The Lighter Classics In Music - free ebook by David Ewen

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The Lighter Classics In Music

David Ewen

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190 chapters

The Lighter Classics in Music

The Lighter Classics in Music

A Comprehensive Guide to Musical Masterworks in a Lighter Vein by 187 Composers by David Ewen Arco Publishing Company, Inc. NEW YORK Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-17781 Copyright 1961 by Arco Publishing Company, Inc., New York All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America, by H. Wolff, New York...

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Joseph Achron

Joseph Achron

Joseph Achron was born in Lozdzieje, Lithuania, on May 13, 1886. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied the violin with Leopold Auer and theory with Anatol Liadov, graduating in 1904. After teaching at the Kharkov Conservatory for three years, he toured Russia, Europe and the Near East as a concert violinist for about six years, and settled permanently in the United States in 1925. Some of his most ambitious and significant compositions were written in this country. Among

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Adolphe-Charles Adam

Adolphe-Charles Adam

Adolphe-Charles Adam, eminent composer of comic operas, was born in Paris on July 24, 1803. He attended the Paris Conservatory, where he came under the decisive influence of François Boieldieu, under whose guidance he completed his first comic opera, Pierre et Catherine , first produced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on February 9, 1829. His first major success, Le Chalet , was given on September 25, 1834, enjoying almost fifteen hundred performances in Paris before the end of the century. Adam s

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Richard Addinsell

Richard Addinsell

Richard Addinsell was born in Oxford, England, on January 13, 1904. After studying law at Oxford, he attended the Royal College of Music in London and completed his music study in Berlin and Vienna between 1929 and 1932. In 1933 he visited the United States, where he wrote music for several Hollywood films and for a New York stage production of Alice in Wonderland . He has since made a specialty of writing music for the screen, his best efforts being the scores for Goodbye, Mr. Chips , Blithe Sp

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Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Albéniz, one of Spain’s most distinguished composers, was born in Camprodón, Spain, on May 29, 1860. He was a child prodigy who gave piano concerts in Spain after some spasmodic study in Paris with Marmontel. In 1868 he entered the Madrid Conservatory, but in his thirteenth year he ran away from home and spent several years traveling about in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the United States, supporting himself all the while by playing the piano. He was back in Spain in 1875, and soon thereafter un

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Hugo Alfvén

Hugo Alfvén

Hugo Alfvén was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 1, 1872. His music study took place at the Stockholm Conservatory and, on government stipends, with César Thomson in Brussels, and in Germany and France. From 1910 to 1939 he was musical director and conductor of the student chorus at the Uppsala University. Alfvén was a nationalist composer of Romantic tendencies who wrote five symphonies together with a considerable amount of orchestral and choral music. He died in Faluns, Sweden, on May 8, 196

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Louis Alter

Louis Alter

Louis Alter was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on June 18, 1902, where he received his academic education in the public schools, and his initial instruction in music. Music study was completed with Stuart Mason at the New England Conservatory. In 1924 Alter came to New York, where for five years he worked as accompanist for Nora Bayes, Irene Bordoni and other stars of the stage; he also did arrangements for a publishing firm in Tin Pan Alley. Between 1925 and 1927 he wrote his first popular s

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Leroy Anderson

Leroy Anderson

Leroy Anderson is one of America’s most successful and best known composers of light orchestral classics. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 29, 1908. His early musical training took place at the New England Conservatory, after which he studied the bass and organ with private teachers. In 1929 he was graduated from Harvard magna cum laude , and one year after that he received there his Master’s degree in music on a Naumberg Fellowship. For the next few years he served as organist a

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Daniel François Auber

Daniel François Auber

Daniel François Esprit Auber, genius of opéra-comique, was born in Caen, Normandy, France, on January 29, 1782. In his youth he lived in London, where he studied both the business of art, in which he hoped to engage, and music. There he wrote several songs which were heard at public entertainments. After returning to France and settling in Paris in 1804, he gave himself up completely to music. Two minor stage works with music were privately performed between 1806 and 1811 before his first opera

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, on March 21, 1685. He was the most significant member of a family that for generations had produced professional musicians. His career can be divided into three convenient periods. The first was between 1708 and 1717 when, as organist to the Ducal Chapel in Weimar, he wrote most of his masterworks for organ. During the second period, from 1717 to 1723, he served as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in Coethen. During this period he wrote most of

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Michael Balfe

Michael Balfe

Michael William Balfe was born in Dublin, Ireland on May 15, 1808. The son of a dancing master, Michael was only six when he played the violin for his father’s classes. In 1823, Balfe came to London where he studied the violin and composition with private teachers and earned his living as violinist and singer. Additional study took place in Italy in 1825, including singing with Bordogni. Between 1828 and 1833 he appeared as principal baritone of the Italian Opera and several other French theater

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Hubert Bath

Hubert Bath

Hubert Bath was born in Barnstaple, England, on November 6, 1883. He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London, after which he wrote his first opera. For a year he was conductor of an opera company that toured the world. After 1915 he devoted himself mainly to composition. Besides his operas, tone poems, cantatas and various instrumental works he wrote a considerable amount of incidental music for stage plays and scores for the motion pictures. He died in Harefield, England, on April 24, 194

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Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, on December 16, 1770. He received his earliest musical training in his native city where he early gave strong evidence of genius. He published his first works when he was eleven, and soon thereafter was performing publicly on the organ, cembalo, and the viola. He also disclosed a phenomenal gift at improvisation. He established permanent residence in Vienna in 1792. Three years later he made there his first public appearance, and from then on began

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Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini was born in Catania, Sicily, on November 3, 1801. Born to a musical family, he received music instruction in childhood, and while still very young started composing. He then attended the San Sebastiano Conservatory in Naples; during his stay there he completed a symphony, two masses, and a cantata among other works. He made his bow as opera composer with Adelson e Salvini , introduced at the Conservatory in 1825. He continued writing operas after that, and having them produced i

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Ralph Benatzky

Ralph Benatzky

Ralph Benatzky was born in Moravské-Budejovice, Bohemia, on June 5, 1884. He acquired his musical training in Prague and with Felix Mottl in Munich, after which he devoted himself to light music by composing operettas. While residing at different periods in Vienna, Berlin, and Switzerland, he wrote the scores for over ninety operettas and 250 motion pictures, besides producing about five thousand songs. His most successful operettas were The Laughing Triple Alliance , My Sister and I , Love in t

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Arthur Benjamin

Arthur Benjamin

Arthur Benjamin was born in Sydney, Australia, on September 18, 1893. His music study took place at the Royal College of Music in London. After serving in World War I, he became professor at the Sydney Conservatory, and in 1926 he assumed a similar post with the Royal College of Music in London. Meanwhile in 1924 he received the Carnegie Award for his Pastoral Fantasia , and in 1932 his first opera, The Devil Take Her , was produced in London. For five years, beginning with 1941, he was the cond

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Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 15, 1894. He began his music study in Kansas City: piano with his mother; violin and several other instruments with his father; and harmony with Carl Busch. While still a boy he wrote and had published several compositions. He came to New York in 1916, worked for a while as copyist at G. Schirmer, then during World War I served for a year in the United States Army. After the war he spent several years in Paris studying composition

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Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was born in Côte-Saint-André, France on December 11, 1803. As a young man he was sent to Paris to study medicine, but music occupied his interests and he soon abandoned his medical studies to enter the Paris Conservatory. Impatient with the academic restrictions imposed upon him there, he left the Conservatory to begin his career as a composer. From the very beginning he set out to open new horizons for musical expression and to extend the periphery of musical structure. His first

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Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on August 25, 1918. Early music study took place with private piano teachers, and subsequently with Helen Coates and Heinrich Gebhard. He was graduated from Harvard in 1939 after which he attended the Curtis Institute of Music (a pupil of Fritz Reiner in conducting) and three summer sessions of the Berkshire Music Center as a student and protégé of Serge Koussevitzky. He made a sensational debut as conductor with the New York Philharmonic in

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Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838. Revealing a pronounced gift for music in early childhood he was entered into the Paris Conservatory when he was only nine. There—as a pupil of Marmontel, Halévy, and Benoist—he won numerous prizes, including the Prix de Rome in 1857. In that year he also had his first stage work produced, a one-act opera, Le Docteur miracle . After his return from Rome to Paris he started to write operas. Les Pêcheurs de perles ( Pearl Fishers ) and La jolie f

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Luigi Boccherini

Luigi Boccherini

Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy, on February 19, 1743. After studying music with various private teachers in Rome, he gained recognition as a cellist both as a member of theater orchestras in Lucca and later on tour throughout Europe in joint concerts with Filippo Manfredi, violinist. He served as court composer in Madrid from 1785 to 1787, and from 1787 until 1797 for Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. His last years were spent in Madrid in poverty and poor health, and he died in that c

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François Boieldieu

François Boieldieu

François-Adrien Boieldieu, genius of opéra-comique, was born in Rouen, France, on December 16, 1775. After studying music with Charles Broche, Boieldieu became a church organist in Rouen in his fifteenth year. Two years later his first opera, La fille coupable , was successfully given in the same city. In 1796 he came to Paris where from 1797 on his operas began appearing in various theaters, climaxed by his first major success, Le Calife de Bagdad in 1801. In 1798 he was appointed professor of

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Giovanni Bolzoni

Giovanni Bolzoni

Giovanni Bolzoni was born in Parma, Italy, on May 14, 1841. He attended the Parma Conservatory, then achieved recognition as a conductor of operas in Perugia and Turin. In 1887 he became director of the Liceo Musicale in Turin. Bolzoni wrote five operas, a symphony, overtures, and chamber music, but all are now in discard. He died in Turin on February 21, 1919. About the only piece of music by Bolzoni to survive is a beguiling little Minuet which comes from an unidentified string quartet and whi

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Carrie Jacobs Bond

Carrie Jacobs Bond

Carrie Jacobs Bond, whose art songs are among the most popular by an American, was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on August 11, 1862. Coming from a musical family, she was given music instruction early, and made appearances as a child-prodigy pianist. After marrying Dr. Frank L. Bond, a physician, she went to live in Chicago where her husband died suddenly, leaving her destitute. For a while she earned a living by renting rooms, taking in sewing, and doing other menial jobs. Then she began think

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Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 11, 1833. He was trained in the sciences, having attended the Academy of Medicine in St. Petersburg and in 1858 receiving his doctorate in chemistry. He continued after that to devote himself to scientific activities, both in and out of Russia. He produced several significant papers and, from 1859 to 1862, served on an important scientific mission. He had also received some musical training in his boyhood. In 1862 he began to dire

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Felix Borowski

Felix Borowski

Felix Borowski was born in Burton, England, on March 10, 1872. He received his musical training at the Cologne Conservatory and with private teachers in England. In 1897 he settled in the United States where he later became a citizen. From 1897 to 1916 he was professor of harmony and counterpoint at Chicago Musical College, and from 1916 to 1925 its president. His career in music criticism began in 1905. From 1907 to 1917 he was music critic of the Chicago Record-Herald and from 1942 until his d

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Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 7, 1833. He received instruction in music from his father, Otto Cossel, and Eduard Marxsen. At fourteen he gave his first public concert as pianist, in which he introduced one of his own compositions. In 1853 he toured with the Hungarian violinist, Eduard Reményi, as his accompanist. During this period he met and aroused the interest of such notable musicians as Joachim, Liszt, and Schumann. The last of these was one of the first to give Brahm

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Charles Wakefield Cadman

Charles Wakefield Cadman

Charles Wakefield Cadman was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1881. As a boy he played the organ in a church near Pittsburgh, and wrote a march that was published. His main music study took place with private teachers: Leo Oehmler, Luigi von Kunits, and Emil Paur. From 1908 to 1910 he was the music critic of the Pittsburgh Dispatch . Meanwhile, a meeting in 1902 with the lyric writer Nellie Richmond Eberhart, turned him to the writing of songs in which he achieved his initial out

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Lucien Caillet

Lucien Caillet

Lucien Caillet was born in Dijon, France on May 22, 1891. After attending the Dijon Conservatory he came to the United States in 1918 and settled first in Pennsylvania, and later in California. He has distinguished himself by his skilful symphonic transcriptions of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mussorgsky, and others. In his own works he frequently makes skilful use, and astute adaptations, of some famous pieces of popular music. The Fantasia and Fugue on Oh, Susanna! (1942) for orchest

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Alfredo Catalani

Alfredo Catalani

Alfredo Catalani was born in Lucca, Italy, on June 19, 1854. After receiving preliminary instruction in music from his father he was allowed to enter the Paris Conservatory without examinations. He concluded his music study at the Milan Conservatory, where in 1886 he succeeded Ponchielli as professor of composition. In 1880 he had his first opera, Elda , produced in Turin. He continued to confine himself to the stage, his most successful operas being Loreley in 1890, and La Wally in 1892. In his

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Otto Cesana

Otto Cesana

Otto Cesana was born in Brescia, Italy, on July 7, 1899. He came to the United States in boyhood and studied music with private teachers. After working in Hollywood, where he wrote a considerable amount of music for motion pictures, he came to New York to become arranger for Radio City Music Hall, and for several important radio programs. In his own music he has been particularly successful in using within large forms popular American elements, at times folk idioms. In a more serious attitude he

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Emmanuel Chabrier

Emmanuel Chabrier

Emmanuel Chabrier was born in Ambert, France, on January 18, 1841. He was trained as a lawyer; from 1862 to 1880 he was employed at the Ministry of the Interior in Paris. But he had also received a sound musical training with private teachers. Composition began for him in earnest in the 1870’s, with two of his operettas receiving performances in Paris between 1877 and 1879. In 1879 he made a pilgrimage to Germany to hear Wagner’s music dramas whose impact upon him proved so overwhelming that he

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George Chadwick

George Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on November 13, 1854. Most of his music study took place in Germany. When he was being graduated from the Leipzig Conservatory in 1879, his overture Rip Van Winkle received its première performance. He then studied organ and composition with Rheinberger in Munich. After returning to the United States in 1880, he became a teacher of harmony and composition at the New England Conservatory, rising to the post of director in 1897. He was

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Cécile Chaminade

Cécile Chaminade

Cécile Chaminade was born in Paris on August 8, 1857. Music study took place in Paris with Marsick and Godard among others. In 1875 she launched her career as concert pianist by touring Europe in programs that often included her own compositions. At her American debut, on November 7, 1908, she appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a performance of her own Concerstueck . She wrote many other ambitious works including a symphony, two orchestral suites, and ballets. She died in Mon

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Gustave Charpentier

Gustave Charpentier

Gustave Charpentier was born in Dieuze, France, on June 25, 1860. He received his musical training in the Conservatories in Lille and Paris, winning the Prix de Rome in 1881. During his stay in Rome he wrote Impressions of Italy for orchestra, with which he realized his first success upon its première performance in Paris in 1892. Charpentier’s fame, however, rests securely on a single opera, Louise , a triumph when introduced in Paris on February 2, 1900, and since become recognized as one of t

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Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

François Frédéric Chopin, genius of music for the piano, was born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, on February 22, 1810. He began to study the piano at six. One year later he made his first public appearance and wrote his first piece of music. His later music study took place privately with Joseph Elsner and at the Warsaw Conservatory from which he was graduated with honors in 1829. In that year he visited Vienna where he gave two successful concerts of his works. He left Poland for good in 1830, settl

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Eric Coates

Eric Coates

Eric Coates, one of England’s most highly esteemed and widely performed composers of light music, was born in Hucknall, England, on August 27, 1886. While attending the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he specialized in the viola under Lionel Tertis, he supported himself by playing in several of London’s theater orchestras. Upon graduating from the Academy, Coates became violist with several string quartets, including the Hambourg String Quartet with which he toured South Africa in 1908.

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Peter Cornelius

Peter Cornelius

Peter Cornelius was born in Mayence, Germany, on December 24, 1824. After studying theory with Dehn in Berlin from 1845 to 1852 he became a passionate advocate of the “music of the future” as promulgated by Liszt and Wagner. It was Liszt who introduced Cornelius’ comic opera, The Barber of Bagdad , in Weimar in 1858; Liszt was finally forced to resign his conducting post in Weimar because of the hostility of the audiences to this masterwork. From 1865 on Cornelius lived in Munich where he was re

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Noel Coward

Noel Coward

Noel Coward, one of England’s most brilliant and versatile men of the theater in the 20th century, was born in Teddington, on December 16, 1899. He made his stage debut in 1911 in a fairy play, and for the next few years appeared regularly in various other productions. His career as performer was interrupted by military service during World War I. After the war he decided upon a career as writer. His first major success came with the play The Vortex , in 1924. From then on he wrote dramas and co

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César Cui

César Cui

César Cui was born in Vilna, Russia, on January 18, 1835. He was graduated as an engineer from the St. Petersburg Engineering Academy in 1857; following that he served for many years as a topographer, as an authority on fortifications, and as an engineering professor. All the while his principal avocation was music, which he had studied from childhood on. Between 1864 and 1900 he was active as music critic for various Russian newspapers and journals. As a composer, he belonged to the nationalist

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Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Achille-Claude Debussy, father of musical Impressionism, was born in St. Germain-en-Laye, France, on August 22, 1862. From 1873 to 1884 he attended the Paris Conservatory where he was both a rebellious and a brilliant student. He won many prizes, including the Prix de Rome in 1884. In the compositions written in Rome under the provisions of the Prix he already revealed his independence of thought and unorthodoxy of style. After returning from Rome to Paris he became influenced not only by the Im

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Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes was born in St. Germain-du-Val, France, on February 21, 1836. After attending the Paris Conservatory from 1848 on, he became an accompanist for the Théâtre Lyrique and organist of the Church of St.-Jean et St.-François in Paris in 1853. Between 1855 and 1865 he wrote a dozen operas, none of them successful. In 1865 he was appointed chorusmaster of the Grand Opéra where he was encouraged to write music for ballet; the first of these was La Source in 1866 (renamed Naila when later give

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Gregore Dinicu

Gregore Dinicu

Gregore Dinicu, who was born in Bucharest, Rumania, on April 5, 1889, is a gypsy violinist who became popular in leading Rumanian cabarets and restaurants. In 1939 he visited the United States, scoring a major success with his gypsy orchestra at the New York World’s Fair. His Hora Staccato , for violin and piano (or violin and orchestra)—a virtuoso piece of folk character—is his only composition to become famous outside Rumania. Jascha Heifetz, the famous virtuoso, heard Dinicu play it in Rumani

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Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti was born in Bergamo, Italy, on November 29, 1797. His early music study took place in Bergamo and Naples and was completed at the Liceo Filarmonico in Bologna. Despite his strong bent not only for music but also for art, literature, and architecture, he aspired for a military career. While serving in the Austrian army he completed his first opera, Enrico di Borgogna , introduced in Venice in 1818. Success came four years after that in Rome with Zoraide di Granata . Now exempted

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Franz Drdla

Franz Drdla

Franz Drdla was born in Saar, Moravia on November 28, 1868. He attended the Conservatories in Prague and Vienna, winning at the latter place first prize in violin playing and the medal of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. After serving for several years as a violinist in the orchestra of the Vienna Court Opera, he toured Europe as a concert violinist. From 1923 to 1925 he lived in the United States, making many concert appearances. He died in Bad Gastein, Austria, on September 3, 1944. Drdla’s

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Riccardo Drigo

Riccardo Drigo

Riccardo Drigo was born in Padua, Italy, on June 30, 1846. He first became famous as conductor of orchestral concerts at the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg. After World War I, he continued his activities as conductor in his native city. He died there on October 1, 1930. Drigo was the composer of ballets and operas, none of which have survived. He is today remembered almost exclusively for two slight but well loved items. One is the melodically suave Serenade , popular in every conceivable tr

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Arcady Dubensky

Arcady Dubensky

Arcady Dubensky was born in Viatka, Russia, on October 15, 1890. After being graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1909 he played the violin in the orchestra of the Moscow Opera. In 1921 he came to the United States, where he later became a citizen. He served as violinist of the New York Symphony Society, and after that of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, until his retirement in 1953. Dubensky had written many works for orchestra, whose sound technique and fresh approaches command respec

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Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas was born in Paris, France, on October 1, 1865. After attending the Paris Conservatory, where he won prizes in counterpoint and fugue as well as the second Prix de Rome, he served as music critic for several Parisian journals. From 1910 to 1912 he was professor of orchestration at the Paris Conservatory, and from 1927 until his death its professor of composition. His first successful work was a concert overture, Polyecute , introduced in Paris in 1892. His Symphony in C major, first he

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Antonin Dvořák

Antonin Dvořák

Antonin Dvořák was born in Muehlhausen, Bohemia, on September 8, 1841. As a boy he studied the violin with the village schoolmaster. He subsequently attended the Organ School in Prague. After completing his studies, he played in various orchestras in Prague, including that of the National Theater from 1861 to 1871 where he came under the influence of Smetana, father of Bohemian national music. Dvořák first attracted interest as a composer with Hymnus , a choral work introduced in 1873. Two years

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Sir Edward Elgar

Sir Edward Elgar

Sir Edward Elgar was born in Broadheath, near Worcester, England on June 2, 1857. He studied the organ with his father, and the violin with Adolf Pollitzer in London. In 1885 he succeeded his father as organist of St. George’s Church in Worcester. Two years after his marriage to Alice Roberts, which had taken place in 1889, he withdrew to Malvern where he lived the next thirteen years, devoted completely to serious composition. Several choral works were performed at various English festivals bef

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Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899. His career as a popular musician began in his adolescence when he performed jazz pieces on the piano in an ice-cream parlor in Washington, and after that formed his own jazz group. In 1923 he came to New York where he soon thereafter formed a jazz band which performed at the Kentucky Club in Harlem. Discovered by Irving Mills, the publisher, Ellington was booked for the Cotton Club where he remained several years and

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Georges Enesco

Georges Enesco

Georges Enesco was born in Liveni, Rumania, on August 19, 1881. He studied the violin at the Conservatories of Vienna and Paris, winning highest honors in both places. Following the completion of his studies in 1899, he launched a successful career both as concert violinist and as composer. For several years he was the court violinist to the Queen of Rumania, besides making outstandingly successful appearances on the concert stage throughout Europe. His debut as composer took place in Paris befo

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Leo Fall

Leo Fall

Leo Fall was born in Olmuetz, Austria, on February 2, 1873. The son of a military bandmaster, he early received music instruction from his father. Then, after attending the Vienna Conservatory, he conducted theater orchestras in Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne. An opera, Paroli , was unsuccessfully produced in Berlin before Fall settled permanently in Vienna to devote himself to the writing of those charming operettas in an abundantly lyric vein and graceful, sophisticated manner which the Austrian

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Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla, Spain’s most significant twentieth-century composer, was born in Cádiz on November 23, 1876. After studying music with private teachers in his native city, and with J. Tragó and Felipe Pedrell in Madrid, he completed in 1905 La Vida breve , a one-act opera that received first prize in a competition for native Spanish operas sponsored by the Academia de Bellas Artes. From 1907 to 1914 he lived in Paris where he absorbed French musical influences and became a friend of Debussy and

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Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel-Urbain Fauré was born in Pamiers, France, on May 12, 1845. His music study took place in Paris with Niedermeyer and Saint-Saëns. After that he served as organist in Rennes and Paris, and held the important post of organist at the Madeleine Church in Paris from 1896 on. In 1896 he also became professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where, from 1905 until 1920, he was director. In 1909 he was elected member of the Académie des Beaux Arts, and in 1910 made Commander of the Legion

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Friedrich Flotow

Friedrich Flotow

Friedrich Freiherr von Flotow was born in Teutendorf, Mecklenburg, on April 26, 1812. He was descended from a family that traced its nobility back several centuries. After studying music in Paris with Anton Reicha and Johann Pixis between 1828 and 1830, he wrote his first opera, Peter und Katharina . Success came first with Alessandro Stradella introduced in Hamburg in 1844, and was solidified in 1847 with the opera by which he is still remembered, Martha . From 1856 to 1863 he was Intendant of

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Stephen Foster

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster, America’s foremost song composer, was born in Lawrenceville, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1826. He received no formal musical training. Tioga Waltz , in 1841, was his first piece of music to get performed. About a year after that, Foster published his first song, “Open Thy Lattice, Love.” His initial success came with “Oh, Susanna!” for which he received only $100. But “Oh, Susanna!” became so popular soon after its publication in 1848 that it became the theme

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Rudolf Friml

Rudolf Friml

Rudolf Friml was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on December 7, 1879. He received his musical training at the Prague Conservatory, after which he toured Europe and America as assisting artist and accompanist for Jan Kubelik, the noted violin virtuoso. In 1906, Friml established permanent residence in the United States, making several appearances as concert pianist, twice in the performance of his own Concerto in B-flat. He now published piano pieces, instrumental numbers, and songs which attract

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Julius Fučík

Julius Fučík

Julius Fučík was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on July 18, 1872. He was a pupil of Antonin Dvořák in composition. After playing the bassoon in the German Opera in Prague in 1893, he became bandmaster of the 86th and 92nd Austrian Regiments in which he won renown throughout Europe. He died in Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia, on September 25, 1916. Fučík wrote numerous dance pieces and marches for band. The most popular of these is the stirring march, Entrance of the Gladiators , which became popular

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Sir Edward German

Sir Edward German

Sir Edward German was born Edward German Jones in Whitchurch, England, on February 17, 1862. He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London where, in 1895, he was elected Fellow. Meanwhile, in 1888-1889 he became the musical director of the Globe Theater in London. The incidental music he wrote there that year for Richard Mansfield’s production of Richard III proved so popular that Sir Henry Irving commissioned him to write similar music for his own presentation of Henry VIII . German subseque

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George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1898. Though he received serious musical training in piano from Charles Hambitzer, and in harmony and theory from Edward Kilenyi, he early set his sights on popular rather than serious music. When he was fifteen he found a job as song plugger and staff pianist in Tin Pan Alley where he soon began writing songs. The first to get published was “When You Want ’Em You Can’t Get ’Em” in 1916; in the same year another of his songs, “The M

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Henry F. Gilbert

Henry F. Gilbert

Henry Franklin Belknap Gilbert was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, on September 26, 1868. He attended the New England Conservatory, and studied composition privately with Edward MacDowell, before playing the violin in various theaters. For many years music was a secondary pursuit as he earned his living in a printing establishment, a real-estate agent, factory foreman, and finally an employee in a music-publishing firm. A hearing in Paris of Gustave Charpentier’s opera, Louise , proved such a

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Don Gillis

Don Gillis

Don Gillis was born in Cameron, Missouri, on June 17, 1912. He was graduated from Christian University at Fort Worth, Texas in 1936, after having engaged in various musical activities including the direction of a band and a symphony orchestra, and the writing of two musical comedies produced at the University. Following the completion of his education he became a member of the faculty of Christian University and Southwest Baptist Seminary; served as a trombonist and arranger for a Fort Worth rad

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Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 11, 1916. He was graduated with honors from the National Conservatory in his native city where, in 1953, he became professor. In 1946 he visited the United States remaining a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ginastera’s music combines musical elements native to Argentina with modern techniques and idioms, and includes ballets, chamber music, a Pastoral Symphony and other works for orchestra, and pieces for the piano. The Dances from

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Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Glazunov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on August 10, 1865. As a boy he studied music privately while attending a technical high school. At fifteen he became a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov in harmony, counterpoint and orchestration. Such was his progress that only one year later he completed a gifted symphony which was performed in St. Petersburg in 1882 and acclaimed by several eminent Russian musicians. Between that year and 1900, Glazunov produced most of the works which won him re

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Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Glière was born in Kiev, Russia, on January 11, 1875. He was graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1900. After two years in Berlin, he returned to his native land to become professor of composition at the Kiev Conservatory; from 1914 to 1920 he was its director. After 1920 he was a member of the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory. Glière’s most famous works are his third symphony (named Ilia Mourometz ) introduced in Moscow in 1912, and the ballet, The Red Poppy . But he wrote many

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Michael Glinka

Michael Glinka

Michael Glinka was born to prosperous landowners in Novosspaskoye, in Smolensk, Russia, on June 1, 1804. His academic education took place at a private school in St. Petersburg, while he studied music with Carl Meyer, Carl Boehm and John Field. From 1824 to 1827 he worked in the office of the Ministry of Communications in St. Petersburg. Further music study then took place in Italy and Germany. After returning to his native land in 1834, he was fired with the ambition of writing a national Russi

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Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck was born in Erasbach, Upper Palatinate, on July 2, 1714, the son of a forester on the estate of Prince Lobkowitz. Gluck received his early music instruction in his native country from local teachers. He then earned his living playing the violin and cello in rural orchestras. In 1736 he came to Vienna where soon thereafter he began to serve as chamber musician for Prince Lobkowitz. After a period of study and travel in Italy he returned to Vienna, now to become one of it

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Benjamin Godard

Benjamin Godard

Benjamin Louis Godard was born in Paris on August 18, 1849. After attending the Paris Conservatory, he received in 1878 a municipal prize for an orchestral work, besides having his first opera produced. He wrote several operas after that, winning fame with Jocelyn in 1888. He also wrote a considerable amount of chamber and orchestral music, in which his fine, sensitive lyricism is evident. He died in Cannes, France, on January 10, 1895. Among his more familiar works is the Adagio pathétique . Th

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Leopold Godowsky

Leopold Godowsky

Leopold Godowsky was born in Soshly, near Vilna, Poland, on February 13, 1870. A prodigy pianist, he attended the Berlin High School for Music, after which he made his American debut in Boston in 1884. Additional study took place in Paris with Saint-Saëns. Godowsky then launched his career as a mature concert pianist with performances throughout the world of music. He achieved international renown not only as a virtuoso but also as a teacher of the piano, at the Chicago Conservatory and the Vien

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Edwin Franko Goldman

Edwin Franko Goldman

Edwin Franko Goldman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 1, 1878. He came from a distinguished musical family. His uncles were Sam Franko and Nahan Franko, both prominent in New York as conductors, violinists, and pioneers in the presentation of free concerts. Goldman attended the National Conservatory in New York, specializing in the cornet. After completing his training with Jules Levey, he served for ten years as solo cornetist of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. In 1911 he organize

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Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark was born in Keszthely, Hungary, on May 18, 1830, the son of a cantor. Demonstrating unusual talent on the violin, he was sent to Vienna in 1844. There he studied with Leopold Jansa, then attended the Vienna Conservatory. His musical education was brought to an abrupt halt by the revolution of 1848. For many years after that, Goldmark earned his living by teaching music, playing in theater orchestras, and writing criticisms. He first came to the fore as a composer with a concert of

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Rubin Goldmark

Rubin Goldmark

Rubin Goldmark, nephew of Karl, was born in New York City on August 15, 1872. After studying music with private teachers in New York, he attended first the Vienna Conservatory in Austria, and after that the National Conservatory in New York where one of his teachers was Antonin Dvořák. His primary energy was directed to teaching. For six years he was the director of the Colorado College Conservatory, and from 1924 until his death head of the composition department at the Juilliard School of Musi

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François Gossec

François Gossec

François Joseph Gossec was born in Vergniès, Belgium, on January 17, 1734. After receiving some music instruction in his native town, he came to Paris in 1751, and three years after that was attached to the musical forces employed by La Pouplinière. For these concerts, Gossec wrote many symphonies and chamber-music works. He later worked in a similar capacity for the Prince de Conti. In 1770 he founded the Concerts des Amateurs, in 1773 became director of the Concert Spirituel, and from 1780 to

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Louis Gottschalk

Louis Gottschalk

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born in New Orleans on May 8, 1829. His music study took place in Paris where he specialized in the piano. He gave many successful concerts as pianist in France, Switzerland and Spain before returning to the United States in 1853. He then began the first of many tours of the country, to become the first significant American-born piano virtuoso. At his concerts he featured many of his own works; his reputation as a composer was second only to that as virtuoso. He was o

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Morton Gould

Morton Gould

Morton Gould was born in New York City on December 10, 1913. He received a comprehensive musical education at the Institute of Musical Art in New York, at New York University, and privately (piano) with Abby Whiteside. After completing these studies, he played the piano in motion-picture theaters and vaudeville houses and served as the staff pianist for the Radio City Music Hall. He was only eighteen when the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski introduced his Chorale and Fugue in Jazz , his f

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Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles François Gounod was born in Paris on June 17, 1818. He received his academic education at the Lycée St. Louis, and his musical training at the Paris Conservatory with Halévy and Lesueur among others. In 1839 he won the Prix de Rome. During his stay in Italy he became interested in church music and completed several choral works. He turned to opera after returning to Paris, his first work for the lyric stage being Sapho , successfully produced at the Paris Opéra in 1851. From then on, for

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Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger

Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia on July 8, 1882. After receiving some piano instruction from his mother he was sent to Germany in his twelfth year to continue his music study with James Kwast and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1900 he made his debut as concert pianist in London, following which he made an extended tour of Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. A meeting with Grieg, in 1906, was a significant influence in Grainger’s artistic development. Grieg inf

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Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados was born in Lérida, Spain, on July 27, 1867. After completing his music study at Conservatories in Barcelona and Madrid, and privately with Charles de Bériot in Paris, he earned his living playing the piano in Spanish restaurants. In 1898, his first opera was produced in Madrid, Maria del Carmen . The national identity of this music was to characterize all of Granados’ subsequent works and place him among the most significant of Spanish national composers. His most famous compos

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Edvard Grieg

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg, Norway’s greatest composer, was born in Bergen on June 15, 1843. Revealing unusual talent for music as a boy, he was sent to the Leipzig Conservatory in 1858. He remained there several years, a pupil of Plaidy, Moscheles, and Reinecke among others. In 1863 he returned to his native land where several of his early compositions were performed. He then lived for several years in Copenhagen. There he met and became a friend of two musicians who interested him in Scandinavian mu

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Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé was born Ferdinand Rudolph Von Grofé in New York City on March 27, 1892. He began to study the violin and piano early. During his adolescence he became a member of the viola section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While engaged in serious music he started playing with jazz ensembles. Before long he formed one of his own, for which he made all the arrangements, and whose performances attracted considerable interest among jazz devotees. Paul Whiteman was one of those who was impressed

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David Guion

David Guion

David Wendell Fentress Guion was born in Ballinger, Texas, on December 15, 1895. He received his musical training at the piano with local teachers and with Leopold Godowsky in Vienna. After returning to the United States he filled several posts as teacher of music in Texas, and from 1925 to 1928 taught piano at the Chicago Music College. Early in the 1930’s he appeared in a cowboy production featuring his own music at the Roxy Theater in New York and soon thereafter made weekly broadcasts over t

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Johan Halvorsen

Johan Halvorsen

Johan Halvorsen was born in Drammen, Norway, on March 15, 1864. After attending the Stockholm Conservatory he studied the violin with Adolf Brodsky in Leipzig and César Thomson in Belgium. In 1892 he returned to his native land. For many years he was the distinguished conductor of the Oslo National Theater. His admiration of Grieg (whose niece he married) directed him toward musical nationalism, a style in which many of his most ambitious works were written. He was the composer of three symphoni

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George Frederick Handel

George Frederick Handel

George Frederick Handel was born in Halle, Saxony, on February 23, 1685. After studying the organ in his native city he settled in Hamburg where he wrote, and in 1705 had produced, his first operas, Almira and Nero . A period of travel and study in Italy followed, during which he was influenced by the Italian instrumental music of that period. In 1710 he was appointed Kapellmeister in Hanover. In 1712 he settled permanently in England where in 1727 he became a British subject and Anglicized his

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Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, on March 31, 1732. From 1740 to 1749 he was a member of the choir of St. Stephen’s in Vienna, attending its school for a comprehensive musical training. For several years after that he lived in Vienna, teaching music, and completing various hack assignments, while pursuing serious composition. In 1755 he was appointed by Baron Karl Josef Fuernberg to write music for and direct the concerts at his palace; it was in this office that Haydn wrote his f

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Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert was born in Dublin, Ireland, on February 1, 1859. He received a sound musical training at the Stuttgart Conservatory, following which he studied the cello privately with Bernhard Cossmann in Baden-Baden. For several years after that he played the cello in many German and Austrian orchestras. His bow as a composer took place with two ambitious works, a suite and a concerto, both for cello and orchestra. They were introduced by the Stuttgart Symphony (the composer as soloist) in 188

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Ferdinand Hérold

Ferdinand Hérold

Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold was born in Paris on January 28, 1791. He began to study music when he was eleven. From 1805 to 1812 he attended the Paris Conservatory where his teachers included Adam and Méhul. In 1812 he received the Prix de Rome. Following his three-year stay in Rome he settled in Naples where he was pianist to Queen Caroline and had his first opera, La Gioventù di Enrico , produced in 1815. After returning to his native city he completed a new opera, Charles de France , which

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Jenö Hubay

Jenö Hubay

Jenö Hubay was born in Budapest, Hungary, on September 15, 1858. His father, a professor of the violin at the Budapest Conservatory, gave him his first violin lessons. Jenö made his public debut as violinist when he was eleven, then completed his violin studies with Joachim in Berlin and with Vieuxtemps in Belgium. In 1886 he was appointed professor of the violin at the Budapest Conservatory, and from 1919 to 1934 he was its director. Hubay was one of Europe’s most eminent violinists, violin tea

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Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck was born in Sieburg, Germany, on September 1, 1854. He attended the Cologne Conservatory where his teachers included Hiller (who was the first to recognize his talent), Jensen and Gernsheim. After winning the Mozart Scholarship of Frankfort in 1876, Humperdinck continued his music study in Munich with Franz Lachner and Rheinberger. In Munich he published his first important composition, a Humoreske for orchestra (1880). In 1881, he received the Meyerbeer Prize and in 1897,

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Jacques Ibert

Jacques Ibert

Jacques Ibert was born in Paris on August 15, 1890. He attended the Paris Conservatory between 1911 and 1919, with a hiatus of several years during World War I when he served in the French Navy. In 1919 he won the Prix de Rome. While residing in the Italian capital he wrote a symphonic work with which he scored his first major success, the suite Escales , introduced in Paris in 1924. From 1937 to 1955 he was director of the Academy of Rome. During this period he also served for a while as direct

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Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov

Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov

Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov was born in Gatchina, Russia, on November 19, 1859. He was graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1882 where he was a pupil in composition of Rimsky-Korsakov. From 1882 to 1893 he was associated with the Tiflis Music School, first as teacher, then as director. In 1893 he was appointed professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory on Tchaikovsky’s recommendation, and from 1906 to 1922 he served as its director. He also distinguished himself as a conductor

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Ivanovici

Ivanovici

Neither Ivanovici’s first name nor details of his life are known. He was born in Banat, Rumania, in 1848, distinguished himself as a bandleader in his native country, and died in Bucharest on April 1, 1905. For his band concerts he wrote many popular concert numbers. One of these is the concert waltz, The Waves of the Danube ( Donauwellen ), written in 1880, and achieving from the first phenomenal popularity throughout Europe. The main waltz melody of this set of waltzes was expropriated by Al D

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Armas Järnefelt

Armas Järnefelt

Armas Järnefelt was born in Viborg, Finland, on August 14, 1869. He studied music in Helsingfors with Ferruccio Busoni and Martin Wegelius; in Berlin with A. Becker; and in Paris with Massenet. Beginning with 1898, and for several years thereafter, he conducted opera performances in Viborg and Helsingfors. In 1907 he settled in Sweden where three years later he became a citizen. There he became court composer and the conductor of the Royal Opera. After returning to Helsingfors in 1932, he direct

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Dmitri Kabalevsky

Dmitri Kabalevsky

Dmitri Kabalevsky was born in St. Petersburg on December 30, 1904, and received his musical training in Moscow, at the Scriabin Music School and the Moscow Conservatory. He was graduated from the latter school in 1929, and in 1932 he was appointed instructor there. His first success as composer came in 1931 with his first symphony, commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the Russian revolution; this was followed in 1934 by his second symphony, which enjoyed an even greater triumph both in and

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Emmerich Kálmán

Emmerich Kálmán

Emmerich Kálmán was born in Siófok, Hungary, on October 24, 1882. He studied composition in Budapest. In 1904 one of his symphonic compositions was performed by the Budapest Philharmonic, and in 1907 he received the Imperial Composition Prize. After settling in Vienna he abandoned serious composition for light music. From this time on he devoted himself to and distinguished himself in writing tuneful operettas. His first success came in 1909 with Ein Herbstmanoever , presented in New York as The

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Kéler-Béla

Kéler-Béla

Kélér-Béla was born Albert von Keler in Bartfeld, Hungary, on February 13, 1820. He studied law and worked as a farmer before turning to music in his twenty-fifth year. After studying in Vienna with Sechter and Schlesinger he played the violin in the orchestra of the Theater-an-der-Wien. In 1854 he went to Berlin where he became conductor of Gungl’s Orchestra. He was soon back in Vienna to take over the direction of the famous Joseph Lanner Orchestra. From 1856 to 1863 he conducted an army band,

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Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was born in New York City on January 27, 1885. He first studied the piano with his mother. After being graduated from Barringer High School in Newark, New Jersey, he attended the New York College of Music where he was a pupil of Alexander Lambert, Albert von Doenhoff, Paolo Gallico and Austen Pearce. He received his apprenticeship as composer for the popular theater in 1903 in London, where with P. G. Wodehouse as his lyricist he wrote a topical song, “Mr. Chamberlain” that bec

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Albert Ketelby

Albert Ketelby

Albert William Ketelby was born in Birmingham, England, in or about 1885. Precocious in music he completed a piano sonata when he was only eleven. For six years he attended the Trinity College of Music in London where he captured every possible prize. When he was sixteen he became a church organist in Wimbledon, and at twenty-one he conducted a theater orchestra in London. He later distinguished himself as a conductor of some of London’s most important theater orchestras, besides appearing as a

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Aram Khatchaturian

Aram Khatchaturian

Aram Khatchaturian was born in Tiflis, Russia, on June 6, 1903. He was of Armenian extraction. He came to Moscow in 1920, and enrolled in the Gniessen School of Music. From 1929 to 1934 he attended the Moscow Conservatory. He first achieved recognition as a composer in 1935 with his first Symphony, and in 1937 he scored a major success throughout the music world with his first piano concerto, still a favorite in the modern concert repertory. As one of the leading composers in the Soviet Union he

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George Kleinsinger

George Kleinsinger

George Kleinsinger was born in San Bernardino, California, on February 13, 1914, and came to New York City in his sixth year. He was trained for dentistry, and only after he had left dental school did he concentrate on music. His first intensive period of music study took place with Philip James and Marion Bauer at New York University where he wrote an excellent cantata, I Hear America Singing , performed publicly and on records by John Charles Thomas. Kleinsinger then attended the Juilliard Gra

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Fritz Kreisler

Fritz Kreisler

Fritz Kreisler, one of the greatest violin virtuosos of his generation, was born in Vienna, Austria, on February 2, 1875. He was a child prodigy at the violin. From 1882 to 1885 he attended the Vienna Conservatory, a pupil of Leopold Auer, winning the gold medal for violin playing. In 1887, as a pupil of Massart at the Paris Conservatory, he was recipient of the Grand Prix. In 1888, he toured the United States in joint concerts with the pianist, Moriz Rosenthal, making his American debut in Bost

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Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo was born in Lille, France, on January 27, 1823. After receiving his musical training at Conservatories in Lille and Paris, he became a member of the Armingaud-Jacquard Quartet, a renowned French chamber-music ensemble. In 1848-1849 he published some songs; in 1867 he received third prize in a national contest for his opera, Fiesque ; and in 1872 he was acclaimed for his Divertimento , for orchestra, introduced in Paris. Two major works written for the noted Spanish violinist, Pablo

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Josef Lanner

Josef Lanner

Josef Lanner, the first of the great waltz kings of Vienna, was born in the Austrian capital on April 12, 1801. When he was twelve he played the violin in the band of Michael Pamer, a popular Viennese composer of that day. In 1818 Lanner formed a trio which played in smaller cafés and at the Prater. In 1819 the trio grew into a quartet with the addition of the older Johann Strauss (father of the composer of The Blue Danube ), then only fifteen years old. Soon afterwards, the quartet was expanded

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Charles Lecocq

Charles Lecocq

Charles Lecocq was born in Paris on June 3, 1832. For four years he attended the Paris Conservatory where, as a pupil of Bazin and Halévy, he received prizes in harmony and fugue. For a while he earned his living teaching the piano and writing church music. In 1857 he shared with Bizet the first prize in a competition for one-act operettas sponsored by Offenbach. This winning work, Le Docteur miracle , was successfully introduced in Paris that year. After that Lecocq wrote several light operas w

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Ernesto Lecuona

Ernesto Lecuona

Ernesto Lecuona was born in Havana, Cuba, on August 7, 1896. As a boy of eleven he published his first piece of music—an American two step still popular with some Cuban bands. While attending the National Conservatory in Cuba, from which he was graduated in 1911 with a gold medal in piano playing, he earned his living as a pianist in cafés and movie theaters. In 1917 he paid the first of several visits to the United States, at that time making some records and giving a piano recital. He then mad

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Franz Lehár

Franz Lehár

Franz Lehár was born in Komorn, Hungary, on April 30, 1870. His father, a bandmaster, was his first music teacher. When Franz was twelve, he entered the Prague Conservatory where he remained six years specializing in the violin with Bennewitz and theory with Foerster. His studies were completed in 1888, after which he played the violin in the orchestra of the Eberfeld Opera. He subsequently became an assistant bandleader of his father’s ensemble and a director of Austria’s foremost Marine bands.

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Ruggiero Leoncavallo

Ruggiero Leoncavallo

Ruggiero Leoncavallo was born in Naples, Italy, on March 8, 1858. He was graduated from the Bologna Conservatory, then spent several years traveling. He finally came to Paris where he earned his living playing the piano, singing, and writing music-hall songs. The powerful Italian publisher, Ricordi, commissioned him to write a trilogy of operas set in the Renaissance. Leoncavallo completed the first of these operas, I Medici , but it proved too expensive to mount and was shelved. This experience

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Anatol Liadov

Anatol Liadov

Anatol Liadov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on May 10, 1855, the son and grandson of eminent Russian conductors. He was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but was so derelict about attending classes that in 1876 he was expelled. Reinstated two years later he now became fired with both ambition and industry, proved a brilliant student, and was graduated with highest honors. He was then appointed teacher of theory there, eventually becoming a renowned professor, a

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Paul Lincke

Paul Lincke

Paul Lincke was born in Berlin, Germany, on November 7, 1866. After completing his music study he played the violin and bassoon in numerous theater orchestras. He later distinguished himself as a theater conductor. In 1897 he had his first operetta produced in Berlin. Thereafter he wrote many operettas, all originally given in Berlin; he became one of the foremost exponents of the light musical theater in Germany of his time. The most famous were Frau Luna (1899), Fraeulein Loreley (1900), Lysis

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Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, Hungary, on October 22, 1811. A prodigy pianist who made an impressive debut in Hungary when he was nine, Liszt was financed by several Hungarian noblemen to study the piano with Czerny in Vienna. In 1822, Liszt made a sensational debut in that city, and in 1824, after a period of additional study in Paris, an equally momentous appearance in the French capital. For the next three years Liszt concertized throughout Europe, becoming an idol of music audiences every

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Frederick Loewe

Frederick Loewe

Frederick Loewe was born in Vienna, Austria, on June 10, 1904. A musical prodigy, he began to study the piano when he was five; started composition at seven; at thirteen made a successful appearance as pianist with the Berlin Symphony; and at fifteen was the composer of a hit song, “Katrina,” that sold over a million copies of sheet music in Europe. He received a thorough musical training from Busoni, Eugène d’Albert, and Emil Nikolaus Rezniček, winning the Hollander Medal for piano playing in 1

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Albert Lortzing

Albert Lortzing

Gustav Albert Lortzing was born in Berlin on October 23, 1801. His parents were actors compelled to lead an itinerant life which made it impossible for Albert to obtain any systematic education. His mother taught him music, the study of which he later continued briefly in Berlin with Rungenhagen. His first effort at composition consisted of some songs, but in 1824 he completed his first opera, Ali Pascha von Janina . From 1833 to 1844 he was employed as a tenor at the Municipal Theater in Leipzi

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Alexandre Luigini

Alexandre Luigini

Alexandre Luigini was born in Lyons, France, on March 9, 1850. He was the son of the distinguished conductor of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris. After attending the Paris Conservatory—where he was a pupil of Massenet and Massart among others—the younger Luigini played the violin in his father’s orchestra. In 1870 he began a successful career as ballet composer with Le Rêve de Nicette , given in Lyons. His greatest success came with the Ballet Égyptien , first seen in Lyons in 1875. For twenty years

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Hans Christian Lumbye

Hans Christian Lumbye

Hans Christian Lumbye was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 2, 1810. As a young man he played in military bands. He then formed an orchestra of his own which achieved extraordinary fame throughout Copenhagen (specifically at the Tivoli) with light musical programs. For these concerts Lumbye produced a library of light music: waltzes, galops, polkas, marches, and so forth. This music is so filled with infectious tunes and pulsating rhythms—and they are so light in heart and spirit—that they have

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Edward MacDowell

Edward MacDowell

Edward Alexander Macdowell, one of America’s most significant 19th-century composers, was born in New York City on December 18, 1861. After preliminary music study with private teachers, he attended the Paris Conservatory from 1876 to 1878, and the Frankfort Conservatory in Germany from 1879 to 1881. Maintaining his home in Germany, MacDowell joined the faculty of the Darmstadt Conservatory in 1881, and in 1882 he made an official bow as a composer by introducing his first piano concerto in Zuri

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Albert Hay Malotte

Albert Hay Malotte

Albert Hay Malotte was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 19, 1895. The son of a choirmaster, he himself was a boy chorister, at the St. James Episcopal Church in his native city. After his music studies were completed in Paris and London, he served as organist in Chicago and London. In 1927 he opened a school for organists in Los Angeles, but when sound came to the screen he gave up the school to write music for the films. He subsequently joined the music staff at the Walt Disney studio

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Gabriel Marie

Gabriel Marie

Gabriel Marie was born in Paris, France, on January 8, 1852. After completing his music study at the Paris Conservatory he served for six years as chorusmaster of the Lamoureux Orchestra. Between 1887 and 1894 he conducted the concerts of the Société nationale de musique. He later led the orchestral performances in Bordeaux and Marseilles, and during the summers at the Vichy Casino. He was traveling in Spain when he died there suddenly on August 29, 1928. Marie was a successful composer of light

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Martini il Tedesco

Martini il Tedesco

Jean Paul Égide Martini—sometimes called “Il Tedesco” or “The German” to distinguish him from Padre Martini the famous 18th century Italian composer and theorist—was born in Freistadt, in the Palatinate, on September 1, 1741. His real name is Schwarzendorf. After completing the study of the organ and serving for a while as church organist, he won a prize for a military march for the Swiss Guard. For many years he was an officer of a Hussar regiment. During this military service he completed an o

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Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Mascagni was born in Leghorn, Italy, on December 7, 1863. He studied music with private teachers in Leghorn, then for several years attended the Milan Conservatory. In 1884 he was appointed conductor of the municipal band in Cerignola. Meanwhile in 1880 he had completed his first opera, Pinotta . Success as composer came later in 1890 with the world première of the opera, Cavalleria Rusticana in Rome. A sensation when first introduced, Cavalleria Rusticana made the rounds of the world cap

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Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet was born in Montaud in the Loire region of France on May 12, 1842. He entered the Paris Conservatory when he was nine, subsequently winning prizes in fugue and piano playing and, in 1863, the Prix de Rome. Four years later his first opera, La Grand’ Tante , was produced in Paris. During the Franco-Prussian War he was a member of the National Guard. After the war, he achieved recognition as a composer with his incidental music to Les Érynnies , an oratorio Marie Magdaleine , and an

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Robert McBride

Robert McBride

Robert Guyn McBride was born in Tucson, Arizona, on February 20, 1911. As a boy he learned to play the clarinet and saxophone. He later played both instruments in various dance orchestras. In 1933 he was graduated from the University of Arizona, and a year after that received there his Master’s degree. Having studied the oboe in college, he played that instrument with the Tucson Symphony for several years. Then, after additional study of the piano, composition and voice, he joined the music facu

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Harl McDonald

Harl McDonald

Harl Mcdonald was born in Boulder, Colorado, on July 27, 1899. His music study took place in Redlands, California and at the University of Southern California. The winning of prizes from the American Federation of Music Clubs for two orchestral works enabled him to go to Europe and attend the Leipzig Conservatory. In Germany, his symphonic fantasy, Mojave , was successfully introduced by the Berlin State Opera Orchestra. After returning to the United States he was appointed in 1926 to the music

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Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn-bartholdy was born in Hamburg, Germany, on February 3, 1809. His grandfather was the famous philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn; his father, a successful banker. Both were of Jewish origin. When Felix was still a boy, however, his immediate family was converted to Protestantism, the occasion upon which they added the name of “Bartholdy” to their own to distinguish them from the other members of their family. A pupil of Ludwig Berger and Karl Friedrich Zelter, Felix was extraordinari

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Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was born in Berlin, Germany, on September 5, 1791. His name, at birth, was Jakob Liebmann Beer. When Meyer, a rich relative, left him a legacy, he decided to change his name to Meyerbeer; some years later upon initiating a career as composer of Italian operas he Italianized his name. His music study took place with Clementi, Zelter, Anselm Weber and Vogler, the last of whom encouraged him to write his first opera, Jephtha’s Vow ( Jephtha’s Geluebde ), a failure when first perfo

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Karl Milloecker

Karl Milloecker

Karl Milloecker was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 29, 1842. His father, a jeweler, wanted him to enter the family business, but from his childhood on, Karl was drawn to music. After studying music with private teachers, he attended the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Meanwhile, in his sixteenth year, he supported himself by playing the flute in a theater orchestra. When his music study ended, he became conductor of a theater in Graz in 1864; there his first operetta was prod

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Moritz Moszkowski

Moritz Moszkowski

Moritz Moszkowski was born in Breslau, Germany, on August 23, 1854. He received his musical training at three leading German Conservatories: the Dresden Conservatory, the Stern Conservatory and Kullak Academy in Berlin. He began a career as pianist in 1873, touring Europe with outstanding success. He also achieved recognition as a teacher of the piano at the Kullak Academy. In 1897, he went into retirement in Paris where he lived for the remainder of his life. In 1899 he was elected a member of

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. The son of Leopold, Kapellmeister at the court of the Salzburg Archbishop, Wolfgang Amadeus disclosed his remarkable musical powers at a tender age. He began composition at the age of five, completed a piano sonata at seven, and a symphony at eight. Taught the harpsichord, also very early in his childhood, he revealed such phenomenal abilities at improvisation and sight reading that he was the wonder and awe of all who c

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Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Russia, on March 21, 1839. When he was thirteen he entered the cadet school of the Imperial Guard in St. Petersburg, from which he was graduated to join the Guard regiment. In 1857 he met and befriended several important Russian musicians (including Balakirev and Stassov) under whose stimulus he decided to leave the army and become a composer. Until now his musical education had been sporadic, having consisted of little more than some piano lessons with his

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Ethelbert Nevin

Ethelbert Nevin

Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin was born in Edgeworth, Pennsylvania, on November 25, 1862. A precocious child in music, he wrote his first piano piece when he was eleven. A year later he wrote and had published a song that became exceedingly popular, “Good Night, Good Night Beloved.” After studying music with private teachers, he went to Berlin in 1884, studying for two years with Hans von Buelow and Karl Klindworth. He returned to the United States in 1886. Soon after that he made his formal America

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Otto Nicolai

Otto Nicolai

Otto Nicolai was born in Koenigsberg, Germany, on June 9, 1810. After completing his music study with Zelter and Bernhard Klein, he came to Paris in 1830 where he remained three years. In Berlin he completed several works for orchestra, and some for chorus. In 1834 he went to Italy where he was organist in the Prussian Embassy at Rome and became interested in opera. From 1837 to 1838 he was principal conductor at the Kaerthnerthor Theater in Vienna. Then he returned to Italy to devote himself to

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Siegfried Ochs

Siegfried Ochs

Siegfried Ochs was born in Frankfort on the Main, Germany, on April 19, 1858. While studying medicine, he attended the Berlin High School for Music. Then deciding upon music as a life’s career, he continued his music study with private teachers and became a protégé of Hans von Buelow. In 1882 he founded the Philharmonic Choir of Berlin, one of Germany’s most celebrated choral groups. He remained its conductor even after it merged with the chorus of the Berlin High School for Music in 1920. Ochs

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Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was born Jacques Oberst in Cologne, Germany, on June 20, 1819; his father was a cantor in one of the city synagogues. After attending the Paris Conservatory, Offenbach played the cello in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique. Then, in 1849 he became conductor at the Théâtre Français. In 1850 he achieved his initial success as a composer with the song, “ Chanson de Fortunio ” interpolated into a production of the Alfred de Musset drama, Chandelier . Three years later his first ope

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Ignace Jan Paderewski

Ignace Jan Paderewski

Ignace Jan Paderewski, one of the world’s foremost piano virtuosos and one of Poland’s most renowned statesmen, was born in Kurylówka, Podolia, on November 18, 1860. A child prodigy, he was given piano lessons from his third year on. Several patrons arranged to send him to the Warsaw Conservatory, from which he was graduated in 1878. Between 1881 and 1883 he studied composition and orchestration in Berlin, and from 1884 to 1887 piano with Leschetizky in Vienna. Paderewski’s first major success a

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Gabriel Pierné

Gabriel Pierné

Gabriel Pierné was born in Metz, France, on August 16, 1863. He attended the Paris Conservatory for eleven years, a pupil of Massenet and César Franck. He won numerous awards there including the Prix de Rome in 1882. After returning from Rome, he succeeded Franck as organist of the Ste. Clothilde Church in Paris, retaining this post until 1898. From 1903 until 1932 he was, first the assistant, and from 1910 on the principal, conductor of the Colonne Orchestra. He combined his long and fruitful c

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Jean-Robert Planquette

Jean-Robert Planquette

Jean-Robert Planquette was born in Paris on July 31, 1848. He attended the Paris Conservatory after which he supported himself by writing popular songs and chansonettes for Parisian café-concerts . He started writing operettas in 1874, and achieved world fame with The Chimes of Normandy in 1877. He wrote many more operettas after that, the most successful being Rip Van Winkle (1882), Nell Gwynne (1884) and Mam’zelle Quat’Sous (1897). He died in Paris on January 28, 1903. The Chimes of Normandy (

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Eduard Poldini

Eduard Poldini

Eduard Poldini was born in Budapest, Hungary, on June 13, 1869. His music study took place at the Vienna Conservatory. Poldini subsequently established his home in Vevey, Switzerland, where he devoted himself to composition. His most significant works are for the stage—both comic and serious operas that include The Vagabond and the Princess (1903) and The Carnival Marriage (1924). He was also a prolific composer of salon pieces for the piano, familiar to piano studies throughout the world. In 19

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Manuel Ponce

Manuel Ponce

Manuel Maria Ponce was born in Fresnillo, Mexico, on December 8, 1882. His main music study took place in Europe where he arrived in 1905: composition with Enrico Bossi in Bologna; piano with Martin Krause in Berlin. After returning to Mexico he gave a concert of his own compositions in 1912. For several years he taught the piano at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, and from 1917 to 1919 he was the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra there. During World War I he lived in Havana

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Amilcare Ponchielli

Amilcare Ponchielli

Amilcare Ponchielli was born in Paderno Fasolaro, Italy, on August 31, 1834. For nine years he attended the Milan Conservatory where he wrote an operetta in collaboration with three other students. Following the termination of his studies, he became organist in Cremona, and after that a bandmaster in Piacenza. His first opera, I Promessi sposi , was introduced in Cremona in 1856, but it did not become successful until sixteen years later when a revised version helped to open the Teatro dal Verme

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Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, on June 9, 1893 to an immensely wealthy family. Precocious in music, he began studying the violin when he was six, and at eleven had one of his compositions published. He pursued his academic studies at the Worcester Academy in Massachusetts and at Yale; music study took place at the School of Music at Harvard and subsequently in Paris with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum. At Yale he participated in all its musical activities and wrote two football so

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Serge Prokofiev

Serge Prokofiev

Serge Prokofiev was born in Sontzovka, Russia, on April 23, 1891. He was extraordinarily precocious in music. After receiving some training at the piano from his mother, he completed the writing of an opera by the time he was ten. Preliminary music study took place with Glière. In his thirteenth year he entered the Moscow Conservatory where he was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and Liadov among others and from which he was graduated with the Rubinstein Prize for his first piano concerto. His advance

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Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, on December 22, 1858, to a family which for several generations had produced professional musicians. As a boy, Giacomo attended the Istituto Musicale in his native city, played the organ in the local church, and wrote two choral compositions. A subsidy from Queen Margherita enabled him to continue his music study at the Milan Conservatory with Bazzini and Ponchielli. The latter encouraged Puccini to write for the stage. Puccini’s first dramatic work was

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Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Oneg, Novgorod, Russia, on April 1, 1873. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory for three years, and his musical training ended at the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 when he received a gold medal for a one-act opera, Aleko . In that same year he also wrote the Prelude in C-sharp minor with which he became world famous. His first piano concerto and his first symphony, however, were dismal failures. In 1901 he scored a triumph with his Second Piano Concerto which

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Joachim Raff

Joachim Raff

Joseph Joachim Raff was born in Lachen, on the Lake of Zurich, Switzerland, on May 27, 1822. He was mostly self-taught in music, while pursuing the career of schoolmaster. Some of his early compositions were published through Mendelssohn’s influence, a development that finally encouraged Raff to give up schoolteaching and devote himself completely to music. An intimate association with Liszt led to the première of an opera, King Alfred , in Weimar in 1851. In 1863, his symphony, An das Vaterland

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Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, France, on March 7, 1875. After studying music with private teachers in Paris he entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889, remaining there fifteen years, and proving himself a brilliant (if at times an iconoclastic) student. While still at the Conservatory his Menuet antique for piano was published, and Les Sites auriculaires for two pianos was performed. By the time he left the Conservatory he was already a composer of considerable stature, having completed two

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Emil von Rezniček

Emil von Rezniček

Emil Von Rezniček was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 4, 1860, the son of a princess and an Austrian field marshal. For a time he studied law, but then devoted himself completely to music study, mainly at the Leipzig Conservatory. From 1896 to 1899 he was the conductor of several theater orchestras in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In 1902 he settled in Berlin where he founded and for several years conducted an annual series of orchestral concerts. Subsequently he was the conductor of the Wa

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Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was born in Tikhvin, Russia, on March 18, 1844. Trained for a naval career, he was graduated from the Naval School in St. Petersburg in 1862, after which he embarked on a two-and-a-half-year cruise as naval officer. From earliest boyhood he had been passionately interested in music, especially the folk operas of Glinka and Russian ecclesiastical music. When he was seventeen, he was encouraged by Balakirev to essay composition. After returning to Russia in 1864, Rimsky-Kor

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Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers was born in Hammels Station, near Arverne, Long Island, on June 28, 1902. As a child he began studying the piano and attending the popular musical theater. He wrote his first songs in 1916, a score for an amateur musical in 1917, and in 1919 created the music for the Columbia Varsity Show, the first freshman ever to do so. Meanwhile he had initiated a collaborative arrangement with the lyricist, Lorenz Hart, that lasted almost a quarter of a century. Their first song to reach the

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Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg was born in Szeged, Hungary, on July 29, 1887. His boyhood and early manhood were spent in Vienna where he studied engineering and fulfilled his military service with the 19th Hungarian Infantry stationed in that city. In Vienna, Romberg’s lifelong interest in and talent for music found a favorable climate. He heard concerts, haunted the city’s leading music salons, was a devotee of Viennese operettas at the Theater-an-der-Wien. Vienna’s influence led him to abandon all thoughts

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David Rose

David Rose

David Rose was born in London, England, on June 15, 1910. His family came to the United States in 1914, settling in Chicago where Rose received his musical training at the Chicago Musical College. After working for radio and as pianist of the Ted Fiorito Orchestra, Rose came to Hollywood in 1938 where he became music director of the Mutual Broadcasting network. During World War II he served as musical director of, and composer for, Winged Victory , the Air Corps production by Moss Hart. After th

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Gioacchino Rossini

Gioacchino Rossini

Gioacchino Rossini was born in Pesaro, Italy, on February 29, 1792. He received his musical training at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna. In 1810 he wrote his first opera, La Cambiale di matrimonio , produced in Venice. Success came in 1812 with his third opera, La Pietra del paragone , given at La Scala in Milan. Tancredi and L’Italiana in Algeri , performed in Venice in 1813, further added to his fame and helped make him an adulated opera composer at the age of twenty-one. In 1815 Rossini was app

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Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein was born in Viakhvatinetz, Russia, on November 28, 1829. He studied the piano with Alexandre Villoing after which, in 1839 he came to Paris with his teacher, deeply impressing Chopin and Liszt with his performances. Between 1841 and 1843 Rubinstein made a concert tour of Europe, but his career as a world-famous virtuoso did not begin until 1854 when his formidable technique and musicianship aroused the enthusiasm of Western Europe. After that he made many tours of the world, his

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Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-saëns was born in Paris on October 9, 1835. He was extraordinarily precocious. After some piano instruction from his aunt he gave a remarkable concert in Paris in his ninth year A comprehensive period of study followed at the Paris Conservatory where he won several prizes, though never the Prix de Rome. In 1852 he received a prize for Ode à Sainte Cécile , and in 1853 the première of his first symphony attracted considerable praise. From 1858 to 1877 he was the organist of the Made

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Pablo de Sarasate

Pablo de Sarasate

Pablo de Sarasate was born in Pamplona, Spain, on March 10, 1844. As a child prodigy violinist he made his debut in Spain when he was six, and soon thereafter toured the country. In 1859 he completed with honors a three-year period of violin study at the Paris Conservatory. He was only fifteen when he initiated a worldwide career as virtuoso which continued until the end of his life and placed him with the foremost violinists of his generation. In his concerts he featured prominently his own arr

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Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria, on January 31, 1797. He was extraordinarily precocious in music and was early trained to play the violin, viola and organ. From 1808 to 1813 he attended the Imperial Chapel School where he received a thorough musical background while preparing to be a chorister in the Chapel Choir. He showed such remarkable and natural gifts for music that one of his teachers, the renowned Antonio Salieri, did not hesitate to call him a “genius.” When the breakin

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Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Germany, on June 8, 1810. Though he demonstrated an unusual gift for music from earliest childhood he was directed by his father to law. While attending the Leipzig Conservatory in 1828 he studied the piano with Friedrich Wieck. In 1829, in Heidelberg, where he had come to continue his law study, he completed the first of his works to get published, the Abegg Variations for piano. He returned to Leipzig in 1829, having come to the decision to make music and n

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Cyril Scott

Cyril Scott

Cyril Meir Scott was born in Oxton, England, on September 27, 1879. His musical training took place at Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfort, Germany, and privately with Ivan Knorr. He went to live in Liverpool in 1898 where he taught piano and devoted himself to composition. Performances of several orchestral and chamber-music works at the turn of the century helped establish his reputation. He also distinguished himself as a concert pianist with performances throughout Europe and a tour of America

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Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius was born in Tavastehus, Finland, on December 8, 1865. Though he early revealed a pronounced gift for music he planned a career in law. After a year at the University of Helsinki he finally decided upon music. From 1886 to 1889 he attended the Helsinki Conservatory where one of his teachers was Ferruccio Busoni, after which he studied in Berlin with Albert Becker and in Vienna with Robert Fuchs and Karl Goldmark. He was back in his native land in 1891, and one year after that conduc

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Christian Sinding

Christian Sinding

Christian Sinding was born in Kongsberg, Norway, on January 11, 1856. After attending the Leipzig Conservatory from 1877 to 1881 he settled in Oslo as a teacher of the piano. His first published composition was a piano quintet in 1884, and in 1885 he directed a concert of his own music in Oslo. Though he wrote in large forms, including symphonies, concertos, suites, tone poems and various chamber-music compositions, he is best known for his smaller pieces for the piano. In 1890 he received an an

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Leone Sinigaglia

Leone Sinigaglia

Leone Sinigaglia was born in Turin, Italy, on August 14, 1868. His preliminary music study took place at the Liceo Musicale of his native city and was completed with Mandyczewski in Vienna and Dvořák in Prague. The latter encouraged him to write music in a national Italian idiom. It was in this style that he created his earliest significant compositions, the first being Danze piemontesi , introduced in Turin in 1905, Toscanini conducting. Later works included Rapsodia piemontese for violin and o

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Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana was born in Leitomischl, Bohemia, on March 2, 1824. Though he was interested in music from childhood on, he received little training until his nineteenth year when he came to Prague and studied with Josef Proksch. For several years after the completion of his music study he worked as teacher of music for Count Leopold Thun. He soon became active in the musical life of his country; in 1848 he was a significant force in the creation of Prague’s first music school. In 1849, Smetana

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John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa, America’s foremost composer of march music, was born in Washington, D. C., on November 6, 1854. The son of a trombone player in the United States Marine Band, John Philip early received music instruction, mainly the violin from John Esputa. When he was about thirteen, John enlisted in the Marine Corps where he played in its band for two years. For several years after that he played the violin in and conducted the orchestras of various theaters; in the summer of 1877 he played

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Oley Speaks

Oley Speaks

Oley Speaks was born in Canal Winchester, Ohio, on June 28, 1874. He received his musical training, principally in voice, from various teachers including Armour Galloway and Emma Thursby. He then filled the post of baritone soloist at churches in Cleveland, Ohio, and New York City, including the St. Thomas Church in New York from 1901 to 1906. He also filled numerous engagements in song recitals and performances of oratorios. He died in New York City on August 27, 1948. Speaks was the composer o

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Robert Stolz

Robert Stolz

Robert Stolz was born in Graz, Austria, on August 25, 1882. His parents were musical, his father being a successful conductor and teacher, and his mother a concert pianist. Robert’s music study took place first with his father, then with Robert Fuchs in Vienna and Humperdinck in Berlin. In 1901 he assumed his first post as conductor, at an opera house in Brunn. When he was twenty-five he was appointed conductor of the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna where he remained twelve years, directing most o

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Oscar Straus

Oscar Straus

Oscar Straus was no relation to any of the famous Viennese Strausses; nevertheless in the writing of light, gay music in waltz tempo and spirited melodies for the operetta stage he was certainly their spiritual brother. He was born in Vienna on March 6, 1870, and studied music with private teachers in Vienna and Berlin, including Max Bruch. In 1901 he settled in Berlin where he became conductor at a famous cabaret, Ueberbrettl , for whose productions of farces he wrote a number of scores. Soon a

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Eduard Strauss

Eduard Strauss

Eduard Strauss, the younger brother of Johann Strauss II, was born in Vienna on March 15, 1835. He studied music in Vienna with G. Preyer following which he made his café-house debut in 1862 by conducting his father’s orchestra at the Dianasaal. He continued to lead his father’s orchestra at the Volksgarten and Musikverein as well as at various leading café-houses in Vienna. He also made many tours, including two of the United States in 1892 and 1901. In 1902 he dissolved the musical organizatio

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Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss I was one of the two waltz kings of Vienna bearing that name. The more famous one, the composer of “The Blue Danube” was the son. But the father was also one of Vienna’s most popular composers and café-house conductors. He was born in Vienna on March 14, 1804, and as a boy he studied both the violin and harmony. His love for music, combined with the decision of his parents to make him a bookbinder, led him to run away from home. When he was fifteen he joined Michael Pamer’s orches

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Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II, son of the first Johann Strauss, was born in Vienna on October 25, 1825. Though he showed an unmistakable bent for music from his childhood on, he was forbidden by his father to study music or to indulge in any musical activity whatsoever. The young Johann Strauss, encouraged by his mother, was forced to study the violin surreptitiously with a member of his father’s orchestra. Only after the father had deserted his family, to set up another home with his mistress, did young Jo

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Josef Strauss

Josef Strauss

Josef Strauss, like Eduard, is a younger brother of Johann Strauss II, and son of Johann Strauss I. He was born in Vienna on August 22, 1827. He was an extremely talented young man not only in music but even as architect and inventor. Of more serious and sober disposition than either of his two brothers, he long regarded café-house music condescendingly, his musical preference being for the classics. His famous brother, Johann Strauss II, needing someone to help him direct his orchestra, finally

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Sir Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan—musical half of the comic-opera team of Gilbert and Sullivan—was born in London, England, on May 13, 1842. The son of a bandmaster, Sullivan was appointed to the Chapel Royal School in 1854. One year after that his first published composition appeared, an anthem. In 1856 he was the first recipient of the recently instituted Mendelssohn Award which entitled him to attend the Royal Academy of Music where he studied under Sterndale Bennett and Goss. From 1858 to 1861 he

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Franz von Suppé

Franz von Suppé

Franz von Suppé was born Francesco Suppé-Demelli in Spalato, Yugoslavia, on April 18, 1819. He played the flute at eleven, at thirteen started the study of harmony, and at fifteen completed a Mass. Nevertheless, for a while he entertained the idea of becoming either a physician or a teacher of Italian. When he finally decided upon music as a profession he attended the Vienna Conservatory. After serving an apprenticeship as conductor of operettas in Pressburg and Baden, he was appointed principal

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Johan Svendsen

Johan Svendsen

Johan Svendsen was born in Oslo, Norway, on September 30, 1840. The son of a bandmaster, he dabbled in music for many years before receiving formal instruction. When he was twenty-three he embarked for the first time on a comprehensive musical education by attending the Leipzig Conservatory where he was a pupil of Ferdinand David, Reinecke, and others. After that he toured Europe as a concert violinist and lived for a while in Paris where he played in theater orchestras. In 1870 he visited the U

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Deems Taylor

Deems Taylor

Joseph Deems Taylor was born in New York City on December 22, 1885. He received his academic education in New York, at the Friends School, Ethical Culture School, and New York University. All the while he studied music with private teachers. Following his graduation from college, Taylor appeared in vaudeville, worked for several magazines, and from 1921 to 1925 was the music critic of the New York World . He first distinguished himself as a composer in 1919 with the orchestral suite, Through the

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Peter Ilitch Tchaikovsky

Peter Ilitch Tchaikovsky

Peter Ilitch Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia, on May 7, 1840. Serious music study began comparatively late, since he prepared for a career in law and then for three years served as clerk in the Ministry of Justice. He had, however, revealed unusual sensitivity for music from earliest childhood, and had received some training on the piano from the time he was five. Intensive music study, however, did not begin until 1861 when he became a pupil of Nicholas Zaremba, and it was completed at

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Ambroise Thomas

Ambroise Thomas

Ambroise Thomas was born in Metz, France, on August 5, 1811. Between 1828 and 1832 he attended the Paris Conservatory where he won numerous prizes including the Prix de Rome. After his three-year stay in Rome, where he wrote some orchestral and chamber music, he returned to Paris in 1836 and devoted himself to writing operas. The first was La double échelle , produced at the Opéra-Comique in 1837. His first success was realized in 1843 with Mina , and in 1866 the opera by which he is remembered,

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Enrico Toselli

Enrico Toselli

Enrico Toselli was born in Florence, Italy, on March 13, 1883. After studying with Sgambati and Martucci, Toselli toured Italy as a concert pianist. But he achieved renown not on the concert stage but with the writing of several romantic songs. One of these is the “ Serenata ,” No. 1, op. 6, through which his name survives. He also wrote some orchestral music and an operetta, La Principessa bizzarra (1913) whose libretto was the work of the former Crown Princess Luisa of Saxony whom he married i

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Sir Paolo Tosti

Sir Paolo Tosti

Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti, one of Italy’s best known song composers, was born in Ortona sul Mare, Abruzzi, Italy, on April 9, 1846. His musical education took place at the Royal College of San Pietro a Maiella in Naples. He left Naples in 1869 after serving for a while as teacher of music. Returning to his native city he now initiated his career as a composer of songs. Though a few of these early efforts became popular he failed for a long time to find a publisher. Success first came to him in R

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Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi, the greatest of the Italian opera composers, was born in Le Roncole, Italy, on October 10, 1813. He demonstrated such unmistakable gifts for music in his boyhood that his townspeople created a fund to send him to the Milan Conservatory. In 1832 he appeared in Milan. Finding he was too old to gain admission to the Conservatory, he studied composition privately with Vincenzo Lavigna. For several years Verdi lived in Busseto where he conducted the Philharmonic Society and wrote his

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Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner, genius of the music drama, was born in Leipzig, Germany, on May 22, 1813. In his academic studies (at the Kreuzschule in Dresden, the Nikolaischule in Leipzig, and the University of Leipzig) he was an indifferent, lazy, and irresponsible student. But his intensity and seriousness of purpose where music was concerned were evident from the beginning. He studied theory by memorizing a textbook and then by receiving some formal instruction from Theodor Weinlig. In short order

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Emil Waldteufel

Emil Waldteufel

Emil Waldteufel, waltz-king of France, was born in Strasbourg on December 9, 1837. His father, a professor of music at the Strasbourg Conservatory, gave him his first music instruction. After that Emil attended the Paris Conservatory, but he never completed his course of study there, leaving the schoolroom to take on a job with a piano manufacturer. He published his first waltzes at his own expense in 1860, Joies et peines and Manola . The latter so enchanted the Prince of Wales that he willingl

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Karl Maria von Weber

Karl Maria von Weber

Karl Maria von Weber was born in Eutin, Oldenburg, Germany, on November 18, 1786. His father, who played the violin in small theaters, was determined to make his son a musical prodigy, subjecting him from childhood on to severe discipline, and to intensive study with Karl’s stepbrother, J. P. Heuschkel and Michael Haydn. Weber made public appearances as pianist in early boyhood. His first opera was written when he was only thirteen, and at fourteen his second opera was performed in Chemnitz, Fre

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Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill was born in Dessau, Germany, on March 2, 1900. A comprehensive musical training took place first with private teachers in Dessau, then at the Berlin High School of Music, and finally for three years with Ferruccio Busoni. Weill started out as a composer of avant-garde music performed at several important German festivals. His first opera, The Protagonist , with a text by Georg Kaiser, was produced in 1926. From this point on Weill continued writing operas in which the texts were reali

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Jaromir Weinberger

Jaromir Weinberger

Jaromir Weinberger was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on January 8, 1896. After completing his music study at the Prague Conservatory, and privately with Max Reger in Berlin, he came to the United States in 1922, teaching for one season at the Ithaca Conservatory in Ithaca, New York. Following his return to Europe he held various posts as teacher and conductor. He achieved international renown as a composer with a Bohemian folk opera, Schwanda, der Dudelsackpfeifer first performed in Prague on

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Henri Wieniawski

Henri Wieniawski

Henri Wieniawski was born in Lublin, Poland, on July 10, 1835. When he was eight he entered the Paris Conservatory, from which he was graduated three years later with first prize in violin-playing, the first time this institution conferred such an honor on one so young. Sensational appearances as child prodigy followed throughout Europe. After an additional period of study at the Paris Conservatory between 1849 and 1850, he initiated his career as a mature performer, and as one of the world’s fo

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Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, England, on October 12, 1872. After attending the Royal College of Music, he studied composition privately with Max Bruch in Berlin. In 1901 he was appointed organist of the St. Barnabas Church in London. For the next few years he devoted himself mainly to church music. His interest in the English folk songs of the Tudor period, first stimulated in 1904, proved for him a decisive turning point. Besides dedicating himself henceforth to intensive res

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Jacques Wolfe

Jacques Wolfe

Jacques Wolfe, composer of songs in the style of Negro Spirituals familiar in the repertory of most American baritones, was born in Botoshan, Rumania on April 29, 1896. He was trained as a pianist at the Institute of Musical Art. While serving in the army during World War I, a member of the 50th Infantry Band, he was stationed in North Carolina where he first came into contact with Negro folk songs. This made such a profound impression on him that he devoted himself to research in this field. Af

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Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was born in Venice, Italy, on January 12, 1876. Originally planning to make art his career he went to Rome, but while there became so fascinated by opera that then and there he decided to become a musician. He completed his musical training in Munich in 1895 with Josef Rheinberger. In 1899 he returned to his native city where his first major work—an oratorio, La Sulamite —was successfully performed. His first opera, Cenerentola ( Cinderella ) was introduced in Venice in 1900

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Sebastián Yradier

Sebastián Yradier

Sebastián Yradier was born in Sauciego, Álava, Spain on January 20, 1809. Little is known of his career beyond the fact that his music instruction took place with private teachers; that in 1851 he was appointed singing master to the Empress Eugénie in Paris; and that for a period he lived in Cuba. He died in Vitoria, Spain, on December 6, 1865. He was a successful composer of Spanish songs. The most famous is “ La Paloma ,” which is in the habanera rhythm, its melody in the sensual, sinuous styl

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Carl Zeller

Carl Zeller

Carl Zeller was born in St. Peter-in-der-Au, Austria on July 19, 1842. Music, the study of which he had pursued since boyhood with private teachers, was an avocation. He earned his living as an official in the Ministry of Education in Austria. Nevertheless, he managed to write many operettas, two of which were among the most successful written in Austria during his time. Among his first works for the stage were Joconde (1876), Die Carbonari (1880), and Der Vagabund (1886). His first major succes

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Karl Michael Ziehrer

Karl Michael Ziehrer

Karl Michael Ziehrer, beloved Viennese composer of waltzes and operettas, was born in Vienna on May 2, 1843. He was completely self-taught in music. In 1863 he formed a café-house orchestra with which he toured Austria and Germany, often featuring his own dance pieces and marches. He later expanded this orchestra into an ensemble numbering fifty players with which he gave a series of successful concerts of semi-classical music in Vienna. In 1907 he became music director of the court balls. After

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Ewen’s LIGHTER CLASSICS IN MUSIC

Ewen’s LIGHTER CLASSICS IN MUSIC

by DAVID EWEN In one brilliant volume, David Ewen offers a classic in musical literature. Here are the treasured semi-classical works of two continents—enduring, always alive—analyzed by a famed authority, acclaimed as “music’s interpreter to the American people.” A must for the music lover THE LIGHTER CLASSICS IN MUSIC is the first reference book of its kind in any language. Here is the music of Victor Herbert, Eric Coates, Jacques Offenbach, Johann Strauss and Franz Lehár. This is the music of

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