Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Prokofiev in New York, 1918 Biography[edit] Early childhood and first compositions[edit] Formal education and controversial early works[edit] As a member of the Saint Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev developed a reputation as a musical rebel, while getting praise for his original compositions, which he performed himself on the piano.[28][29] In 1909, he graduated from his class in composition with unimpressive marks. In 1910, Prokofiev's father died and Sergei's financial support ceased.[31] Fortunately he had started making a name for himself as a composer and pianist outside the Conservatory, making appearances at the St Petersburg Evenings of Contemporary Music. In 1911, help arrived from renowned Russian musicologist and critic Alexander Ossovsky, who wrote a supportive letter to music publisher Boris P. The first ballets[edit] First World War and Revolution[edit] Life abroad[edit] Sergei Prokofiev (c. 1918) First visits to the Soviet Union[edit] Return to Russia[edit] Post-war[edit]
Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn[n 1] (/ˈdʒoʊzəf ˈhaɪdən/; German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈhaɪdən] ( ); 31 March[1] 1732 – 31 May 1809), known as Joseph Haydn,[n 1] was one of the most prominent and prolific composers of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio[2] and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet".[3] A lifelong resident of Austria,[4] Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. This isolated him from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his life, when he was, as he put it, "forced to become original".[5] At the time of his death, aged 77, he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe. Joseph Haydn was the brother of Michael Haydn – himself a highly regarded composer – and Johann Evangelist Haydn, a tenor. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Struggles as a freelancer[edit]
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven ( i/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪ.toʊvən/; German: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːt.hoːfən] ( Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and Christian Gottlob Neefe. Biography Background and early life Prince-Elector's Palace (Kurfürstliches Schloss) in Bonn, where the Beethoven family had been active since the 1730s Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. Beethoven's first music teacher was his father. A portrait of the 13-year-old Beethoven by an unknown Bonn master (c. 1783) Maximilian Frederick's successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Franz, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and he brought notable changes to Bonn. In March 1787 Beethoven traveled to Vienna (possibly at another's expense) for the first time, apparently in the hope of studying with Mozart. Establishing his career in Vienna Musical maturity
Classical period (music) The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1730 and 1820. However, the term classical music is used in a colloquial sense to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or seventeenth to the nineteenth. This article is about the specific period from 1750 to 1820.[1] The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. Franz Schubert is also something of a transitional figure, as are Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Mauro Giuliani, Friedrich Kuhlau, Fernando Sor, Luigi Cherubini, Jan Ladislav Dussek, and Carl Maria von Weber. In the middle of the 18th century, Europe began to move toward a new style in architecture, literature, and the arts, generally known as Classicism. Economic changes also had the effect of altering the balance of availability and quality of musicians. A string quartet. Many consider this breakthrough to have been made by C.
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (sometimes spelled Strawinsky or Stravinskii; Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский, transliterated: Igorʹ Fëdorovič Stravinskij; Russian pronunciation: [ˌiɡərʲ ˌfʲjodɐrɐvʲɪt͡ɕ strɐˈvʲinskʲɪj]; 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian (and later, a naturalized French and American) composer, pianist and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. Life and career[edit] Early life in the Russian Empire[edit] Igor Stravinsky, 1903 In 1905 he was betrothed to his cousin Yekaterina Gavrilovna Nosenko (called "Katya"), whom he had known since early childhood.[13] In spite of the Orthodox Church's opposition to marriage between first cousins, the couple married on 23 January 1906: their first two children, Fyodor (Theodore) and Ludmila, were born in 1907 and 1908, respectively.[14] Life in Switzerland[edit] Vaslav Nijinsky as Petrushka in 1910–11 Life in France[edit] Vera de Bosset Sudeikin
Classical music Montage of some great classical music composers. From left to right: Top row: Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven; second row: Gioachino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi; third row: Johann Strauss II, Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák; bottom row: Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Aram Khachaturian The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to distinctly canonize the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age.[7] The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.[1][8] Characteristics[edit] Literature[edit] The most outstanding characteristic of classical music is that the repertoire tends to be written down in musical notation, creating a musical part or score. Instrumentation[edit]
Frédéric Chopin Photograph of Chopin by Bisson, c. 1849 Frédéric François Chopin (/ˈʃoʊpæn/; French pronunciation: [fʁe.de.ʁik ʃɔ.pɛ̃]; 22 February or 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,[n 1] was a Romantic-era Polish composer. A child prodigy, Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw. He grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815 became part of Congress Poland, and there completed his musical education and composed many of his works before leaving Poland, aged 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. Both in his native Poland and beyond, Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest 'superstars', his association (if only indirect) with political insurrection, his amours and his early death have made him, in the public consciousness, a leading symbol of the Romantic era. Life[edit] Childhood[edit] Chopin's Polish residences Warsaw building where Chopin's family lived in 1817–27,[n 2] embellished with bas-relief of his profile
George Gershwin George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist.[1][2] Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), as well as the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell. He began his career as a song plugger, but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, where he began to compose An American in Paris. Gershwin's compositions have been adapted for use in many films and for television, and several became jazz standards recorded in many variations. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Gershwin came from Russian Jewish heritage. Tin Pan Alley[edit] Europe and classical music[edit] Opera[edit]
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Portrait of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1898 by Valentin Serov (detail) Rimsky-Korsakov believed, as did fellow composer Mily Balakirev and critic Vladimir Stasov, in developing a nationalistic style of classical music. This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. However, Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions. Biography[edit] Early years[edit] Rimsky-Korsakov's birthplace in Tikhvin Mentored by Balakirev; time with The Five[edit] A pupil like myself had to submit to Balakirev a proposed composition in its embryo, say, even the first four or eight bars. Professorship, marriage, inspector of bands[edit]
Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (Russian: Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов;[1] Russian pronunciation: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej rɐxˈmanʲɪnəf]; 1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1873 – 28 March 1943)[2] was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor.[3] Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.[4] Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a personal style notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors.[5] The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Life[edit] Rachmaninoff at age 10 Childhood and youth[edit] Zverev's students in the late 1880s. Rachmaninoff at the piano, in the early 1900s, before he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory