globe. It is for this reason that he is sometimes known as the ‘father of the guitar’ and at times called ‘the greatest guitarist in the world.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:47 AM | Permalink

Tomaso, born in 1671, was the eldest child of a man by the name of Antonio Albinoni, a successful paper merchant who owned a number of shops and properties around Venice. He started studying the violin and singing at the age of nine. Although he received a thorough musical education during his youth, contrary to a great deal of other musicians in his era, he did not seek employment within a church. He enjoyed taking advantage of his personal freedom much to much to have wanted this. Many composers did not have the financial means to compose independently, yet Albinoni did have these resources available on account of the wealth generated by his father’s business and was able to compose for himself, making his music quite individual and ‘untouched’.

It was not until the age of 23 that he really started making a name for himself as a musician, having written the opera, Zenobia Regina de Palmireni, which was even brought to the stage. Shortly after this, he wrote 12 trio sonatas. These works remain representative of the two main musical focuses throughout his lifetime, which had been without a doubt secular vocal music and instrumental works. Seeing that very little of survives of his opera works, his reputation today is based mainly upon the instrumental music he composed.

In 1705, having made quite a name for himself on account of his opera works, Tomaso Albinoni married a soprano opera singer, Margeherita Rimondi, and had six children with her. Despite having to bring them up, she still miraculously managed to keep up her career as a performer, even though she ended up dying in her thirties in 1721. This was a hard blow for Tomaso. To add to his consternation, shortly after this, due to a dispute with one of his father’s creditors, he lost all of his family’s shops. Yet, all of this did not stop him from composing. His fortune took a turn when, only a year later, he was asked travel to Munich to stage one of his operas at Prince – Elector Karl Albert’s marriage celebrations, after having dedicated 12 concerti to Maximilian Emanuel II, Elector of Bavaria.

One of the pieces Albinoni was most known for, Adagio in G minor, was ironically not entirely his own. A fragmented manuscript written by Albinoni was taken by the twentieth-century Italian musicologist, Remo Giazotto, and arranged into the piece we know today. In fact, the piece, written for strings and organ, had been quite elaborated to the extent of it being romantic in character. Nevertheless, being quite a beautiful piece, it is still well worth listening to.

Along with being a prolific composer, one of the characteristics that sets this Albinoni apart from the rest of the composers of the period was the fact that his pieces were quite individual. He had, of course, been influenced by some of the greats, such as Corelli and Vivaldi, yet his pieces remained undiluted and pure inventions of his own.

To listen to Adagio in G-Minor by Albinoni (arr. Remo Giazotto) click here

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:45 AM | Permalink