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Joseph Haydn His Life Born in Rohrau in 1732, the son of a wheelwright, he was trained as a chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where he made his early living, before appointment to the small musical establishment of Count Morzin in 1759. In 1760 he entered the service of the Esterházy Princes, and succeeded to the position of Kapellmeister on the death of his predecessor and immediate superior Gregorius Werner in 1766. Much of Haydn's life now centred on the magnificent palace and estate at Esterháza, where his employer Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had moved his entourage for...

Anton Bruckner His Life Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden, Austria in 1824 to a schoolmaster and organist father with whom he first studied music. He worked for a few years as a teacher's assistant, fiddling at village dances at night to supplement his income. He studied at the Augustinian monastery in St. Florian, becoming an organist there in 1851. He continued his studies to the age of 40, under Simon Sechter and Otto Kitzler, the latter introducing him to the music of Richard Wagner, which Bruckner studied extensively from 1863 onwards. Soon after ending his studies, he wrote...

Celebrating Music in Religion Some History Several types of Christian chant, which is often called plainsong, developed during the first 1000 years of the Christian era. A repertory called Ambrosian chant developed at Milan, Italy; named after St. Ambrose, it is still used in some Roman Catholic services in Milan. In Spain, until about the 11th century, there was a chant repertory called Mozarabic chant, named after the Mozarab Christians who lived in Arab-dominated Spain during the Middle Ages. Today Mozarabic chant survives in a few Spanish cathedrals. Until the 9th century, France had its own chant repertory, called...

Johannes Brahms Introduction Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg on May 7, 1833. After studying the violin and cello with his father, a double bass player in the city theater, Brahms mastered the piano and began to compose under the guidance of the German music teacher Eduard Marxsen, whose conservative tastes left a lasting imprint on him. In 1853 Brahms went on a concert tour as accompanist to the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi. In the course of the tour he met the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, who introduced him in turn to the German composer Robert Schumann. Schumann was...

Celebration Music Water Music After a stay in England, George Frideric Handel returned to Germany in 1710 and became court composer for the Elector of Hanover, George Ludwig, who would later become King George I of Great Britain and Ireland. Late in 1712, Handel asked George for permission to return to England and overstayed his visit while receiving a severance from Queen Anne of England, the last of the House of Stuart. After the passing of Queen Anne, Handel composed "Water Music," in an effort to regain the favor of the Elector of Hanover (now King George I), his...

Gustav Mahler His Life Mahler was born in Kalist (Kalischt, Kaliste), Bohemia. His parents moved to Jihlava, Moravia in the first year of his life, where Mahler spent his childhood. In 1875 he was admitted to the Vienna Conservatoire where he studied piano under Julius Epstein. Subsequently, Mahler attended lectures given by Anton Bruckner at Vienna University. His first major attempt at composition came with Das Klagende Lied which he entered in a competition as an opera (he later turned it into a cantata). However, he was unsuccessful, and turned his attention to conducting. After his first conducting job...

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini, (1856-1924), was born in Lucca (Italy), a member of a large family of musicians going back to the early 18th century. His first job, at age 14, was as organist to the two churches of Lucca; but he quickly became more interested in opera (especially Verdi) than church music. He studied at the musical conservatory in Milan (1880-83), and there he came into contact with a group of Milanese artists, called the Scapigliati, who lived the Bohemian lifestyle. This group included the great librettist Arrigo Boito (himself a composer whose opera Mefistofele is still popular...

Johann Sebastian Bach EISENACH: 1685-1695 Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, the son of Johann Ambrosius, court trumpeter for the Duke of Eisenach and director of the musicians of the town of Eisenach in Thuringia. For many years, members of the Bach family throughout Thuringia had held positions such as organists, town instrumentalists, or Cantors, and the family name enjoyed a wide reputation for musical talent. The family at Eisenach lived in a reasonably spacious home just above the town center, with rooms for apprentice musicians, and a large grain store. (The pleasant and informative "Bach...

Fryderyk Chopin Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, the Polish composer and pianist, was born on 1 March 1810, according to the statements of the artist himself and his family, but according to his baptismal certificate, which was written several weeks after his birth, the date was 22 February. His birthplace was the village of Zelazowa Wola near Sochaczew, in the region of Mazovia, which was part of the Duchy of Warsaw. The manor-house in Zelazowa Wola belonged to Count Skarbek, and Chopin's father, Mikolaj (Nicolas) Chopin, a Polonized Frenchman, was employed there as a tutor. He had been born in 1771...

Itzhak Perlman Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Itzhak Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. Beloved for his charm and humanity as well as his talent, he has come to be recognized by audiences all over the world who respond not only to his flawless technique, but to the irrepressible joy of making music which he communicates. His latest release from Sony Classical – Classic Perlman: Rhapsody – brings together the best of the violinist’s recent recordings for the label, including chamber and symphonic music as well as classic film themes. Born in Israel in...

Antonin Dvorak His Life Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves near Prague (today the Czech Republic) where he spent most of his life. He studied music in Prague's only Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and slowly developed himself as an accomplished violinist and violist. Throughout the 1860s he played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra. The need to supplement his income by teaching left Dvorák with limited free time, and in 1871 he gave up the orchestra in order to compose. He fell in love with one of his pupils and wrote a song cycle, Cypress...

Handel's Messiah I Handel's Messiah II Handel's Life and Times

Ludwig van Beethoven His Life and Music Although his name is a household word, myths and misconceptions about the personality and life of Ludwig van Beethoven are prevalent today. Beethoven was not the neurotic genius-lunatic portrayed in some novels and movies in recent years. But he was instead an offspring of a truly dysfunctional family. It is true that his mother died during his late teenage years and that his father, an accomplished violinist and tenor singer, had become an intolerable and abusive alcoholic long before his wife's death. The circumstances of his family life may have had an...

Ludwig van Beethoven Special Broadcast Starting today, November 19th, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be broadcasting, via the internet, a June, 2006 concert featuring Daniel Barenboim as pianist and conductor in his final appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The concert includes Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477, Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear the recording of Symphony No. 9 on Chicago's local station, WFMT. As you will hear, the applause was tremendous and the commentator went on to say that the ovation...

Ludwig van Beethoven His Life Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. His father's harsh discipline and alcoholism made his childhood and adolescence difficult. At the age of 18, after his mother's death, Beethoven placed himself at the head of the family, taking responsibility for his two younger brothers, both of whom followed him when he later moved to Vienna, Austria. In Bonn, Beethoven's most important composition teacher was German composer Christian Gottlob Neefe, with whom he studied during the 1780s. Neefe used the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach as a cornerstone of instruction, and he later...

Antonio Vivaldi His Life Vivaldi was born March 4, 1678, in Venice, and was trained by his father, a violinist at Saint Mark's Cathedral. Ordained a priest in 1703, Vivaldi began teaching that year at the Ospedale della Pietà, a conservatory for orphaned girls. He was associated with the Pietà, usually as music director, until 1740, training the students, composing concertos and oratorios for weekly concerts, and meanwhile establishing an international reputation. From 1713 on, Vivaldi was also active as an opera composer and producer in Venice and traveled to Rome, Mantua (Mantova), and elsewhere to oversee performances of...

Joseph Haydn His Life Born in Rohrau in 1732, the son of a wheelwright, he was trained as a chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where he made his early living, before appointment to the small musical establishment of Count Morzin in 1759. In 1760 he entered the service of the Esterházy Princes, and succeeded to the position of Kapellmeister on the death of his predecessor and immediate superior Gregorius Werner in 1766. Much of Haydn's life now centred on the magnificent palace and estate at Esterháza, where his employer Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had moved his entourage for...

Joseph Haydn His Life Born in Rohrau in 1732, the son of a wheelwright, he was trained as a chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where he made his early living, before appointment to the small musical establishment of Count Morzin in 1759. In 1760 he entered the service of the Esterházy Princes, and succeeded to the position of Kapellmeister on the death of his predecessor and immediate superior Gregorius Werner in 1766. Much of Haydn's life now centred on the magnificent palace and estate at Esterháza, where his employer Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had moved his entourage for...

Nicholay Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, (1844-1908), was a Russian composer and musical theorist, one of the greatest composers of the Russian nationalist school, and a great master of orchestration. Rimsky-Korsakov was born on March 18, 1844, in Tikhvin, near Novgorod. He studied piano as a child. In 1856 he was enrolled at the Naval Academy at Saint Petersburg but continued his musical studies. In 1861 Rimsky-Korsakov became an associate of the Russian composer Mily Balakirev, the dominant figure of a group of young, nationally conscious Russian composers including Aleksandr Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, and César Cui. Together with Rimsky-Korsakov this...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart MOZART'S CHILDHOOD Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, and baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, he was educated by his father, Leopold Mozart, who was concertmaster in the court orchestra of the archbishop of Salzburg and a celebrated violinist, composer, and author. By the age of six Mozart had become an accomplished performer on the clavier, violin, and organ and was highly skilled in sight-reading and improvisation. Five short piano pieces composed by Mozart when he was six years old are still frequently played. In 1762, Leopold took Wolfgang on the first of many successful concert...

Hikari Oe Last year when Japanese Author Kenzuburo Oe won the Nobel prize for literature, he made an unusual announcement. At the Stockholm awards ceremony, he informed the world that he would not be writing any more novels, at least not for the foreseeable future. He has no more reason to write. In an extended April 16, 1995 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Sunday Morning, Oe detailed his reasons for writing and why he no longer needs to write. Oe sees his writing as a healing process. Thirty-two years ago, when his son was born, Oe and his...

Pyotr Tchaikovsky INTRODUCTION Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia (at the time the Vyatka Guberniya under Imperial Russia). He was the son of Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, a mining engineer in the government mines, and the second of his three wives, Alexandra Andreyevna Assier, a Russian woman of French ancestry. He was the older brother (by some ten years) of the dramatist, librettist, and translator Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Pyotr began piano lessons at the age of five, and in a few months he was already proficient at Friedrich Kalkbrenner's...

George Frideric Handel INTRODUCTION George Frideric Handel, (1685-1759), was a German-born composer, who worked primarily in England. Considered one of the most important masters of the baroque period, (from about 1600 to 1750), Handel and his German contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the greatest composers of the early 18th century. Together, their music represents the culmination of musical genres of the baroque era. Whereas Bach's output consisted chiefly of instrumental and vocal works originally conceived for Lutheran church services, Handel's most important works are his operas and oratorios composed for the theater. The most famous of these is...