Kate Keller's List: Classical Music Through the Ages

• Lists of classical music
   composers by era

  • These are the years that pertain to the various eras of classical music. As instructed you will be constructing a timeline dedicated to the evolution of classical composers/musicians. You will find that the closer you get to this year the more recognizable the names of the composers. Look for the GREEN sticky note on each page for extra facts or ideas for your timeline information.

• William IX

  • Though much information is limited it may be because of this period in time. You may want to find out what a "medieval troubadour really is?
•  medieval troubadour, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine and of Gascony (1086–1127), son of William VIII and grandfather of the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine.
• His fame rests chiefly, however, on his being the first poet in the Provençal language whose works have come down to us. His chansons, or songs, are boisterous, amorous, humorous, usually delicate but sometimes coarsely obscene and tend, in the fashion of courtly love, to idolize one’s lady love.

1 more annotation...

• GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT

  • Machaut wrote many compositions in his time. Some were for the church and others secular. His variety of audiences and the style are of great importance to his relevance.
• Guillaume de Machaut, a leading French composer and poet of the 14th century, was born in Rheims and spent the greater part of his life there after earlier employment in the service of John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia.
• Machaut’s best-known composition is his Messe de Notre Dame (‘Mass of Our Lady’), an early example of a cyclic setting of the liturgical text, in which the sections are musically related. His Hoquetus David makes similar use of the technique of isorhythm, in which a given basic sequence of notes, derived normally from plainchant, is divided into a repeated rhythmic pattern.
• Machaut was a prolific composer of secular vocal music, in the contemporary metrical and musical forms of lais, virelais, ballades and rondeaux.

2 more annotations...

• John Dunstable

  • Dunstable is credited with a couple things related to his period and time. He was also well educated, especially for this period and time.
• John Dunstable (or Dunstaple) is widely given credit for changing the face of music between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by introducing new, “sweeter” harmonies. 
• Dunstable must have received an impressive education, as he became not only a composer but also a mathematician and astronomer.  Many composers of his day made their living as members of the clergy, but no one knows for certain whether or not this is true of Dunstable.
• If Dunstable did in fact visit France, this would explain how the composer came to be mentioned in French writer Martin le Franc’s poem, Les champions des dames (c. 1440).  Le Franc claimed that Dunstable’s French contemporaries Guillaume Du Fay and Gilles Binchois, “took of the English manner, and followed Dunstable, whereby wondrous pleasure makes their music joyous and famous.”

2 more annotations...

• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

  • Your timeline visitors might be interested in the fact that most of this composers music had lyrics of some kind.
• Born: between February 3, 1525 and February 2, 1526 - probably Palestrina, near Rome, then part of the Papal States, Italy
   Died: February 2, 1594 - Rome, Italy
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous 16^th century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. Palestrina had a vast influence on the development of Roman Catholic church music, and his work can be seen as a summation of Renaissance polyphony.
• Palestrina held positions similar to his Julian Chapel appointment at other chapels and churches in Rome during the next decade (notably St John in Lateran, from 1555 to 1560, and St Maria Maggiore, from 1561-1566). In 1571 he returned to the Julian Chapel, and remained at St Peter's for the rest of his life.
• Palestrina left hundreds of compositions, including 104 masses, 68 offertories, more than 300 motets, at least 72 hymns, 35 magnificats, 11 litanies, 4 or 5 sets of lamentations etc., at least 140 madrigals and 9 organ ricercari (however, recent scholarship has classed these ricercai as of doubtful authorship; Palestrina probably wrote no purely instrumental music).

3 more annotations...

• Schütz, Heinrich (1585–1672)

  • Schutz style of classical music was the beginning of the Baroque Era who's style influenced some of the future greats. You may want to add "who" to your timeline.
• SCHÜTZ, HEINRICH (1585–1672), German composer. Heinrich Schütz was the most important German composer of vocal music in the seventeenth century.
• A student of the Venetian masters Giovanni Gabrieli (1557–1612) and Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), Schütz synthesized Italian and German procedures in an unprecedented manner that was to have a profound influence on the course of German baroque music.
• He was an apt pupil who excelled in languages, and also studied law at the University of Marburg. However, with the landgrave's support, he traveled to Venice to study with Giovanni Gabrieli. Here he received training in Renaissance polyphony as well as the polychoral innovations favored at San Marco, and published a set of five-voice madrigals in 1611.
• In addition to sacred compositions in a variety of genres, including biblical dramas and Latin motets, Schütz composed what is usually regarded as the first German opera, Apollo und Dafne, which has not survived. A second trip to Italy in 1628—and studies with Claudio Monteverdi—introduced Schütz to the most recent Italian innovations in dramatic music, in particular the techniques for expressive solo singing associated with the seconda prattica (second practice). Schütz's first set of Symphonie Sacrae (1629) integrates this revolutionary new approach to text setting with the impressive use of instrumental colors and vocal sonorities gleaned from Gabrieli.
• Although little of Schütz's secular music has survived, he left an impressive body of sacred works in numerous genres that range from sober expressions of Lutheran piety to full-bodied, dramatic manifestations of unmatched sonic splendor. The essence of Schütz's style is an extraordinary synthesis of German and Italian techniques—the grand approach of Gabrieli and the expressive text-setting and sense of drama that distinguishes Monteverdi's compositions, combined with the contrapuntal integrity and innate serious tone that was part of Schütz's German training and heritage.

4 more annotations...

• Johann Sebastian Bach

  • Bach was better known for being an exceptional organist than composer when he was younger. 
• Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 - July 28, 1750) is considered by many to have been the greatest composer in the history of western music. Bach's main achievement lies in his synthesis and advanced development of the primary contrapuntal idiom of the late Baroque, and in the basic tunefullness of his thematic material.
• Bach is also known for the numerical symbolism and mathematical exactitude which many people have found in his music – for this, he is often regarded as one of the pinnacle geniuses of western civilization, even by those who are not normally involved with music.
• Bach spent the height of his working life in a Lutheran church position in Leipzig, as both organist and music director. Much of his music is overtly religious, while many of his secular works admit religious interpretations on some levels.
• Apart from 295 cantatas Bach wrote during his lifetime, of which they are numerous favorites, his St. John and St. Matthew Passions are deeply-felt recountings of the gospels which cannot fail to move the listener, while the Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor (BWV 232) demonstrate Bach's ability to deal profoundly with such occasional pieces.

3 more annotations...

• A Biographical Introduction

  • While born a German, Handel spent most of his life in England. Viewers of your timeline would most likely want to know what his most famous composition was and how he ended up in England.
• Born on 23 February 1685 in Halle, Germany, Handel grew up under the watchful eyes of his   parents; while his mother nurtured his musical gifts, his father tried to   dissuade him from pursuing the dubious occupation of a musician.
• By late 1706 he decided to travel independently to Italy, where he composed church, secular and theatre music for illustrious patrons in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice; he also met numerous Italian composers who significantly  influenced his work, such as Arcangelo   Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, his son Domenico Scarlatti, Giacomo Perti, Bernardo Pasquini, Francesco Gasparini, Antonio Caldara and many others.
• However, by the end of the year he had arrived in London, where his opera Rinaldo was premiered in 1711. During the 1710s he settled  permanently in Britain, writing operas for the Queen's Theatre (renamed the King's Theatre in 1714 after the accession of the Elector of Hanover to the British throne), although for a short while he also composed music for the Earl of Carnarvon's country estate Cannons (including the delightful dramatic masque Acis and Galatea). In 1719 Handel became the music director of the newly-founded Royal Academy of Music, a company organsied to establish Italian opera on the London stage; important operas written for this company include Radamisto, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Tamerlano and Rodelinda.
• his   famous oratorio Messiah was enthusiastically received at its  première (Dublin, 1742) whereas it became the subject of great controversy following  its London début a year later.
• He died on 14 April 1759 and was buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey.

4 more annotations...

• Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus

  • Wolfgang was the son of another famous composer, Leopold. They different styles and personalities which clashed over the years. Wolfgang was one of the most prolific composers even though he only lived to the age of 35.
• Born: Salzburg, 27 Jan 1756
   Died: Vienna, 5 Dec 1791
   Nationality: Austrian composer
• He showed musical gifts at a very early age, composing when he was five and when he was six playing before the Bavarian elector and the Austrian empress. Leopold felt that it was proper, and might also be profitable, to exhibit his children's God-given genius (Maria Anna, "Nannerl," 1751-1829, was a gifted keyboard player): so in mid-1763 the family set out on a tour that took them to Paris and London, visiting numerous courts en route.
• He wanted a post at the imperial court in Vienna, but was content to do freelance work in a city that apparently offered golden opportunities. He made his living over the ensuing years by teaching, by publishing his music, by playing at patrons' houses or in public, by composing to commission (particularly operas); in 1787 he obtained a minor court post as "Kammermusicus," which gave him a reasonable salary and required nothing beyond the writing of dance music for court balls. He always earned, by musicians standards, a good income, and had a carriage and servants; through lavish spending and poor management he suffered times of financial difficulty and had to borrow.

2 more annotations...

• Ludwig  van Beethoven

  • Beethoven's most famous composition can best be described as da-da-da-dun, his 5th symphony. He did a great deal in redefining the design of musical presentation. Your timeline viewer may be know about his becoming deaf, but there is other unusual behavior that you can add.
• Ludwig  van Beethoven was born in December 1770. He was a serious little  fellow, fascinated by music.
• Vienna  was Europe's cultural capital. When Ludwig was 17-years-old he  made his first trip to this city. He went to study Classical music with Franz Joseph Haydn. While in Vienna, Beethoven played the piano for Mozart. Mozart told him, "You will make a big noise in the world".
• Beethoven was kindhearted however,  and he helped raise money for Johann Sebastian Bach's only surviving child, who was living in poverty. He donated new compositions  for a benefit concert in aid of Ursuline nuns.
• At  only 28 years old, just before writing his very first symphony,  Beethoven began to lose his hearing. He tried every treatment  he could find to fix this problem. Sometimes he could hear just  fine. The last 10 years of Beethoven's life, he heard nothing.  Beethoven sadly and bitterly mourned the loss of his hearing.
• In his rooms sat 4 pianos without legs and piles of manuscripts  that no one was allowed to touch.. To feel the vibrations better,  Beethoven composed music seated on the floor at a legless piano.
• Beethoven's  Romantic symphonies pushed back all Classical confines. They  became large, epic structures that passionately told a story.  Instead of the 3 movements of the Classical symphony, that lasted  only 10-12 minutes, Ludwig's symphonies were bolder, had more  instruments, more emotion and lasted longer. His Third Symphony  lasts about 50 minutes. The Ninth Symphony lasts well over 60  minutes.

• Late  in the afternoon on March 26, 1827, Ludwig lay ill  in his bed. A storm was forming outside. The sky  darkened. Lightning lit up Beethoven's room and a  loud thunder-clap filled the air. Beethoven opened  his eyes, raised his fist, and fell back dead.

     

  Ludwig  van Beethoven's funeral was enormous. 20,000 people  lined the streets of Vienna on March 29, 1827. Soldiers  were needed to control the grief stricken crowds.  Nine priests blessed his body. He was buried in a  grave marked by a simple pyramid that held one word,  "Beethoven".

6 more annotations...

•    
  
      <!-- top right box -->     Birth: October 27, 1782 in Genoa, Italy

  • Known mainly for his violin playing, Paganini was also a wonder composer that specialized in pieces that featured the violin.
• Paganini, Niccolò, legendary Italian violinist; b. Genoa, Oct. 27, 1782; d. Nice, May 27, 1840.
• His first documented public appearance took place at the church of S. Filippo Neri on May 26, 1794. It was about this time that he was indelibly impressed by the Franco-Polish violin virtuoso Auguste Frédéric Durand (later billed as Duranowski), who was a brilliant showman.
• He came to national prominence in 1813 with a series of sensationally successful concerts in Milan. He subsequently toured throughout Italy, his renown growing from year to year and his vast technical resources maturing and augmenting such that he easily displaced the would-be rivals Lafont in Milan (1816) and Lipinski in Piacenza (1818).
• Paganini's stupendous technique, power, and control, as well as his romantic passion and intense energy, made him the marvel of his time. He also was not above employing certain tricks of virtuosity, such as tuning up the A string of his violin by a semitone or playing the "Witches" Dance" on one string after severing the other 3 on stage, in sight of his audience, with a pair of scissors. He was also a highly effective composer for the violin, and gave regular performances of his works at his concerts with great success.

3 more annotations...

• Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

  • When you hear the word "lullaby" you think of Brahms. Your timeline viewers might be interested in his incorporation of a specific instrument in many of his pieces. It wasn't popular at that time, but has gained importance through time.
• Of all the major composers of the late Romantic era, Brahms was the one most attached to the Classical ideal as manifested in the music of Haydn, Mozart, and especially Beethoven; indeed, Hans von Bülow once characterized Brahms' Symphony No. 1 (1855-1876) as "Beethoven's Tenth."
• Brahms died of liver cancer on April 3, 1897.
• His most ambitious work, the German Requiem (1863-1867), is the composer's singular reinterpretation of an age-old form.
• The four symphonies—lushly scored, grand in scope, and deeply expressive—are cornerstones of the symphonic literature. Brahms' concertos are, similarly, in a monumental, quasi-symphonic vein: the two piano concertos (1856-1859 and 1881) and the Violin Concerto (1878) call for soloists with both considerable technical skill and stamina. His chamber music is among the most sophisticated and exquisitely crafted of the Romantic era; for but a single example, his works that incorporate the clarinet (e.g., the Trio in A minor, Op. 114 and the two Sonatas, Op. 120), an instrument largely overlooked by his contemporaries, remain unsurpassed.

3 more annotations...

• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

  • You may want to look into his ties to New York City for your timeline. Also, your viewer may be interested in which instrument he was most proficient.
• Date of Birth    7 May  1840 , Votkinsk, Vyatka Governorate, Russian Empire [now Votkinsk, Udmurt Republic, Russia]   Date of Death    6 November  1893  , St. Petersburg, Russian Empire [now Russia]   (cholera)
• Tchaikovsky played piano since the age of 5, he also enjoyed his mother's playing and singing. He was a sensitive and emotional child, and became deeply traumatized by the death of his mother of cholera, in 1854. At that time he was sent to a boarding school in St. Petersburg. He graduated from the St. Petersburg School of Law in 1859, then worked for 3 years at the Justice Department of Russian Empire. In 1862-1865 he studied music under Anton Rubinstein at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1866-1878 he was a professor of theory and harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.
• From 1877 to 1890 Tchaikovsky was financially supported by a wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck, who also supported Claude Debussy.
• Tchaikovsky played an important role in the artistic development of Sergei Rachmaninoff. They met in 1886, when Rachmaninov was only 13 years old, and studied the music of Tchaikovsky under the tutelage of their mutual friend, composer Aleksandr Zverev.
• In 1883-1893 Tchaikovsky wrote his best Symphonies No.5 and No.6, ballets 'The Sleeping Beauty' and 'The Nutcracker', operas 'The Queen of Spades' and 'Iolanta'. In 1888-1889, he made a successful conducting tour of Europe, appearing in Prague, Leipzig, Hamburg, Paris, and London. In 1891, he went on a two month tour of America, where he gave concerts in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. In May of 1891 Tchaikovsky was the conductor on the official opening night of Carnegie Hall in New York.

• Trade Mark (4)

   

    Extremely difficult flute orchestral parts (due to his own skill in the instrument)
   

   

    Generous use of stringed instruments
   

   

    Colorful orchestration
   

   

    His music often has a melancholy tone to it

5 more annotations...

• Giacomo Puccini

  • Pavarotti, a famous tenor, made Puccini's composition, Nessun Dorma, very famous. It is considered one of the most performed operatic style pieces for the "common man".
• Giacomo Puccini     Born:1858, Lucca    Died:1924, Brussels    Summary:Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (December 22, 1858 – November 29, 1924) is regarded as one of the great operatic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century. His operas include including Madame Butterfly and La Boheme. 
• Later, he took the position of church organist, but it was not until he saw a performance of Verdi's Aida that he became inspired to be an opera composer.

• From 1880 to 1883 he studied at the Milan Conservatory under Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini. In 1882, Puccini entered a competition for a one-act opera. Although he did not win, Le Villi was later staged in 1884 at the Teatro dal Verme; it also caught the attention of the publisher Giulio Ricordi who commissioned a second opera (Edgar).

  Not only was Manon Lescaut, his third opera, a great success, it also begin his relationship with the librettests Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who worked with him on his next three operas. The first of these, La Bohème (based on a story by Henry Murger), is considered one of his best works, as well as one of the most romantic operas ever composed. His next opera, Tosca, was Puccini's first foray into verismo. Madame Butterfly (based on a play by David Belasco) was greeted with great hostility at its opening (mostly orchestrated by his rivals), but after some reworking it has become another of his most successful operas.

2 more annotations...

• Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • Rachmaninoff was famous for the size of his hands making his piano compositions difficult for others to play as he wrote to his 13 key reach.
• Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the greatest pianists of all time and one of the most outstanding melodists amongst composers, was born at Oneg, near Novgorod, on 20 March 1873 (1 April New Style), into a musical family
• In 1888 Rachmaninoff began to study piano with Siloti himself and composition with Sergei Taneyev and Anton Arensky; he also received advice from Tchaikovsky, who was a friend of Siloti and his former teacher.
• Even before his graduation as a pianist in 1891, Rachmaninoff had composed what was to become his best-known work, the Prelude in C sharp minor.
• In 1904 Rachmaninoff took up a conductor’s post at the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow, stimulating the completion of two further operas, Francesca da Rimini and The Miserly Knight, in 1906.
• After the October Revolution in 1917 Rachmaninoff determined that he and his family would have to leave the country, and he accepted an invitation to perform in Stockholm. The composer, his wife and their two daughters left in December; he was never to return.
• They stayed briefly in Stockholm and Copenhagen, sailing to America in November 1918. There, his concertising increased, reducing his time for composition; he also began a career in the studio, producing recordings that eighty-odd years later are still regarded as some of the most valuable interpretations, of his own and others’ music, ever committed to disc.

5 more annotations...

• Claude Debussy

  • He was famous for a technique that incorporated the use of chromatic scales that were, until this time, rarely incorporated into musical composition.
• Born: St.Germain-en-Laye, August 22, 1862
   Died: Paris, March 25, 1918
• He won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1884, and by 1887 had begun attending the meetings of the Symbolist poets in Montmarte. The credo of the Symbolists was that art should appeal to the senses before the intellect. Debussy also fell under the influence of the French Impressionist painters of the day, in their concentration on color for its own sake and the play of light on sufaces. Both of these schools would become crucial to Debussy's developing musical style.
• Debussy's earliest works are mostly pieces for voice or piano solo, including the very popular piano piece Clair de lune.
• Comprised of three symphonic movements Debussy called "sketches," the work is a musical "impression" (for lack of a better term, and one that Debussy loathed) of the sights and sounds of the ocean.
• Debussy remains well-known for his piano music, and his two books of piano Preludes contain much of his best writing.

4 more annotations...

• Philip Glass

  • Your timeline viewers may find it intriguing that he wrote an opera about a famous cartoonist.

• Born: 1937

  Nationality: American
• Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School.
• By 1974, Glass had a number of innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for The Philip Glass Ensemble, and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts, and the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach for which he collaborated with Robert Wilson.
• His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8—Glass’ latest symphonies—along with Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera based on the book by J.M. Coetzee, premiered in 2005.
• The Perfect American about the death of Walt Disney premiered at the Teatro Real on January 22, Madrid in 2013

4 more annotations...