ComposersComposers
Composers (44)
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Igor STRAVINSKY |
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Igor Stravinsky (struh-VIN-skee) was born in Russia near St. Petersburg. He influenced his contemporaries more than any other composer of the Modern Period. He wrote in many styles and forms: opera, ballet, symphony orchestra, church, and player piano. He wrote Circus Polka for the elephants in the Ringling Brothers' Circus, and Ebony Concerto for "Woody" Herman's dance band. His music has heavy rhythms with irregular and changing meters. No matter what he wrote in which style, one could always tell that it was by Stravinsky.
Stravinsky's father was a leading bass singer in the Russian Imperial Opera. Igor began studying piano at the age of nine, but preferred to improvise or read his father's opera scores instead of practicing his lessons. He attended the university to study law where he met Rimsky-Korsakov, the father of a classmate. Rimsky-Korsakov recognized Igor's talent and offered to teach him composition and orchestration.
In 1906 Stravinsky got married and wrote his first successful ballet, The Firebird. Soon after, he wrote The Rite of Spring and also Petrushka, the sad story of a puppet. All three ballets drew on Russian folklore and folk tunes. He used complex rhythms and dissonant sounds which shocked people of that time. The primitive rhythms and harsh sounds of The Rite of Spring caused a riot in the theater at the first performance. The subtitle reads, "Scenes of Pagan Russia." Stravinsky described it as a solemn pagan rite with sage elders seated in a circle watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to please the god of Spring. Stravinsky was clearly the most adventuresome composer of his day. He was perhaps the most influential composer of the twentieth century. Whether composers accepted his ideas or rejected them, they always considered them.
Stravinsky moved to Switzerland in 1917 to avoid the Russian Revolution. From there he moved to France and became a citizen. Both his wife and mother died in 1939. He remarried, moved to Hollywood, and became a citizen of the United States. He was very popular and toured both Europe and the United States playing his compositions. He died in New York in 1971.
Additional Info
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Compositions
Petrouchka
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Key Terms
dissonant - a sound that clashes, which may sound "wrong" to our ears
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Jean SIBELIUS |
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Jean (zhan) Sibelius (si-BAY-lee-us) was Finland's own voice in music. He composed symphonies and symphonic poems for his people. He was involved in the movement to free Finland from Russian rule. He did not use folk songs in his works. His music became their folk music. His Finlandia was so closely associated with Finnish independence that Russia decreed that it not be performed during times of political unrest. Jean Sibelius' music reflected the spirit of Finland; their dark forests and many lakes, the long winter nights and their national heritage. He was so much a national hero that the government gave him an annual allowance so he could devote all his time to composition.
Sibelius was the son of a doctor. He became interested in music when very young. He studied piano and then violin. He was a sensitive child who loved beauty in all forms: books, music, nature and art. He preferred improvising (making up music as he played) rather than playing exercises. He wrote his first composition when he was ten years old. It was a duet for violin and cello which he called Drops of Water. The strings of the instruments were plucked to imitate the sound of dripping water.
When Sibelius was thirty-six years old, he suffered from a disease of the ear which doctors feared would make him deaf. He became very depressed. It was during this time that he wrote Valse Triste (sad waltz). Fortunately, Sibelius did not lose his hearing.
Sibelius lived through two World Wars. He died in 1957 at the age of ninety-two. He lived to see his country gain its freedom, although the government was not completely free of communist control until 1987.
The music of Sibelius belongs more to the Romantic than the Modern Period. He wrote with great emotion, sometimes tragic and brooding, but often sunny and bright. He never concerned himself with new concepts of tonality, melody and harmony. He is simply Finland-in-music.
Additional Info
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Compositions
Finlandia - Theme 1
Finlandia - Theme 2
Valse Triste
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Key Terms
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John Philip SOUSA |
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John Philip Sousa (SUE-za) is America's best-remembered and favorite bandmaster. He wrote more than a hundred marches that are still favorites. He is known as the "March King." We will learn the themes for Semper Fidelis and The Stars and Stripes Forever. When he was twelve, he planned to run away to join the circus. When his father found out about John's plan, he arranged for him to be an apprentice in the United States Marine Band. That kept him at home and happy. He knew how to play the violin, piano, and various wind instruments. When he was twenty-six, he was appointed leader of the Marine Band. He turned it into a band of perfection, both in performance and in appearance.
In 1892 Sousa decided to form his own concert band. The band toured Europe four times. He played his own marches and introduced Europeans to America's ragtime music. Scott Joplin, an African American composer, developed the piano style called ragtime.
In his tours of the United States, Souza introduced people to the music of Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Rossini, and Suppé, in addition to his own compositions.
A sousaphone is a type of tuba with a wide "bell" that can be turned to throw the sound in different directions. It was named after John Philip because it was his idea.
Sousa wrote an autobiography called Marching Along.
Additional Info
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Compositions
The Stars and Stripes Forever
Semper Fidelis
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Key Terms
Ragtime music - jazzy, syncopated music that was played on pianos in honky-tonks. What is a honky-tonk? You could ask your great-grandmother, but she might not tell you if she knows. Mr. Webster says that a honky-tonk is a "cheap, noisy, garish nightclub or dance hall." (Sometimes ragtime pianists played classical music in a ragtime style. This was called "ragging the classics.")
Scott Joplin wrote and played wonderful ragtime music. You may have heard his Maple Leaf Rag or The Entertainer.
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Eric SATIE |
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Erik Satie (Sah-TEE) was a French composer whose music had more influence on other composers than on audiences. He wanted to free French music from German influence. He said, "We want our own music---without kraut."
Satie was noted for his jokes and unconventional behavior. He gave his compositions strange titles and wrote funny directions and explanations throughout his music. One of his titles was, "Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear." Some of his strange directions were, "Light as an egg," and "Like a nightingale with a toothache." To get sounds of modern life, he introduced into his orchestra a typewriter, an airplane engine, and other noisemakers.
There are three Gymnopédies (zshim-noh-pay-dees) but we will learn only the theme for No. 1. The long melodic lines pull against simple chords. The Gymnopédies suggest the slow athletic dances of ancient Greece. Instead of major and minor scales, Satie used scales more like those of ancient music.
Satie became the leader of the young rebels in the arts. He also influenced younger composers such as Aaron Copland and John Cage. He taught composers that music does not have to shout or beat the drum to be heard. He taught the art of simplicity.
Not all of Satie's music is witty. He wrote the beautiful Messe des pauvres (Mass For the Poor) for the working-class people of his hometown. One of his last works was Socrate, which he called a "symphonic drama." It tells the story of the death of Socrates in quiet music for voices and a chamber orchestra. The music never rises to a climax. It is as simple as Plato's report of Socrates' death.
(Socrates lived in Greece from 469-399 B.C. He taught young people to think, but the rulers were afraid of new ideas so they condemned him to die. He refused to escape and drank poison hemlock with noble calm and courage. He wrote nothing, but his pupil, Plato, wrote about him.)
Additional Info
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Compositions
Gymnopedie
- Key Terms
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Sergei RACHMANINOFF |
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Sergei Rachmaninoff (rock-MAHN-in-off) was Russian, born in the Romantic Period but lived well into the Modern Period. We might expect him to compose in the modern mode, but he was a Romantic at heart. His music is lush and richly warm; his melodies soar, and his piano music is rhapsodic. Tchaikovsky knew him and had a great influence on his music. He was not the usual child prodigy. He did not become really serious about music until he entered the Moscow Conservatory at age fifteen. In addition to piano he studied composition. He won the Great Gold Medal for composition which had been awarded only twice in the history of the conservatory. When he was only eighteen and still in school, he composed his First Piano Concerto.
Rachmaninoff, with his wife and two daughters, left Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, never to return to his country. He was a virtuoso pianist and traveled the world giving concerts. He specialized in the music of Chopin in addition to his own. He moved to the United States in 1935. A few weeks before he died he became a citizen of the U.S.
He composed mostly for the piano. His concertos are very difficult to play. Musicians call him "Rocky" and they call his Second Piano Concerto "Rocky Two." You will learn a beautiful theme from the third movement of this concerto. His Third Piano Concerto is called - that's right - "Rocky Three." It is incredibly difficult. It is the concerto that tormented David Helfgott, (twentieth century classical pianist) to the point of a nervous breakdown (as portrayed in the 1996 movie Shine).
Rachmaninoff recorded many of his own works so we can listen to the master himself.
Additional Info
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Compositions
Piano Concerto No 2 - Movemment 3
- Key Terms
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Sergei PROKOFIEV |
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Sergei Prokofiev (Pro-KO-fee-ev) was one of Russia's greatest composers. His mother taught him to play the piano and encouraged him to make up his own pieces. By the age of nine he had written a three-act opera. He studied music and composition with Rimsky-Korsakov.
Prokofiev wrote all types of compositions: operas, ballets, concertos, symphonies, quartets, music for films, marches, songs and much more. Peter and the Wolf is one of his best known works.
During the Russian Revolution in 1918, Prokofiev left Russia. He visited Japan and lived in the United States and Paris for a while. For the Chicago Opera Company he wrote an opera, The Love for Three Oranges. It is a comedy mocking the various tastes of different audiences. It is also a play-within-a-play.
In 1933, after fifteen years away from Russia, Prokofiev went home. Musicians, as well as government officials, welcomed him with open arms. He became one of his country's most honored and highly praised men.
Prokofiev was one of the great masters of the orchestra. He varied his music from massive orchestral sounds to simple flute and clarinet duets. His music is always clear, often a simple melody with an interesting accompaniment. His harmony is sometimes dissonant and surprising to the ear, with unexpected key changes.
Additional Info
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Compositions
The Love for Three Oranges
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Key Terms
play-within-a-play - a play about another play. For example, you could be watching a play about some children who are giving a school play for their parents. Some of the children would be the actors on stage and some would be the parents watching the show. All of them would be on the stage.
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Scott JOPLIN |
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Scott Joplin is the most famous ragtime composer and pianist. The Entertainer is his best known composition. It was made popular by a movie in the 1970's called The Sting, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Born in Texas, Scott Joplin grew up in a large musical family. His father, a former slave, had been a plantation fiddler, his mother a singer. Scott learned to play several instruments and taught himself to play the piano. An old German music teacher heard of Joplin's talents. He was so impressed that he gave Scott free piano and harmony lessons. He taught Joplin about the works of the great European masters. In his early teens Joplin sang, played and taught professionally. He organized a touring vocal group. He moved to St. Louis where he played piano in clubs, cafes, and honky-tonks. He also toured a vaudeville circuit singing in his own eight-voice double quartet.
At George R. Smith College in Missouri, Joplin studied music and worked seriously at composition. He developed his own piano style of ragtime music. Ragtime music has a strong syncopation in the melody with a regularly accented accompaniment. Ragtime was, for a while, the name for any kind of jazz. Classical melodies were even given the ragtime treatment in a style known as "ragging the classics." The earliest jazz bands in New Orleans were called "ragtime bands." Ragtime music was popular on player pianos, in early movies, and in the old-time saloons. American ragtime became popular in Europe. Stravinsky wrote Ragtime for eleven instruments (1918) and Piano Rag-Music (1920).
The Maple Leaf Rag was Joplin's first big success. It was named after a dance hall where he had taught and played. The Maple Leaf Rag sold hundreds of thousands of copies and brought fame to both Scott and his publisher. It also brought financial security. Joplin was greatly encouraged and began producing many piano rags, marches, and waltzes. He also tried his hand at ballet and opera but his fame rests on his ragtime music. It has become a part of "classical" American music.
Additional Info
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Compositions
The Entertainer
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Key Terms
ragtime - a style of piano jazz that was played in honky-tonk cafés in the 1890's.
honky-tonk - a cheap, noisy, garish nightclub or dance hall
vaudeville - a light, often comic, theatrical show combining pantomime, dialogue, dancing, and song -- may include acrobats, comedians, and performing animals
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Sir Edward ELGAR |
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Sir Edward Elgar was English, as you may have guessed by the "Sir." To be called by the title "Sir," a man must be "knighted" by the sovereign. Elgar was knighted in 1904 in recognition of his contribution to English music.
When Queen Victoria died in 1901 her eldest son became King Edward VII. Elgar was asked to provide music for Edward's coronation. He composed Pomp and Circumstance. It is music made for ceremonies and great occasions. That is why you will hear it at almost every grade school, high school, and college graduation.
Elgar composed violin and cello concertos and two symphonies. He also composed a work known as the Enigma Variations. (An enigma is a puzzle.) There were fourteen variations. Each variation, except the last, was dedicated to a friend. He dedicated the last variation to himself. According to Elgar, there is a theme that underlies the whole work. The puzzle or "enigma" is this: What is the underlying theme?
Elgar produced many fine works, two symphonies, the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, several oratorios, several concert overtures, and chamber-music works. At the height of his success as a composer, he suddenly would write no more. His beloved wife had died and it destroyed his will to create.
For ten years Elgar did not compose. Finally in 1934 he wrote a hymn of prayer for the recovery of George V, then seriously ill. He had decided that he would work again and began writing his third symphony. However, he did not live to complete it as he underwent surgery for a tumor and never recovered.
While Elgar is a composer of the Modern Period, his music is not dissonant. He is more of the conservative tradition of Brahms and Schumann. He has a gift for creating melodies, and his music is warm and skillfully crafted.
Additional Info
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Compositions
Pomp and Circumstance
- Key Terms
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Claude DEBUSSY |
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Claude DEBUSSY (de-bu-SEE) from France is said to have started the Modern Period with his impressionist style. He creates beauty with impressions rather than with clear images. His melodies create dreamy, misty feelings, like looking at a scene through a fog or in the moonlight. If possible, listen to all of Clair de lune while you look at a Monet painting. You will understand impressionism better by listening and looking than by reading.
Debussy was a wonderful pianist who wrote most of his music for the piano. He was known as a musical rebel. He irritated his teachers with the new sounds he produced. He searched for new chords and new scales; he initiated the "whole tone" scale. If you have a piano, start on any key and play every other key (don't forget the black keys) until you decide to stop. You will see how Debussy produced a harp-like sound of misty, moonlight magic. He flunked his music composition course! His teachers certainly didn't expect him to become a famous composer.
Debussy was also a masterful composer for the orchestra. He used innovative combinations of instruments to achieve his delicate sounds. In recordings of his music you will hear the muted horn, the harp glissando, a lonely oboe, and divided string sections over big chords.
Debussy wrote music for his only daughter, known as Chouchou. He composed a children's ballet for her, La Boïte á joujoux (The Box of Toys), and a suite for the piano called, The Children's Corner. He used English titles for the entire work to suggest an English governess caring for a French child.
There are six sections:
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum - a child struggling with piano exercises
Jimbo's Lullaby - Jimbo being a toy elephant
Serenade of the Doll
The Snow is Dancing
The Little Shepherd
Golliwogg's Cakewalk - with strutting rhythms of the popular American cakewalk
Additional Info
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Compositions
Clair de lune
Reverie
- Key Terms
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Richard WAGNER |
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Richard Wagner (REEKH-art VOGG-ner) is one of the biggest names in opera. He was born in Leipzig, Germany, but lived in many places in Europe. He married Liszt's daughter, Cosima. He believed that he was the greatest musician who had ever lived and one of the greatest poets, dramatists, and intellects of his generation. He was arrogant and had little consideration for anyone but himself. His personal life is not one to be imitated.
He had many failures in his early years, but his persistence and confidence in himself produced opera unlike any that had ever been produced before. It was huge in scope with music that is lush, powerful, imaginative, beautiful, and intense.
The Ring of the Nibelungs is a huge work consisting of four gigantic operas. Wagner even built an opera house designed for the Ring. The Ring of the Nibelungs made Wagner world-famous. The Ride of the Valkyries is second in the opera cycle. The beginning theme has been used in many movies and TV shows. You may have heard it before in Bugs Bunny where Elmer Fudd sings, "Kill the wabbit." Or you may have heard it in the movie, Apocalypse Now.
The operas are based on German and Norse mythology. They involve gods, giants, half-gods, earth-dwellers, and inhabitants of the underworld. Both Wotan. (VO-tahn), the King of the gods, and Alberich, ruler of the Nibelungs in the underworld, want complete power and wealth. The Ring is forged from gold stolen by Alberich from the Rhine maidens. It will make its owner all-powerful. Wotan steals the Ring from Alberich who places a curse on it. The rest of the opera deals with the conflict of good and evil and the struggle for possession of the Ring.
Valhalla (Vol-HALL-ah) is the home of Wotan and his twelve daughters who are called Valkyries (Val-KEER-ees). Brünnhilde is Wotan's favorite daughter and the most important of the Valkyries. The Valkyries carry the dead heroes to Valhalla. The heroes help them defend Valhalla in case of war with the Nibelungs. The Valkyries wear helmets and special armor and ride on flying horses.
Wagner is famous for his creation of the Leitmotif (LIGHT-mo-teef), which means "leading theme." He uses specific short themes to identify people, things, or moods. For instance, Wotan and Alberich each have a distinctive short theme of their own. Any time one of them appears, the orchestra plays his theme.
Additional Info
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Compositions
Ride of the Valkyries
- Key Terms
