Introduction to Music: Classical

Composer and pianist, born in Camprodón, NE Spain.

German composer and organist; one of the greatest and most influential composers of the Western world. He brought polyphonic baroque music to its culmination, creating masterful and vigorous works in almost every musical form known in his period.

German composer. He is universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of the Western European music tradition. Beethoven's work crowned the classical period and also effectively initiated the romantic era in music.

Conductor and composer, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA. He played piano from childhood, and studied at Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia.

German composer, pianist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest composers of symphonic music and songs.

Italian pianist, composer, and music critic.

Polish composer and pianist. As a performer, Chopin revolutionized the technique of pianoforte-playing, turning the hands outward and favoring a light, responsive touch.

French composer, exponent of musical impressionism.

Czech composer. His Romantic music extends the classical tradition of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms and displays the influence of Czech folk music. He wrote nine symphonies; tone poems; operas, including Rusalka (1900); large-scale choral works; the Carnival (1891-92) and other overtures; violin and cello concertos; chamber music; piano pieces; and songs.

Composer, born in Broad Heath, Hereford and Worcester, WC England, UK. From 1924 he was Master of the King’s Musick.

Russian composer. His style fits between that of the Russian national school of The Five and that of the Western European ‘cosmopolitan’ composers.

Norwegian nationalist composer. Much of his music is written on a small scale, particularly his songs, dances, sonatas, and piano works, and strongly identifies with Norwegian folk music. MORE

English composer, b. Halle, Germany. Handel was one of the greatest masters of baroque music, most widely celebrated for his majestic oratorio Messiah.

Austrian composer, one of the greatest masters of classical music. He established the basic forms of symphonic music and string quartet, which were to be a model and inspiration for the works of Mozart, and of Beethoven, who studied under Haydn.

Austrian pianist and composer. Following in the steps of Mozart (his teacher), his melodies are graceful if somewhat overly symmetrical and ‘square’.

Hungarian pianist and composer. His expressive, romantic, and frequently chromatic works include piano music (Transcendental Studies, 1851), Masses and oratorios, songs, organ music, and a symphony.

Austrian composer and conductor. He composed nine large-scale symphonies incorporating folk music and pastoral imagery, with many using voices, including Symphony No 2, the ‘Resurrection’ (1884-86).

German composer, also a pianist and conductor. His music has the lightness and charm of classical music, applied to Romantic and descriptive subjects.

Austrian composer, b. Salzburg. Mozart represents one of the great peaks in the history of music. His works, written in almost every conceivable genre, combine luminous beauty of sound with classical grace and technical perfection.

Musicologist and composer, born in Tortosa, E Spain.

Russian composer, conductor, and pianist. His music is melodious and emotional and includes operas, such as Francesca da Rimini (1906), three symphonies, four piano concertos, piano pieces, and songs. MORE

Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Prokofiev achieved wide popularity with his lively music, in which he achieved a pungent mixture of modern and traditional elements.

French composer and pianist. His work is characterized by its sensuousness, exotic harmonics, and dazzling orchestral effects. MORE

French composer. One of his most popular works is Le festin de l'araignée/The Spider's Banquet (1912), in which the hungry arachnid is depicted with appropriate, delicate scoring.

French composer, pianist, and organist. Saint-Saëns was a master of technique and a prolific composer.

Italian composer. He taught Beethoven, Schubert, Hummel, and Liszt, and was the musical rival of Mozart at the emperor's court in Vienna.

French composer. His piano pieces, such as the three Gymnopédies (1888), are precise and tinged with melancholy, and parody romantic expression with surreal commentary.

Composer, born in Vienna, Austria.His major works include the Trout Piano Quintet (1819), his C major symphony (1825), and his B minor symphony (1822), known as the ‘Unfinished’.

Russian composer. His music is chromatically tonal/modal, expressive, and sometimes highly dramatic; it was not always to official Soviet taste.

German composer and conductor. He followed the German Romantic tradition but had a strongly personal style, characterized by his bold, colourful orchestration.

Russian composer, b. Kamsko-Votkinsk. He is a towering figure in Russian music and one of the most popular composers in history.

English composer. His style was late-Romantic tonal/modal, and his works contain many references to the English countryside through the use of folk themes.

In the visual arts, architecture, and music, a style characterized by expressive, flamboyant, and dynamic design.

Music intended for performance in a small room or chamber, rather than in the concert hall, and usually written for instrumental combinations, played with one instrument to a part, as in the string quartet.

Musical composition usually for an orchestra and a soloist or a group of soloists.

[Ital.,=flight], in music, a form of composition in which the basic principle is imitative counterpoint of several voices.

Musical composition employing chorus, orchestra, and soloists and usually, but not necessarily, a setting of a sacred libretto without stage action or scenery.

Large group of musicians playing together on different instruments. In Western music, an orchestra is usually based on the bowed, stringed instruments of the violin family, to which is usually added the woodwind, brass, and percussion sections.

In music, the pastorale is a piece imitating the simple music of shepherds. "He Shall Feed His Flock" from Handel's Messiah and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony are superb examples of the pastorale.

Instrumental music that interprets a story, depicts a scene or painting, or illustrates a literary or philosophical idea.

In music, type of instrumental composition that arose in Italy in the 17th century.

[Gr.,=sounding together], a sonata for orchestra.

Born in Accrington, Lancashire, he began his career as a clarinettist. While in Manchester he formed, with other young musicians including Peter Maxwell Davies and John Ogdon, the New Manchester Group for the performance of modern music.

Italian pianist and composer. He was the founder of the present-day technique of piano playing, and his series of studies, Gradus ad Parnassum (1817), is still in use.

Conductor, composer, and educator, born in Wrocław, Poland (formerly Breslau, Prussia).

Austrian violinist and composer. His prolific output of recordings in the early 20th century introduced a wider public to classical music from old masters such as Johann Sebastian Bach and François Couperin to moderns such as Manuel de Falla and Sergei Rachmaninov.

US-born violinist and conductor. His solo repertoire extended from Vivaldi to George Enescu.

Italian violinist and composer. He was a concert soloist from the age of nine. A prodigious technician, he drew on folk and gypsy idioms to create the modern repertoire of virtuoso techniques.

Austrian-born US pianist and teacher. Remembered for the quality and sonority of his energetic interpretations of works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms.