Great Composers and Their Lives

 This Spanish composer was one of the greatest in the sixteenth century. Tomás Luis de Victoria came from a very religious background in a time when Spain was influenced much by Catholicism and the church. It was the time of the Inquisition, a tribunal responsible for purging the society by actually persecuting a great deal of people who refused to be Catholic, as well as many people who did, sometimes just to save their lives. (These new-born Catholics were known in Spain as 'conversos'. ) This great composer was living during a time when the Jesuit Order was in effect, a Roman Catholic order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 to defend Catholicism against the Reformation and to do missionary work among the heathen, the ones that did not want to submit to religious conversion.

Religion during this time had a great impact on not only the society, but also its music. Tomás Luis de Victoria born in Ávila to a family of eleven children, the seventh child in fact. After the death of his father at nine years of age, he was cared for by his two uncles who happened to be priests. He went to school and sang at the local cathedral. Through his musical ability, he gained quite a reputation. After his voice changed, he was encouraged by everyone around him, including King Philip II of Spain to carry on his music in Rome, Italy at the Collegio Germanico(a boarding school), where he not only studied music but also strived to be a priest, a goal he finally reached at twenty-seven years of age.

His faith is reflected in the music he had written to a great extent. He wrote motets, masses, magnificats and many sacred works. Actually, he dedicated all of his musical ability to the composition of sacred works. It is believed that living in Rome brought him into contact with a great deal of composers during the era, either living or visiting the city. The fact that the great and influential composer of the time, Palestrina, was a choir director (maestro di cappella) at the nearby Seminario Romano leads to the undoubted belief that the two knew each other and frequently exchanged their thoughts and ideas with one another. It may have very well been that Victoria had even taken lessons from him.

After spending fifty years in Rome all together. Victoria finally went back to Spain under the service of the Dowager Empress Maria. It was her that caused him to write one of his best known works, Officium defunctorum, a requium (mass for a deceased person) for her death in 1603.

To listen to more music by this great composer, click here.

Posted by Michael Ferris at 12:28 PM | Permalink

This composer actually came from a very poor family from Italy. The poverty of his family had almost kept him from making a musical career. Having shown a lot of talent for music at a very young age, his father did everything possible to be able to buy him a used spinet (a type of harpsichord) to learn on. Already at the age of twelve, Giuseppe Verdi had become the local organist.

As he grew older, despite his talent as a player and composer, he was refused entrance into the Milan Conservatory in favor of better, more trained candidates. This disappointment did not stop him though. Though his perseverance, he had been found by a patron, Antonio Barezzi, who loved Verdi's music. This allowed him to study privately in Milan. It was to his patron's daughter that he gave piano and sing lessons to, whom he married in 1836.

His first opera, Oberto, brought him a great deal of success, having been commissioned to write three more, the first of which was a huge failure. During the casting of his second opera, Nabucco, which had been a great success, Giuseppe Verdi was subject to a great blow. His two sons and his wife died and despite the success of his opera, it proved to be the most difficult time of his life. The distress mixed in with the success of his opera had caused Verdi to dive into his work, wanting to bring the opera to a new level. In contrast to the other composers of that time, it is interesting that he was more interested in the dramatic side of opera and less in the purity of showmanship portrayed by many other composers. For his opera, Macbeth, he incorporated a very poor voice for the soprano role of Lady Macbeth instead of someone who could sing to absolute perfection. In his opinion, the beauty and drama was intensified by such a voice.

Having written a great deal of operas and extensively traveling, he met his second wife, a soprano named Giuseppa Strepponi, in London, whom he married at the age of 46 in 1859. Throughout his life, he composed a great deal of works such as La traviata, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, Les vêpres siciliennes, un ballo in maschera, Aida, and Don Carlo. His last two operas were named Othello and Falstaff, having been written and performed when Verdi was in his seventies.

Giuseppe Verdi died at the ripe old age of 87 in year 1901. He had requested that no music be played for his funeral, yet a person watching the procession started singing Va, pensiero from his first huge success, the opera Nabucco, and then everyone started singing, all two thousand spectators.

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

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:50 AM | Permalink

Up until now, we have always talked about prolific composers that have written a lot of music for the world. Well, this one had written a single ‘hit’ and went down in history for composing one of the most famous tunes in all the world. You know the song for sure!

Franz Gruber was born on the 25^th of November, 1787 in a small Austria city known as Hochburg. His family was very poor and made a living as linen weavers. As far as his father was concerned. He was to follow in his footsteps and take up the same trade. He tried his hardest and convinced his father that his true calling was to become a musician. Well, his father gave in and he started studying music.

After completing his musical training in Burghausen and his teaching degree, he became an elementary teacher in a small village by the name of Arnsdorf in 1807. At the same time, he also worked there as an organist. Yet, he also took up another organist job in a near-by village called Oberndorf.

The song he was noted for writing originated in Austria, and so its original version is actually German, known by the name ‘Stille Nacht’(Silent Night). The words to the song were written by the priest Joseph Mohr. He had written the text in the form of a poem much earlier. It is still contemplated why this poem had been transformed into a Christmas carol.

The song’s origin can only be speculated upon based on stories and rumours passed down throughout the generations. Legend has it that on December 24^th, 1818, there was a problem with the church’s organ in the small village of Oberndorf, just outside of the city of Salzburg, Austria. In desperation to have music for the Christmas mass, Father Mohr gave a poem he had written two years earlier to Franz Gruber and asked him to write something. Silent night was performed on that Christmas Eve in the St. Nicolas Church. I had been written for soprano, tenor, and choir. Oh, and lets not forget the guitar accompaniment!

Since then, the song has been translated into over 300 languages and is sung around Christmas every year. By the time it was first recorded in 1866, it had already become popular all around the world...

The song had supposedly been the cause of what was considered somewhat of a miracle. It is said that on the Christmas Eve of 1914, the German and British troops were lying in their trenches. For some reason, after a moment of silence, a German started singing ‘Silent Night’ in German and then, the British retorted by singing the same carol in English. Right smack dab in the middle of World War I, the British and the Germans had stopped fighting and called what is known today as the ‘Christmas Truce’. There is no proof stating this, yet I would like to believe that these people had taken the Christmas spirit in and chosen to think about humanity instead of their differences.

On a different note, interestingly enough, Silent Night still remains to this very day a very special and sacred song in Salzburg, Austria and its surroundings. In contrast to many cities around the world, which play the song all repeatedly throughout the Christmas season, the song can only be heard in Salzburg on Christmas Eve, and is very reluctantly listened to beforehand. Tradition in Salzburg is to sing the song to candlelight on Christmas Eve in church and around the Christmas tree.

I speak from experience when I say, if you ever teach guitar to youngsters in Salzburg… as far as the parents will ever be concerned, the kids can play whatever they would like on the guitar, as long as they learn to play Silent Night for the family on Christmas Eve.

Here is the first verse of the song literally translated into English. There are subtle differences:

Silent Night! Holy Night!                    Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht!
All is asleep, alone standing guard,   Alles schläft; einsam wacht
only the godly tender pair.                Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar.
Holy infant with curly hair,                 Holder Knab' im lockigen Haar,
Sleep in heavenly peace!                  Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

Have a Merry Christmas !
------------ Michael Ferris

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:43 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

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

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.

Posted by Michael Ferris at 06:58 AM | Permalink