19th Century

Muzio Clementi

(1752-1832) English composer, keyboard player, publisher and piano manufacturer of Italian birth. He travelled widely as a pianist, and in 1798 established a music publishing and piano-making firm whose publications included major works by Beethoven. He wrote a large amount of keyboard and chamber music, and two influential didactic works, Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Piano Forte (1801) and the keyboard collection Gradus ad Parnassum (1817-26).

Carl Friedrich Zelter

(1758-1832) German composer and teacher. He became a highly influential figure in the musical life of Berlin, notably as director (from 1800) of the Singakademie, where he promoted Bach's music in particular. He established the Liedertafel in 1809 and an institute of church music in 1822, and was also a prominent teacher. His compositions include some 200 lieder, many to texts by Goethe, and sacred and secular choral music; he also wrote letters and essays on music.

Luigi Cherubini

(1760-1842) French composer of Italian birth. He taught at the Conservatoire and became its director in 1822. He had success with his opéras comiques, such as Lodoïska (1791), Médée (1797) and Les deux journées (1800); his developments included an emphasis on the orchestra and on the emotions of the protagonists. His tragédies lyriques were less popular, and following his appointment as superintendant of the royal chapel in 1814 he concentrated on church music. His Requiem in C minor (1816) was particularly admired by Beethoven.

Étienne-Nicolas Méhul

(1763-1817) French composer. He achieved fame at the end of the eighteenth century with his opéras comiques written in the tradition of Grétry and Dalayrac. After 1800 he had fewer successes, although Joseph (1807) and the serious opera Uthal (1806) were popular, and the latter reveals his innovative approach to orchestration and his pioneering development of the reminiscence motif to suggest psychological currents. In 1793 he joined the Institut National de Musique and began writing (republican) civic pieces, including the Chant du départ (1794). He then turned chiefly to instrumental music; the First Symphony (1809) is comparable to Beethoven's Fifth in terms of rhythmic drive and formal and motivic unity.

Ludwig van Beethoven

(1770-1827) German composer. He began as a successful piano virtuoso and attracted the patronage of the Viennese aristocracy; his early publications include piano trios, sonatas and concertos. In Heiligenstadt in 1802, when he discovered that he was going deaf, he wrote a testament to his brothers in which he described his unhappiness. But he entered a new creative phase, producing the Symphony No. 3, the Eroica (1803), and the first version of his opera Fidelio (as Leonore 1805, rev. 1806, rev. 1814), in which the influence of French revolutionary music and ideals can be seen. His Violin Concerto (1806), Fifth Piano Concerto, the 'Emperor' (1809), Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Symphonies (1808, 1812, 1812) and more chamber works and piano sonatas followed and his position as the leading composer of the time was confirmed. His later music, including the 'Hammerklavier' Sonata (1818), Missa Solemnis (1823), Symphony No. 9 (1824) and String Quartets Opp. 127, 130, 131, 132 (1825-6), considered 'di√cult' by his contemporaries, have since come to be viewed as works of remarkable profundity. Instrumental composers of succeeding generations all to a degree either responded to or reacted against his style and achievement.

Antoine Reicha

(1770-1836) Czech, later French, composer, theorist and teacher. His interest in harmony and composition was encouraged in Vienna by his friendship with Haydn and lessons with Albrechtsberger. He arrived in Paris in 1808, hoping for operatic success, particularly with Sapho (1822), but instead he gained fame as a wind quintet composer, and as a theorist and teacher, as evidenced by his popular Traité de mélodie (1814) and the success of his students, including Baillot, Habeneck and Rode. In 1818 he was appointed professor at the Conservatoire, where Berlioz, Liszt and Franck numbered among his pupils. He wrote further didactic works, including the Traité de haute composition musicale (1824-6).

Ferdinando Paer

(1771-1839) Italian composer. He made his mark as a composer of opera semiseria in Parma and then Vienna (from 1797), Dresden (from 1801) and Paris (from 1807), where he also directed the Théâtre-Italien until 1827. A prolific if conservative composer, with Mayr he dominated Italian opera in the first decade of the nineteenth century. His most successful works include Camilla (1799), Leonora (1804) and Agnese di Fitz-Henry (1809), in which tragic and comic elements appeared side by side, and in which he mingled different aria types and displayed his gifts for instrumentation.

Pierre Baillot

(1771-1842) French violinist and composer. The last representative of the Classical Paris violin school, he founded a professional chamber music series in 1814 and led the Paris Opéra and Chapelle Royale orchestras in the 1820s. His important treatise L'art du violon was published in 1834.

Gaspare Spontini

(1774-1851) Italian composer and conductor. He first gained public attention in Paris under the patronage of Joséphine with the triumphant première of his tragédie lyrique La vestale (1807). Fernand Cortez, a historical pageant intended to glorify Napoleon, failed in its first version (1809), but won a place in the repertory when revised (1817). In 1820 he moved to Berlin, where as Generalmusikdirektor he came into conflict with Weber, and his complex and grand works were superseded by the operas of Rossini and Meyerbeer. His style essentially introduced new Italian and French elements into the traditional framework of French opera.

Ignaz Schuppanzigh

(1776-1830) Austrian violinist and composer. The greatest figure among the original Beethoven quartet players, notably leader of Count Razumovsky's quartet (1808-14), he played in the first performances of Beethoven's works from the 1790s to 1828. He also led orchestral concerts at the Augarten and after a period in St Petersburg (1816-23) became director of the Viennese court opera.

John Field

(1782-1837) Irish composer and pianist. Following a successful continental tour with Clementi in 1802-3 he stayed in Russia where he taught, gave concerts and composed. He was admired for the sensitive style of his playing, as reflected in his seventeen published nocturnes that anticipated in manner and texture Chopin's own pieces in the genre, and influenced Mendelssohn and Liszt. He also wrote rondos, fantasies and variations, and seven piano concertos.

Nicolò Paganini

(1782-1840) Italian violinist and composer. Between 1810 and 1828 he travelled throughout Italy, dazzling audiences and critics with his extraordinary virtuoso performances. His compositions of the period include the bravura variations Le streghe (1813). He then performed in Vienna, Germany, Paris and London, but in 1834 his failing health forced his return to Italy. His techniques, including left-hand pizzicato, double-stop harmonics and 'ricochet' bowings, influenced later violinists such as Bériot and Vieuxtemps. Equally, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann and Berlioz took up his technical challenge in the search for greater expression.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber

(1782-1871) French composer. The foremost composer of opéras comiques in France, he frequently worked with the librettist Scribe; their creations include Fra Diavolo (1830), Le domino noir,(1837), La sirène (1844) and Manon Lescaut (1856), and in 1828 they created the first grand opera, La muette de Portici. His music, influenced by Rossini, is characterised by dance-like rhythms, triadic melodies and adaptations of popular song forms such as the barcarolle. He was director of the Paris Conservatoire from 1842 to 1870.P

Louis Spohr

(1784-1859) Germancomposer,violinistandconductor.A chamber musician at the Brunswick court, he soon became a virtuoso violinist and toured throughout Germany. He took up operatic conducting posts in Vienna and Frankfurt, which coincided with bursts of compositional activity; chamber music and the successful operas Faust (1813) and Zemire und Azor (1819) date from this time. In 1822 he settled as Kapellmeister at Kassel where he had success with Jessonda (1823), the oratorio Die letzten Dinge (1826) and the Symphony No. 4 (1832). He contributed to the cultivation of interest in Bach and Wagner, and was celebrated in England. His style combined Classical forms with freely expressive elements; his four Clarinet Concertos, String Quartets and Octet and Nonet for wind and strings were particularly acclaimed, and his operas anticipate Wagner in their use of leitmotif and through-composition.

Carl Maria von Weber

(1786-1826) German composer. Following some years as a virtuoso pianist, in 1813 he was appointed director of the Prague opera house, where he set about reforming the repertory, placing emphasis on Mozart and contemporary French opera, rather than Italian. In 1817 he was appointed Kapellmeister in Dresden, where he antagonised the court, attempting to develop a national German opera company. The success ofDer Freischütz in Berlin in 1821 was enormous, however, and it was performed throughout Europe. His next operas, Euryanthe (1823) andOberon (1826), did not meet with the same acclaim, and he died in London, shortly after conducting the première of Oberon.

Carl Czerny

(1791-1857) Austrian piano teacher, composer and pianist. He studied with Beethoven, and was drawn to a career as a teacher rather than as a travelling virtuoso; his students included Liszt and Thalberg. He was also a prolific composer, and wrote studies, exercises and treatises, including the School of Practical Composition (1834) and the Complete Theoretical and Practical Piano School (1839).

Eugène Scribe

(1791-1861) French dramatist and librettist. He was celebrated for his well-crafted dramas, which featured contrasting characters, forward-moving action and an artful engagement of the audience. His librettos used similar techniques, blended with Romantic elements of passionate love, religious or social conflict and a historical setting, to create a sequence of scenes and tableaux that built to a huge finale. Although a prolific writer of opéra-comique librettos and ballet scenarios for composers such as Boieldieu, Auber, Adam and Hérold, he is remembered for his contribution to grand opera, in collaboration with Auber (La muette de Portici) and Meyerbeer (Robert le diable,Les Huguenots). He also worked with Bellini, Donizetti, Gounod, O◊enbach and Verdi.

Giacomo Meyerbeer

(1791-1864) German composer. He initially won more success as a pianist than as a composer, but following a tour in Italy, during which he wrote six operas, including Il crociato in Egitto (1824), he gained a reputation rivalling that of Rossini. From 1825 he worked mainly in Paris, where he and the librettist Scribe collaborated on several key grand operas: Robert le diable (1831), Les Huguenots (1836) and Le prophète (1849). He was admired for his sense of historical colour, his innovative and dramatic use of the orchestra and the chorus, and his understanding of the capabilities of his singers.

Gioachino Rossini

(1792-1868) Italian composer. Following a series of commissions for northern Italian opera houses, he gained international recognition with the seriousTancredi and the comic L'italiana in Algeri in 1813, and two years later he was appointed director of the Teatro S Carlo in Naples. There he concentrated on serious opera, including Otello(1816), but continued to write comic works for other opera houses, producing Il barbiere di Siviglia(1816) and La Cenerentola (1817) for Rome. In 1822 he married the singer Isbella Colbran, mistress of the impresario Barbaia, and together they travelled to Vienna, London and Paris, where in 1824 he took on the directorship of the Théâtre-Italien, and composed his final operas for that theatre and for the Opéra. In Guillaume Tell (1829), one of the earliest French grand operas, he combined his Italian musical language with the demands of French opera, including ballet, ensembles and a new dramatic integration. He left Paris to live in Italy, but returned in 1855 and wrote his witty piano and vocal pieces Péchés de vieillesse.

Mason Lowell

(1792-1872) American educator and composer. He pioneered the introduction of music education in American schools and was a reformer of American church music, directing the Boston Handel and Haydn Society in 1827-32. He produced many hymn tunebooks, instruction manuals and church music collections, and his compositions include hymn arrangements such as Olivet ('My faith looks up to thee') and Bethany ('Nearer, my God, to thee').

Ignaz Moscheles

(1794-1870) German pianist, conductor and composer of Czech birth. He travelled through Europe as a performer, settling in London in 1825. There he taught at the Royal Academy, established a series of 'historical soirées', wrote salon music and conducted the Philharmonic Society. In 1832 he conducted the London première of Beethoven's Missa solemnis, and he also translated Schindler's biography of the composer as The Life of Beethoven (1841). In 1846 he was appointed professor at the Leipzig Conservatory. His compositions include piano sonatas that combine Classical balance with a Romantic vitality and drive.

Heinrich Marschner

(1795-1861) German composer. From 1821 he worked as a stage composer and conductor in Dresden, then Leipzig and Hanover. He won early fame with Der Vampyr (1827) and Der Templer und die Jüdin (1829), and with Hans Heiling (1830) was confirmed as the leading German opera composer. He effectively bridged the gap between Weber and Wagner, integrating all elements of theatre and developing leitmotif technique and, with Hiarne (1857-8), through-composition. He also wrote other theatre music, songs and chamber music.

Franz Berwald

(1796-1868) Swedish composer and violinist. His greatest contributions to the repertory are his orchestral works of the 1840s, notably the four symphonies, which exhibit striking harmonic and formal originality, particularly the Symphonie singulière (1845). His chamber works show the influence of Mendelssohn.

Franz Schubert

(1797-1828) Austrian composer. He showed an extraordinary gift as a child, and by 1814 had composed piano pieces and songs, string quartets, his First Symphony and a three-act opera. His output of 1814-15 includes 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' and 'Erlkönig', two more symphonies, three masses and four stage works. He received an appreciative audience and influential contacts at gatherings (later called Schubertiads) of friends who represented the new phenomenon of an educated, musically aware middle class. He wrote more songs, including 'Der Wanderer' and 'Die Forelle', and instrumental pieces such as piano sonatas and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, which began to show increased harmonic subtlety. Despite aristocratic patronage and further introductions and new friendships in 1820-1, financial need and serious illness made this a dark period during which he wrote the epic 'Wanderer' Fantasy for piano, the Eighth Symphony and Die schöne Müllerin. In 1824 he turned to chamberworks, sketched the 'Great' C major Symphony, and entered a more assured phase, producing Winterreise and two piano trios. But he died several months after a large public concert in 1828. He effectively established the German lied as a new art form in the nineteenth century, and his instrumental works found highly original ways of building sonata structures from extended lyrical paragraphs.

Gaetano Donizetti

(1797-1848) Italian composer. His first international success, Anna Bolena (1830), enabled him to move away from Naples, where he had begun his career, and he had further successes notably with Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). He travelled to Paris where La favorite and La fille du régiment (1840) were well received. He was appointed Kapellmeister to the Austrian court, and had further triumphs with Maria di Rohan (Vienna, 1843), Dom Sébastien (Paris, 1843) and Caterina Cornaro (Naples, 1844).

Fromental Halévy

(1799-1862) French composer. His most successful opera was La juive (1835), but his other grand operas, notably La reine de Chypre (1841) and Charles VI (1843) were also popular, as were his opéras comiques, such as L'éclair (1835). His lyrical style was influenced by Rossini and Auber, and his orchestration and evocation of 'local colour' were much admired by contemporaries. His writings include Souvenirs et portraits (1861).

Vincenzo Bellini

(1801-35) Italian composer. He wrote twelve operas, and with Il pirata (1827) began a collaboration with the librettist Felice Romani and the tenor Rubini. His successes include La sonnambula and Norma (both Milan, 1831). He visited London and then moved to Paris, where he was commissioned to write I puritani (1835) for the Opéra. His style is characterised by a close relationship between text and music, long and graceful melodic lines, and cantabile passages in the recitatives.

Adolphe Adam

(1803-56) French composer. He wrote more than eighty stage works, some of which enjoyed lasting success including the opéras comiques Le chalet (1834) and Le postillon de Longjumeau (1836), and the ballet Giselle (1841). He also wrote a large number of arrangements, pot-pourris and songs. His music combines italianate lyricism and grace with a keen sense of drama.

Hector Berlioz

(1803-69) French composer and critic. An admirer of Beethoven and Gluck, he was also inspired by writers and dramatists, notably Shakespeare (in Roméo et Juliette, 1839), Goethe (La damnation de Faust, 1846) and Byron (Harold en Italie, 1834), as well as by events of his own life - the actress Harriet Smithson (who became his wife in 1833) was a source of inspiration for Symphonie fantastique (1830). His pieces frequently combine instrumental and vocal genres, and he was an inspired orchestrator. Frustrated by the lack of recognition for his music in Paris, he was forced to write (wonderfully witty and perceptive) pieces of journalism to support his composing.

Johann Strauss I

(1804-49) Austrian composer-conductor. A violinist in Josef Lanner's dance orchestra, he formed a band in 1825 which became famous for its open-air concerts with original dance music and paraphrases on the symphonic and operatic music of the day. From 1833 he took the band on tour in Europe. His compositions were characterised by an Austrian folk flavour and rhythmic piquancy; they include waltzes, galops, quadrilles, marches (including the Radetzky-Marsch, 1848), polkas and pot-pourris.

Mikhail Glinka

(1804-57) Russian composer. He first gained recognition with his opera Zhizn'za tsarya (A Life for the Tsar) (1836; originally called Ivan Susanin), notable for its quasi-Russian melodies, expressive Russian recitative and use of leitmotif. His next opera Ruslan i Lyudmila (1842) was less successful, but has strikingly original elements which were to inspire the oriental and 'magic' idioms of later Russian composers. Following periods in Paris and then Spain (1844-7) he wrote the inventive orchestral variations Kamarinskaya (1848).

Felix Mendelssohn

(1809-47) German composer. He started composing at an early age, and was inspired by the visitors to his parents' salon (including Hegel and A. B. Marx) as well as the poetry of Goethe's and Schlegel's translations of Shakespeare. These influences can be seen in such works as the String Octet (1825) and the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826). In 1829 he conducted a pioneering performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion in Berlin. Travels to England, Scotland and Italy inspired new works, including The Hebrides Overture (1830) and the Italian Symphony (1833). In Leipzig (1835-45) he conducted the Gewandhaus Orchestra, championing both historical and modern works, and founded the Leipzig Conservatory (1843). His later compositions include the Violin Concerto (1844) and (1846), which he conducted at the Birmingham Festival and in London.

Otto Nicolai

(1810-49) German composer and conductor. He studied with Baini in Rome where he was also organist at the Prussian Embassy chapel (1833-6), but association with the theatre led him to turn to opera composing. He established himself in Trieste and Turin, and was then appointed principal conductor at the Vienna Hofoper (1841-7). He founded the Vienna Philharmonic Concerts in 1848, and in the same year was made opera Kapellmeister in Berlin, where his comic opera (1849) was performed. He also wrote church and orchestral music, and partsongs and choruses.

Frédéric Chopin

(1810-49) Polish composer. He studied in Warsaw, and achieved public and critical acclaim in concert performances in Vienna and Warsaw in 1829-30. But his despair over the political repression in Poland, together with his musical ambition, led him to move to Paris in 1831. There he quickly established himself as a private teacher and salon performer, and, particularly in the years 1838-47, during his romantic affair with George Sand, enjoyed a productive creative period. These years saw the Sonata in B flat minor (1839) and the Barcarolle (1846) as well as many smaller-scale works. He gave few public concerts, although his playing was much admired. His works are often characterised by a simple texture of accompanied melody, in contrast to the spectacular feats of his contemporaries in Paris, including Liszt. But his harmony was innovatory, and he pushed the accepted conventions of dissonance treatment and key relations into new areas.

Robert Schumann

(1810-56) German composer. In 1830 he moved to Leipzig where, four years later, he founded the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik which he wrote for and edited for ten years. His compositions from these years were mainly for the piano, including Carnaval (1835), the Davidsbündlertänze (1837) and Kreisleriana (1838). In 1840, following his marriage to Clara Wieck, he turned to song, writing some of his finest examples of the genre, includingFrauenliebe und -leben and Dichterliebe. The following year he turned to orchestral music, writing his First Symphony; in 1842 he concentrated on chamber music, composing three string quartets; and in 1843 he switched to choral works, setting a part of Goethe's Faust. He also took up a teaching post at the new conservatory. During years of depression, he composed little, but in 1847-8 he wrote his opera Genoveva. In 1850 he was appointed musical director in Düsseldorf, where he wrote his Cello Concerto and Third 'Rhenish' Symphony. In 1854 his health deteriorated, and he ended his years in an asylum.

Félicien David

(1810-76) French composer. During his travels in the Middle East in the 1830s he found musical inspiration in Egypt, and wrote a number of descriptive pieces on exotic themes, such as the ode-symphonie Le désert (1844) and the opéra comique Lalla-Roukh (1862), both of which were admired for their lyricism and orchestration. He was influential on later composers including Gounod, Saint-Saëns and Delibes.

Ferenc Erkel

(1810-93) Hungarian composer, conductor and pianist. He was conductor at the National Theatre, Pest (1838-74) and for the Philharmonic concerts which he founded, and was appointed director of the new National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music in 1875. His extremely successful opera Hunyadi László (1844) combines Italian and Viennese Classical style with Hungarian influences. His other compositions include some early instrumental pieces with Hungarian themes, the popular opera Bánk bán (1861), and the Wagnerian Brankovics György (1868-72), considered his masterpiece during his lifetime.

Franz Liszt

(1811-86) Hungarian composer and pianist. Following tours in Europe as a virtuoso pianist he settled for a while in Paris, where he began a stormy relationship with the Countess Marie d'Agoult. He gave many concerts, maintaining his legendary reputation, and composed works such as the Années de pèlerinage. He travelled as a performer again in 1839-47, and then took up a conducting post at the Weimar court, where he wrote or revised many of his major works, including the symphonic poems (Tasso, 1849; Héroïde, 1850), the Transcendental Studies (1851) and the Faust-Symphonie (1857); conducted new operas by Wagner, Verdi and Berlioz; and became the figurehead of the New German School. In 1861-9 he lived mainly in Rome, writing religious works. His compositional style was characterised by experimentation with large-scale structures and with thematic transformation, and his later works reveal strikingly advanced chromaticism.

Giuseppe Verdi

(1813-1901) Italian composer. His first opera, Oberto(1839), enjoyed some success at its première at Milan, but his career took o◊ with Nabucco (1842). A stream of commissions followed from other Italian cities and from abroad, resulting in thirteen operas in just eight years, including Ernani (1844),Macbeth (1847) and Sti◊elio (1850). His models included late Rossini, Mercadante and Donizetti. His pace of composing then relaxed, and some of his most popular operas date from this period, such as Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853) and La traviatia (1853). In 1853 he went to Paris where Les vêpres siciliennes was premièred with success in 1855. Other popular works followed, includingDon Carlos (1867) for Paris and Aïda (1871) for Cairo. During the next fifteen years he concentrated on revising earlier operas, and produced his Requiem (1874) in honour of the poet Manzoni. His last two operas Otello (1886) andFalsta◊ (1893) were both hailed as brilliant successes. His reputation was strongly linked to ideas about national identity, an association encouraged by Verdi himself.

Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomïzhsky

(1813-69) Russian composer. With Glinka he established a tradition of national opera based on folksong and a concern for dramatic truth; Rusalka (1855) and Kamennïy gost' (The Stone Guest) (1866-9, completed by Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov in 1870) were influential on later composers including Musorgsky. His orchestral works include folksong fantasies such as Baba-Yaga (1862), and his songs range from expressive lyrical romances to powerful dramatic ballads.

Richard Wagner

(1813-83) German composer. His first completed opera,Die Feen, dates from 1833, a time when he was working in the theatre as a chorus-master. Ten years later his reputation was established with the premières of Rienzi (1842) and Der fliegende Holländer (1843) in Dresden, where he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court. He worked on Tannhäuser and Lohengrin (first performed in 1845 and 1850 respectively) and made preliminary drafts for the Ring and Die Meistersinger (first performed in 1876 and 1868), and became involved in the republican movement sweeping Europe in the late 1840s. A warrant for his arrest was issued, and (with Liszt's help) he fled to Zurich where he wrote many of his influential essays, including Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (1849) and Oper und Drama(1850-1). During this time he also finalised the libretto for the Ring and began its composition, and turned to Tristan und Isolde (first performed in 1865), which he hoped would finance the building of his planned new theatre. These years also saw a succession of romantic a◊airs, culminating with his marriage in 1869 to Cosima von Bülow, following the death of his first wife Minna and the annulment of the Bülows' marriage. Meanwhile Wagner had found a patron in Ludwig II of Bavaria, and in 1872 the foundation stone of his new theatre at Bayreuth was laid; four years later the first Bayreuth festivalopened with the first complete performance of theRing. The première of his final drama Parsifal took place in 1882. The influence of his ideas, as well as his music, was such that a journal was devoted to him (the Revue wagnérienne, 1885-8). Even today he remains one of the most discussed, and written- about, composers of all time.

Niels Gade

(1817-90) Danish composer. He went to Leipzig as assistant conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, where he wrote his Third Symphony (1847) and String Octet (1848). In Copenhagen he established a permanent orchestra and choir at the Musical Society, which gave the premières of his Symphonies Nos. 4-8, and his large choral works, including Comala (1846). Although German Romantic (especially Mendelssohnian) style eclipsed the Scandinavian colouring of his early works, he was influential on the next generation of Danish composers.

Charles Gounod

(1818-93) French composer. During his time in Italy (1839-42), after winning the Prix de Rome, he was deeply impressed by the sixteenth-century polyphonic music he heard in the Sistine Chapel, and wrote several Masses; the climax of his liturgical work came in 1855 with the Messe solennelle de Ste Cécile. After the failure of two operas, he had more success with Le médecin malgré lui (1858) and four others: Philémon et Baucis (1860), Faust (1858), Mireille (1864) and Roméo et Juliette (1867). In 1870 he took refuge in England from the Franco-Prussian War, and became the first conductor of the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society (1871), writing many choruses and songs. He also had success with his oratorios for the Birmingham Festival.

Jacques Offenbach

(1819-80) French composer of German origin. He became a theatre conductor in 1850, and finally had his own works performed in 1855. He was one of the leading composers of popular music of the century. His operettas, including Orphée aux enfers (1858), La belle Hélène (1864) and La grande-duchesse de Gérolstein (1867), achieved great success, and his serious opera , completed after his death by Guiraud, dominated the stage in the 1870s. His works were usually satires on contemporary themes, in which the idiom of eighteenth-century comic opera was both fondly recalled and parodied. Their international success helped to establish operetta as a genre, as practised by Strauss, Sullivan and Léhar, which evolved into the twentieth-century musical.

Franz von Suppé

(1819-95) Austrian composer and conductor of Belgian descent. He became Kapellmeister of various theatres in Vienna and wrote a number of stage scores, including incidental music, operettas, opera parodies and operas. The most popular included the operettas Flotte Bursche (1863) and Boccaccio (1879), admired for their fluent and light style.

Clara Schumann

(1819-96) German pianist and composer. She won enormous success as a touring piano virtuoso both before and after she married Robert Schumann in 1840. She was praised for her mastery of a progressive repertory (Chopin, Schumann, Brahms) and for her thoughtful interpretations and singing tone. She taught privately and at the conservatories in Leipzig and Frankfurt. She stopped composing in 1854, the year of Robert's collapse, and went on to prepare a complete edition of his music; she maintained a close relationship with Brahms to the end of her life.

Joachim Raff

(1822-82) German composer and teacher. He worked for Liszt at Weimar (1850-5), and through his encouragement joined the New German School, where he became a friend of Bülow and composed productively. He fused past and present methods, not always successfully, and had a fondness for salon-like music, but his skilfully orchestrated programme symphonies, notably No. 7 'In den Alpen' (1875) and No. 10 'Zur Herbstzeit' (1879) were influential. He was a teacher and administrator at the Hoch Conservatory, Frankfurt, where his pupils included Edward MacDowell.

César Franck

(1822-90) French composer, teacher and organist of Belgian birth. He found his vocation through appointments as an organist in Paris, notably at St Clotilde (1858-) and through teaching. His improvisatory skill attracted notice and led to his first work Six pièces (1862); some ten years later he was appointed organ professor at the Conservatoire. His larger-scale compositions include the oratorio Les béatitudes (1879) and several symphonic poems such as Psyché (1888), but his finest works were smaller-scale pieces such as the Piano Quintet (1879), the Prélude, choral et fugue for piano (1884) and the String Quartet (1889). His style combines late Romantic (Wagnerian) harmony with Baroque-influenced contrapuntal and formal devices.

Édouard Lalo

(1823-92) French composer. In the 1850s he was most interested in playing and composing chamber music, but in the 1870s his Symphonie espagnole (1874) and Violin and Cello Concertos (1877) attracted attention. His ballet score Namouna (1881-2) was popular as a series of orchestral suites, and in 1888 his opera Le roi d'Ys achieved success.

Anton Bruckner

(1824-1896) Austrian composer. During years as a schoolmaster-organist he composed Masses and other sacred works. In 1855 he began counterpoint lessons in Vienna with Sechter, and in the same year was appointed organist at Linz Cathedral. His contact with Wagner's music in 1863 however pointed to new directions, as witnessed in the Masses and First Symphony composed in 1864-8. He travelled to Paris and London as an organ virtuoso and improviser, and back in Vienna concentrated on writing symphonies; however, only No. 7 (1883) enjoyed real success. He was criticised for his Wagnerian leanings, and late in life revised several of his earlier works to meet such criticisms. The epic scale and majestic tone of his symphonies reveal the influences of Beethoven and Schubert as well as of Wagner.

Peter Cornelius

(1824-74) German composer. Although an admirer of Liszt and the New German School, his songs and operas, including Der barbier von Bagdad (1855-58) show his taste for simplicity - and his literary skill. In Vienna he enjoyed productive relationships with Brahms and Tausig, and with Wagner, who summoned him to Munich in 1865 as his private répétiteur and teacher at the Royal School of Music. He wrote poetry and essays defending Wagner and Liszt, and translated vocal works by Berlioz and others.

Bedrich Smetana

(1824-84) Czech composer. He was obliged to teach to earn a living, but in 1856 went to Göteborg, where he was in demand as a pianist and conductor as well as a teacher. Encouraged by Liszt, he composed his first symphonic poems. In 1861 he returned to Prague, where he wanted to play a role in the reawakening of Czech culture that followed the Austrian defeat by Napoleon III at Magenta and Soferino. However it was not until the success of his first opera, Branibori v Cechách (The Brandenburgers in Bohemia) (1866), that his prospects there improved. As principal conductor of the Provisional Theatre (1866-74) he added forty-two operas to the repertory, including his own Dalibor (1868). In addition to further operas, he also wrote an orchestral celebration of his nation, Má vlast (1872-4), and a String Quartet 'Z mého zˇivota' (From my Life) (1876). In 1874 there appeared the first signs of the syphilis that was to result in his deafness, and he ended his life in an asylum. He is usually considered the first major nationalist composer of Bohemia, drawing on his country's legends and scenery with freshness and colour.

Johann Strauss II

(1825-99) Austrian composer-conductor. He directed his own orchestra (1844-9) in rivalry with that of his father; in 1849 the two Strauss orchestras merged. Appointed Vienna's imperial-royal music director for balls (1863-71), and Austria's best- known ambassador, he was acclaimed on his tours in Europe (1856-86) and America (1872). His waltzes resemble his father's in form, but the sections are longer and more organic, the melodies more sweeping and the harmonic and orchestral details richer and more subtle. His most celebrated waltzes include Accellerationen (1860), An der schönen, blauen Donau (1867) and Wein, Weib und Gesang (1869); and the most notable of his seventeen operettas are Die Fledermaus (1874) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885).

Stephen Foster

(1826-64) American composer. He wrote hymns, Sunday school songs and some 200 popular songs (1844-64). These are mainly sentimental pieces such as My Old Kentucky Home (1853) and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair (1854), but his thirty or so minstrel songs are often strongly rhythmic, in black dialect and with a choral refrain and instrumental interlude; they include Oh! Susanna (1848) and Campdown Races (1851).

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

(1829-69) American composer and pianist. He studied in Paris, where the success of his 'Creole' pieces Bamboula (1846-48), La savane (1847-9) and La bananier (1848) earned him fame throughout Europe. He was hailed as the New World's first 'authentic' musical ambassador, and his virtuosity was compared with that of Chopin. He toured in Europe and then in America, and during a period in the Caribbean he wrote some of his finest works, including his First Symphony, 'La nuit des tropiques' (1858-9), and the opera Escenas campestres (1860).

Anton Rubinstein

(1829-94) Russian pianist, composer and teacher. After a cosmopolitan childhood as a virtuoso he enjoyed huge international success, his playing being compared with that of Liszt. In 1859 he founded the Russian Musical Society, and was an influential, though controversial, figure in Russian musical life. He established the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1862 to combat what he perceived to be the amateurishness of the new nationalist movement in music, and his work in education made its mark on musical standards throughout the country. He was also a prolific composer.

Alexander Borodin

(1833-87) Russian composer. An admirer of Mendelssohn and Schumann, he turned towards Russian nationalism through the acquaintance of Balakirev and others, and became one of the 'Mighty Handful'. His works include the First Symphony (1867), V sredney (On the Steppes of Central Asia) (1880) and the opera Knyaz' Igor' (Prince Igor) (1869-87), completed and partly orchestrated after his death by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov.

Johannes Brahms

(1833-97) German composer. Although well known as a pianist, he had trouble initially in gaining recognition as a composer, in part because of his outspoken opposition to the aesthetic principles of Liszt and the New German School (as illustrated in his D minor Piano Concerto, 1861). In 1863 he was appointed director of the Vienna Singakademie, where he concentrated on historical and modern a cappella works, and at the same period met Wagner. He settled permanently in Vienna in 1868. The following year the first complete performance of the German Requiem brought him international acclaim, and in the 1870s he wrote a series of masterpieces, including the closely worked First Symphony (1876), which led him to be hailed as Beethoven's heir, and the Violin Concerto (1878). In 1881 Hans von Bülow became a valued colleague and supporter, and in the 1880s he wrote some inspired chamber works. While adopting (at least on the surface) conventional generic and formal models, his technique of 'developing variation', together with phrase and metrical asymmetries, led Schoenberg to proclaim him 'Brahms the Progressive'.

César Cui

(1835-1918) Russian composer and critic of French descent. he became friendly with the members of the 'Mighty Handful' and advocated nationalist principles in his writings, which include La musique en Russie (1880). His operas reveal the influences of Auber and Meyerbeer, and his piano pieces his fascination with Chopin.

Camille Saint-Saëns

(1835-1921) French composer, pianist and organist. He won early admiration from Gounod, Rossini, Berlioz and Liszt, who hailed him as the world's greatest organist. He was organist at the Madeleine (1857-75) and a teacher at the Ecole Niedermeyer (1861-5), where Fauré was among his pupils. His other activities included organising concerts of Liszt's symphonic poems, reviving interest in older music, writing on musical, scientific and historical topics and travelling widely; in 1871 he co-founded the Société Nationale de Musique. Meanwhile he continued to perform and to compose prolifically. His style was characterised by Classical proportions and clarity, as in his Sonatas for violin and for cello, his Piano Quartet Op. 41 (1875), the Third 'Organ' Symphony (1886) and Piano Concerto No. 4 (1875). He also wrote descriptive and dramatic works, notably four symphonic poems (including Danse macabre, 1874) in a style influenced by Liszt involving thematic transformation, and thirteen operas, including Samson et Dalila (1877). From the 1890s he adopted a more severe, 'Classical' style, which influenced Fauré and Ravel.

Léo Delibes

(1836-91) French composer. He began writing operettas in the style of his teacher Adam, then became chorus master at the Théâtre-Lyrique and Opéra. He then produced the ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876), both appreciated by Tchaikovsky, a serious opera Jean de Nivelle (1880), influenced by Meyerbeer, and Lakmé (1883), admired for its oriental colour and strong characterisation.

Mily Balakirev

(1837-1910) Russian composer. He founded the Free School of Music, and was a mentor for younger composers including Cui, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. From 1862 he began collecting folktunes in the Caucasus, and was an advocate of musical nationalism. His works include the oriental fantasy for piano Islamey (1869), the Symphony in C (1897) and more than forty songs.

Max Bruch

(1838-1920) German composer. He spent time in different parts of Germany and abroad, and in 1891 was finally appointed professor at the Berlin Academy. His secular choral works, such as Frithjof (1864), Das Lied von der Glocke (1879) and Das Feuerkreuz (1889) were particularly admired. His tuneful style had affinities with folk music of various countries, and thus stood in sharp contrast to the progressive tendencies of the New German School. Despite the efforts of Pfitzner, only his violin concertos (1868, 1878, 1891) have remained in the standard repertory.

Georges Bizet

(1838-75) French composer. As a boy he was a brilliant pianist, and showed talent in his early compositions, which included his Symphony in C (1855). Following a period in Italy as a Prix de Rome winner, he concentrated on writing operas. Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La jolie fille de Perth (1867) had only moderate success and Djamileh (1872) was a failure; even Carmen (1875), in which he developed atmosphere, character depiction and local colour to a new level, was condemned at its première.

Modest Musorgsky

(1839-81) Russian composer. In 1857 he met Dargomïzhsky and Cui, and through them Balakirev and Stasov, and persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons. His compositions began to be performed publicly, but following the emancipation of the serfs his family lost much of its wealth and he was obliged to work, notably in government posts. He continued to compose, however, completing his first important orchestral work Ivanova noch'na Lïsoy gore (St John's Night on the Bare Mountain) (1867), and the original version of Boris Godunov (1869), which was not accepted by the Mariinsky Theatre until 1874 (in a revised form). Meanwhile he had begun work on another opera, Khovanshchina (1872-80, incomplete), and written the song cycles Detskaya (The Nursery) (1870) and Bez solntsa (Sunless) (1874), often regarded as the closest music comes to an aesthetic of Realism. Many works were left unfinished at his death, and their editing and posthumous publication (and often their rewriting) was carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Johan Svendsen

(1840-1911) Norwegian composer and conductor. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and his early works include the First Symphony (1865-6, considered strongly national by Grieg) and the String Quintet (1867), which were well received. After periods in Paris and Bayreuth he conducted the Christiania Music Society concerts (1872-7) and composed his most notable works, including the fantasy Romeo og Julie (1876), four Norwegian Rhapsodies (1876) and the Romance for violin and orchestra (1881). From 1883 he was conductor at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. He contributed to the culmination of national Romanticism in Norway - his two symphonies are the earliest by a Norwegian to have won an audience in Norway - though his style was more generally marked by the use of large Classical forms.

Piotr Tchaikovsky

(1840-93) Russian composer. Following studies with Anton Rubinstein, he went to Moscow in 1866, where he was appointed professor at the conservatory, and where he came into contact with Rimsky-Korsakov and his group of young nationalists. He won acclaim for his Second Symphony (1872), which incorporates Ukrainian folktunes, and his First Piano Concerto (1875), dedicated to Bülow. Following a disastrous and short-lived marriage in 1877, he wrote the Fourth Symphony (1878) and Evgeny Onegin (1879), two of his finest works. During a creative trough, troubled by his homosexuality, he resigned from the conservatory, and spent some time abroad. In 1884 he wrote his Manfred Symphony, and continued to travel and to conduct. The years 1890-92 saw the composition of two ballets, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker and the opera The Queen of Spades. In 1891 he visited America, conducting at the opening night of what was to become Carnegie Hall. Following recognition in France and England, his Sixth Symphony, the 'Pathétique' (1893), was premièred in St Petersburg, nine days before his death.

Antonín Dvorák

(1841-1904) Czech composer. In 1873, after several years of playing the viola in the Provisional Theatre orchestra in Prague, under Wagner and Smetana, he devoted himself to composing. He gained the attention of Brahms who secured the publisher Simrock for some of his works in 1878. Foreign performances of his works became more frequent, notably of the Slavonic Dances (1878, 1886), the Sixth Symphony (1880) and the Stabat mater (1877), and he wrote a number of works for England including The Spectre's Bride (1884) and the Requiem Mass (1890) for the Birmingham Festival. He travelled to Russia, and in 1892 was appointed director of the National Conservatory in New York, where he wrote the Ninth Symphony (1893) and several chamber works including the String Quintet in E flat (1893). Back in Prague his opera Rusalka (1901) enjoyed some success. His works display the various influences of folk musics, Classical composers including Mozart and Beethoven, and Wagner and Brahms.

Emmanuel Chabrier

(1841-94) French composer and pianist. He had a talent for the lyric, the comic and the colourful which is apparent not only in his operas, such as Le roi malgré lui (1887), but in his orchestral rhapsody España (1883) and piano pieces including the Bourrée fantasque (1891), which inspired French composers such as Ravel.

Arthur Sullivan

(1842-1900) English composer. The success of his incidental music for The Tempest (1861) and other early concert works led to festival commissions and conducting posts, which he complemented with work as organist, teacher and song and hymn- tune writer; from 1866 he also started writing comic operas. In part following the success of Trial by Jury (1875), a collaboration with W. S. Gilbert, Richard D'Oyly Carte set up a company to perform their works; with HMS Pinafore (1878) the collaborators became an institution. Their works, including The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers(1889), were from 1881 performed at the Savoy Theatre. Sullivan's eclectic musical style and inventive melodies complemented Gilbert's witty verses and satirical subjects.

Edvard Grieg

(1843-1907) Norwegian composer. As a student at the Leipzig Conservatory he became familiar with early Romantic music, notably that of Schumann, but from the mid-1860s he turned increasingly towards a national, folk-inspired style. He promoted Norwegian music through concerts of his own works, projected a Norwegian Academy of Music and helped found the Christiania Musikforening (1871). He also taught, and toured as a conductor and pianist. His compositions include a Piano Concerto (1868), incidental music to Peer Gynt (1875), the Holberg Suite (1884) and the Haugtussa song cycle (1895). His style was essentially lyrical, but he was also a pioneer in the impressionistic use of harmony and piano sonority, especially in his late songs.

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

(1844-1908) Russian composer. He wrote songs, orchestral works and an opera, Pskovityanka (The Maid of Pskov) (1868-72), before becoming professor at the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1871. He taught himself counterpoint and harmony, conducted at Balakirev's Free School and collected folksongs. He wrote two more operas, and although his composing was interrupted by o√cial duties at the imperial chapel (1883-91), which involved working on the manscripts of Musorgsky and Borodin and advising the publisher Belyayev, he produced such works as the Third Symphony (1886) and Sheherazade (1888). Thereafter he concentrated on writing operas, including Mlada(1892) and Sadko (1898), which are characterised by the musical delineation of the 'real' and 'unreal' in their fairy-tale scenarios.

Pablo Sarasate

(1844-1908) Spanish violinist and composer. From 1859 concert tours made him famous throughout Europe and in North and South America. Beautiful tone and a superb, apparently effortless, technique distinguished his playing. Many composers dedicated works to him, including Bruch, Saint- Saëns, Joachim and Dvorak. His own compositions were chiefly virtuoso violin works, notably Zigeunerweisen (1878) and the four books of Spanische Tänze (1878-82).

Gabriel Fauré

(1845-1924) French composer and teacher. He trained at the Ecole Niedermeyer, coming under the influence of Saint-Saëns and his circle while working as a church musician and giving lessons. In 1896 he was appointed chief organist at the Madeleine and composition teacher at the Conservatoire. He wrote six important song cycles, notably La bonne chanson (1894) and three collections of songs, much chamber music, including the Piano Quintet No. 1 (1895), and some larger-scale pieces including the Requiem (1877).

Hubert Parry

(1848-1918) English composer and teacher. He taught at the Royal College from 1883 (succeeding Grove as director in 1894) and became professor at Oxford in 1900 and president of the Royal Musical Association in 1901. He wrote on the subjects of Bach and the history of musical style. Among his compositions the cantatas Scenes from Prometheus Unbound (1880), Blest Pair of Sirens (1887) andL'allegro ed il penseroso (1890) made an impact for their poetry and Wagnerian language. His anthems and songs, including Jerusalem, show a similar attention to text and graceful lyricism. He helped to revive English musical life of the time.

Henri Duparc

(1848-1933) French composer. He studied with Franck and was influenced by Wagner's use of harmonic structure and chromaticism, as seen in Chanson triste and Soupir (both 1868). However, his poetic awareness gives a unique emotional intensity to pieces such as Le manoir de Rosemonde (1879). He destroyed many of his early works, and had a psychological condition that caused him to give up composing when he was only thirty-six; he left just thirteen mélodies.

Vincent d'Indy

(1851-1931) French composer. He studied with Franck, becoming interested in the standards of German symphonism, and in 1894 founded the Schola Cantorum. He favoured logical construction (notably sonata and variation forms) in his own compositions, and was influenced by Wagnerism (in three Wallenstein overtures, 1873-81) and folksong (Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français for piano and orchestra, 1886). His other works include two more symphonies, three operas (including Fervaal, 1897), and sacred and chamber music.

Charles Villiers Stanford

(1852-1924) British composer and teacher. He was appointed organist at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1873, and professor in 1887; from 1883 he also taught at the Royal College. His compositions, which reveal the influences of his education in Leipzig and Berlin, include much Anglican cathedral music, ten operas and a quantity of choral music and songs (including the partsong 'The Blue Bird'), as well as symphonies, string quartets and piano and organ music.

Ernest Chausson

(1855-99) French composer. Studying with Massenet, he came under the influence of Franck and visited Germany to hear Wagner. He died prematurely in a cycling accident, but his output reflects his growing maturity, from the simplicity of his early songs to a more intense dramatic style in the Poème de l'amour et de la mer (1882-93) and the opera Le roi Arthus (1886-95), and a more melancholy approach in the Poème (1896) for violin and orchestra. From around 1890 his music took a more Classical turn, as he turned towards older Gallic and Italian inspirations including Rameau.

Edward Elgar

(1857-1934) English composer. He first began to establish a reputation with his choral pieces such as The Black Knight (1892) and Caractacus (1898), which although written in the English tradition also reveal the influences of German music (notably of Weber, Schumann, Brahms and Wagner). In the Enigma Variations (1899) a fully formed original style was established, and taken further in the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius (1900); both pieces confirmed his international success. The works that followed similarly combined the qualities of aspiration and nostalgia.

Giacomo Puccini

(1858-1924) Italian composer. His first success came with Le villi (1884), and Ricordi commissioned a second opera, Edgar (1889), which although coolly received confirmed Puccini's relationship with the publishing house. His most successful opera, Manon Lescaut (1893), was followed by La bohème (1896) and Tosca (1900), his first attempt at verismo. These, and the operas that followed, combined his melodic gift and harmonic sensibility with striking orchestration and dramatic skill, and he was perceived as Verdi's successor.

Hugo Wolf

(1860-1903) Austrian composer. His early songs, dating from 1877-8, established the pattern of cyclic mood swings and creativity that was to characterise his career. For three years he wrote music criticism for the Wiener Salonblatt (1884-86), siding with Wagner and against Brahms, while working on Penthesilea (1883-5) and the D minor Quartet (1878-84). In the late 1880s he turned to literature for inspiration, notably in the Eichendorff and Mörike settings of 1889 with which he established a reputation to match that of Schubert or Schumann, strengthened by his acclaimed public performances. In 1895 he composed his only completed (but unsuccessful) opera, Der Corregidor. Two years later he suffered a mental breakdown which led to his terminal illness.

Isaac Albéniz

(1860-1909) Spanish composer and pianist. He studied at Brussels Conservatory and with Liszt, Dukas and d'Indy; other important influences were Pedrell, nineteenth-century salon piano music and contemporary French harmony. Most of his works are for piano solo, including the Suite española (1886), Cantos de España (1896) and Suite Iberia (1906-8), although he also wrote a popular opera, Pepita Jiménez (1896).

Gustav Mahler

(1860-1911) Austrian composer. He was appointed music director at Kassel in 1883, where he composed the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1885). He had a succession of appointments as a conductor at Prague, Leipzig, where he directed the Ring cycle in 1887, establishing his reputation as an interpretative artist, Budapest and Hamburg. Despite his heavy workload and a claustrophobic artistic atmosphere, he returned to composition, completing the Second and Third Symphonies (1894, 1896) and the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1892-98). He then turned his attention to the Vienna Hofoper, and (following his Catholic baptism) was appointed Kapellmeister in 1897. There he brought a stagnating opera house to a position of unrivalled brilliance, surrounded himself with radical young composers and continued to compose further symphonies and songs in an idiom of striking originality. His ironic 'play' on different levels of musical meaning influenced later twentieth-century composers.

Gustave Charpentier

(1860-1956) French composer. During his time in Italy, as a winner of the Prix de Rome (1887), he wrote several orchestral pieces, and began work on his opera Louise (1900), with its then scandalous theme of women's liberation. It anticipated Puccini's verismo works and also recalled elements of Gounod's and Wagner's musical language.

Claude Debussy

(1862-1918) French composer. He studied in Paris, and was influenced by his travels to Rome (1885-7) and Bayreuth (1888, 1889), and by the Javanese music he heard in Paris (1889). Works such as the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire (1889) reveal Wagner's influence. In the G minor String Quartet (1893) he used modality and chromatic symmetries (notably the whole-tone effect) to create a floating harmony which has some analogies with symbolist poets such as Mallarmé (in Prélude à L'après-midi d'un faune, 1894) and Maeterlinck (in Pelleas et Mélisande, 1893-1902). These works, and others such as the three Nocturnes (1899) and La mer (1905), introduce a new fluidity of colour and rhythm often associated in later works with 'exotic' imagery (of Spain, the orient, antiquity etc.).

Pietro Mascagni

(1863-1945) Italian composer. His second opera, Cavalleria rusticana (1890) earned him international acclaim and established the vogue for verismo opera. Later works, including L'amico Fritz (1891) and Iris (1898) achieved more modest success.

Richard Strauss

(1864-1949) German composer. He began composing at an early age, writing his First Symphony in 1880, and in 1885 he succeeded Bülow as principal conductor at Meiningen. He left the following year to travel to Italy, where he composed his first symphonic poem Aus Italien; on his return he was appointed conductor at the Munich Opera (1896). He achieved international success as a composer in 1888 with his Wagner-influenced tone poem Don Juan, and in 1895-9 wrote futher virtuoso orchestral pieces, including Till Eulenspiegel (1895) and Ein Heldenleben (1898). He then concentrated more on conducting, but also produced his first successful opera, Feuersnot (1901). Further operas followed, including Salome (1904), Elektra (1909) and Der Rosenkavalier (1911). He continued to conduct, being appointed joint director of the Vienna Staatsoper in 1919, and he travelled in Europe and North and South America.

Carl Nielsen

(1865-1931) Danish composer. He travelled in Europe (1890-1) before returning to Copenhagen where he played the violin in the Danish court orchestra. In his early compositions, from his Brahmsian First Symphony (1892), he developed an extended tonal style often involving 'directional tonality', and showed a gift for sharp musical characterization in his first opera, Saul and David (1902). He became an international figure, often going abroad to conduct his works, and writing in a variety of genres.

Alexander Glazunov

(1865-1936) Russian composer. He studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and became a member of the circle around the patron Belyayev, who took him to meet Liszt in Weimar. In 1899 he was appointed to the St Petersburg Conservatory, which he directed from 1905 until he left Russia in 1928. His compositions include nine symphonies, seven quartets and the ballet Raymonda (1897), in which he combined Russian and European musical styles.

Ferrucio Busoni

(1866-1924) German-Italian composer and pianist. For much of his life his output consisted mainly of piano and chamber works, including arrangements of Bach (published in seven volumes, 1892-1919). From 1902 he began conducting contemporary music and absorbed broader influences which had an impact on his own compositions, culminating with Doktor Faust (1924).

Erik Satie

(1866-1925) French composer. After studying at the Conservatoire, he wrote the triptychs of Sarabandes (1887), Gymnopédies (1888) and Gnossiennes (1890) in which dissonances are not required to resolve in a traditional manner. In the 1890s he began to frequent Montmartre, playing at the Chat Noir and involving himself with fringe Christian sects; he also met Debussy. Only in about 1911 did his music begin to be noticed widely; the ambitious ballets and cantata of his later years were made possible by Cocteau, who in 1915 saw him as the ideal of the anti-Romantic composer.

Wilhelm Stenhammar

(1871-1927) Swedish composer, pianist and conductor. His earlier compositions, such as his Piano Concerto No. 1 (1893) and concert overture Excelsior! (1896), show the influences of Brahms, Wagner and Liszt. However he began to question Romantic aesthetics, and around the turn of the century he aimed for a more Classical style, based on the study of Beethoven and Renaissance polyphony; he also incorporated Swedish folk material into his music. He held a number of appointments as a conductor, and performed as a piano soloist all over Sweden.

Alexander Scriabin

(1872-1915) Russian composer. After studying at the Moscow Conservatory, his career as a pianist was managed by Belyayev, who arranged his tours and published his works; at this stage they were almost exclusively for solo piano, and strongly influenced by Chopin (including the First Piano Sonata, 1892). In the late 1890s he began to write for orchestra, notably his Piano Concerto (1896) and First Symphony (1900). He moved to Europe where his style became more intensely personal, and from 1905, under the influence of the ideas of Mme Blavatsky, he became interested in mysticism.

Charles-Marie Widor

French organist, composer and teacher. He was organist at St Sulpice, Paris, for more than sixty years (1870-1934) and professor of organ at the Conservatoire, where his pupils included Vierne, Dupré, Honegger and Milhaud. As a performer he was admired for his rhythmic precision and traditional interpretations of Bach. His organ pieces were written to explore the elaborate resources of the grandiose contemporary instruments of Cavaillé-Coll and others. He created the organ symphony in which the organ is a sort of self-contained orchestra; of his ten works in the genre the best known is the Fifth (1880), with its powerful Toccata movement.

Sigismond Thalberg

German/Austrian pianist and composer. He began an international career in 1830, and with Liszt (his rival for a time) was the greatest virtuoso pianist of the period, admired for his brilliant technique and for his expressive, singing style. He mostly played his own music, which included fantasias and variations on opera arias, studies and nocturnes. In the 1850s he travelled to Brazil and the USA.