Music
Franz Schubert
(1797-1828) was an early Romantic composer from Vienna whose relatively short life largely overlapped with that of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). He wrote over 600 lieder, or German art songs. These lieder include works notable on their own, such as his Op. 1 "Die Erlkönig"; the two song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise; and lieder which he used as the basis for theme and variations movements in other namesake works, such as the "Trout" Quintet (for piano and string quartet, based on his lied "The Trout," or "Die Forelle"). His orchestral output included numerous symphonies, the most well-known of which are No. 8 in B minor, the "Unfinished" (so named because he only ever completed two movements), and No. 9 in C major, known as the "Great C Major" (in part to distinguish it from No. 6, the "Little C Major").
Hector Berlioz
(1803-1869) was the most prominent French composer of the early Romantic. His best-known work, the programmatic Symphonie fantastique (subtitled "An Episode in the Life of an Artist"), was inspired by his obsession with the actress Harriet Smithson, whom he would later marry (and divorce). The work, whose movements include vivid depictions of a "March to the Scaffold" and a "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath," uses a recurring melody known as an idée fixe. His Harold in Italy is a work for solo viola and orchestra, which the composer claimed was inspired in part by Lord Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Harold in Italy was commissioned by Niccolò Paganini, who subsequently abandoned the project because he felt that the viola was not sufficiently showcased, and who never performed the work. His opera Les Troyens (based on the Aeneid), is a massive production that—while never completely performed while he was alive—is now often listed among the greatest operas ever written.
Felix Mendelssohn
(1809-1847) was a German musical prodigy who completed his first symphony when he was only 15 years old. His five completed, published symphonies are numbered for the order in which they were published, not the order in which they were written. His "Italian" (No. 4 in A major) and "Scottish" (No. 3 in A minor) symphonies were inspired by his travels in the namesake countries. His journey through Scotland included a trip to Fingal's Cave, which inspired his "Hebrides" Overture, whose theme he sketched on a postcard to his sister Fanny (who was also a composer). When he was 17 years old, he wrote a concert overture inspired by Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream; many years later, he wrote a complete set of incidental music for the play, including his famous "Wedding March." His non-orchestral music includes eight books of Songs Without Words for solo piano.
Robert Schumann
(1810-1854) was a German composer and music critic who identified and promoted many of the other best-known composers of the 19th century. He edited Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("New Journal for Music") and lauded the music of Frederic Chopin and Johannes Brahms while both were relatively unknown. His early music mainly consisted of works for solo piano, such as Carnaval, which features a musical cryptogram. In 1841, he began to write orchestral music; his four completed symphonies include No. 1 in B-flat major, "Spring," and No. 3 in E-flat major, the "Rhenish." He married Clara Wieck, the daughter of Friedrich Wieck, his piano teacher, and a virtuoso pianist and composer in her own right. He battled mental illness throughout much of his life; he spent the last two years of his life in a mental asylum after attempting and failing to commit suicide.
Franz Liszt
(1811-1886) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer who created a sensation with his performance tours across Europe, spawning a phenomenon that was given the nickname "-omania." Among his innovations in the performance space, he was the first pianist to give solo concert-length recitals, playing entirely from memory. As a composer, he was seen as the head of a more progressive "New German School" of music. His music for the piano includes the notoriously-difficult Transcendental Études and the Hungarian Rhapsodies, which are based on Hungarian folk music. He wrote numerous works inspired by the tale of Faust, including a Faust Symphony and a set of Mephisto Waltzes. He is also generally credited with inventing the orchestral genre of the symphonic poem or tone poem, a form later taken up by Richard Strauss; his own works in this genre include Les préludes.
Giuseppe Verdi
(1813-1901) was one of the most prolific and successful Italian opera composers of the Romantic period, and his operas include some of the most performed works in the repertoire. Aida is the tale of a captive Ethiopian princess (who longs for her homeland in the aria "O patria mia") who falls in love with the Egyptian general Radamès. Rigoletto tells the story of a hunchbacked jester who seeks revenge on the womanizing Duke of Mantua (who sings "La donna è mobile"), but instead ends up causing the death of his own daughter, Gilda. His late operas include two masterpieces based on the works of Shakespeare: Otello and Falstaff, the latter of which was both his last opera and his only successful comedy. His most successful non-operatic work is his Requiem, whose "Dies irae" movement has seen wide use in popular culture.
Richard Wagner
(1813—1883) was the most influential German opera composer of the 19th century. His four-opera Ring Cycle—consisting of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)—tells the story of a magical ring forged by the Nibelung (dwarf) Alberich, which Alberich curses after it is stolen by Odin; the second of these operas includes the orchestral excerpt "Ride of the Valkyries." His other operas include Lohengrin, the tale of a knight who arrives in a boat pulled by a swan, and which includes a "Bridal Chorus" popularly known as "Here Comes the Bride"; and Tristan and Isolde, whose prelude begins with an iconic chord (which has become known as the "Tristan chord") that is often cited as a break with common practice-era harmony. The annual Bayreuth Festival (in Bayreuth, Germany) showcases performances of his works. He was a virulent antisemite; many critics have interpreted Alberich, the villain of the Ring Cycle, as an offensive stereotype of a Jewish person.
Johannas Brahms
(1833-1897) is often described as one of the "Three B's" of classical music, along with J. S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, and his output covered the entire gamut of genres. His Symphony No. 1 in C minor is nicknamed "Beethoven's Tenth" due to the final movement's resemblance to the "Ode to Joy" in Beethoven's Ninth. His Symphony No. 3 in F major is based on a three-note F-A-F motto, representing the phrase "Frei aber froh," or "Free but happy." His Ein deutsches Requiem, or A German Requiem, is a non-liturgical concert work for chorus and orchestra. Brahms was also a prolific composer of chamber music, writing numerous sonatas and trios. His Op. 49 No. 4 "Wiegenlied" is commonly known as "...' Lullaby." During his lifetime, he was often viewed as the head of a more conservative school of music relative to composers like Wagner and Liszt.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(1840-1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic era whose ballets The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty are all among the most performed works in the standard repertoire. Tchaikovsky completed six numbered symphonies and an unnumbered symphony based on Lord Byron's poem Manfred. Although he was not a part of the group of nationalistic Russian composers known as "The Mighty Five," it was Tchaikovsky's correspondence with the Five's leader Mily Balakirev that led to his Romeo and Juliet, an "overture-fantasy" whose love theme has become ubiquitous in popular culture. His 1812 Overture, a programmatic work depicting Napoleon's army being driven out of Russia, quotes the melodies of "God Save the Tsar" and "La Marseillaise," and calls for cannons to be fired in the score. He was gay, and many have speculated that his death shortly after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, the "Pathétique," was effectively suicide.
Antonín Dvořák
(1841-1904) was a Czech composer who, ironically, wrote his two best-known works while living in America. From 1892 to 1895, he was the director of New York's National Conservatory of Music; while living in the U.S., he wrote his Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World") and his "American" String Quartet (No. 12). The "New World" symphony is among the most popular and oft-performed works in the standard repertoire; its Largo second movement begins with an iconic English horn solo that was later adapted into the song "Goin' Home." He claimed that the material of the symphony was inspired by the styles of both African-American and Native American melodies, though all of the actual music is his own. His other works include two sets of Slavonic Dances, which are based on various styles of folk music—but no actual folk melodies—from his native Bohemia, including the dumka and the furiant.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(1872-1958). Best known for reviving the Tudor style and folk traditions in English music, as exemplified in his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1909). He completed nine symphonies, the foremost his Second (London) in 1914; other principal symphonies included the First (Sea), Third (Pastoral) and Seventh (Sinfonia Antarctica). His orchestral work The Lark Ascending was based on a George Meredith poem, while Sir John in Love (1924) was a Shakespearean opera that featured the "Fantasia on Greensleeves." Hugh the Drover and The Pilgrim's Progress are other major of his operas.
Sergei Rachmaninoff
(1873-1943). A highly skilled pianist and conductor, he twice turned down conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He failed to reap the monetary benefits of his early pieces (notably the C-Sharp Minor Prelude of 1892), because he sold them cheaply to a publisher. Treated by hypnosis in 1901, he began a productive period with his Second Piano Concerto and the symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead (1909). He moved to the U.S. in 1917, after the Bolshevik Revolution. There his output decreased, though he did complete the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934.
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951). This Austrian pioneered dodecaphony, or the twelve-tone system, which treated all parts of the chromatic scale equally. His early influences were Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, as evident in his Transfigured Night (1900) for strings. Yet by 1912, with the Sprechstimme (halfway between singing and speaking) piece Pierrot lunaire, he broke from Romanticism and developed expressionist pieces free from key or tone. His students, especially Alban Berg and Anton Webern, further elaborated on his theories. Fleeing Nazi persecution in 1933, he moved from Berlin to Los Angeles, where he completed A Survivor from Warsaw. The first two acts of his unfinished opera, Moses und Aron, are still frequently performed.
Charles Ives
(1874-1954). He learned experimentation from his father George, a local Connecticut businessman and bandleader. He studied music at Yale but found insurance sales more lucrative; his firm of — and Myrick was the largest in New York during the 1910s. Privately, he composed great modern works, including the Second Piano (Concord) Sonata (with movements named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau); and Three Places in New England (1914). His Third Symphony won Ives a Pulitzer Prize in 1947, while his song "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" was based on a Vachel Lindsay poem. Poor health ended both his insurance and music careers by 1930.
Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937). His Basque mother gave him an affinity for Spanish themes, as evident in "Rapsodie espagnole" and his most popular piece, "Bolero" (1928). He produced Pavane for a Dead Princess while a student of Gabriel Fauré, but was frustrated when the French Conservatory overlooked him for the Prix de Rome four times. He completed the ballet Daphnis et Chloé (1912) for Sergei Diaghilev, and followed it with Mother Goose and La Valse. He also re-orchestrated Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. His health declined after a 1932 taxi accident; unsuccessful brain surgery ended his life.
Béla Bartók
(1881-1945). A young girl singing a folk tune to her son in 1904 inspired him to roam the Hungarian countryside with Zoltan Kodály, collecting peasant tunes. This influence permeated his music, including the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) and the ballets The Wooden Prince (1916) and The Miraculous Mandarin (1919). A virtuoso pianist and an innovative composer, he refused to teach composition, contributing to financial problems, especially after he fled Nazi-allied Hungary for the U.S. in 1940. He wrote many prominent instrumental pieces; best known are six string quartets, the educational piano piece Mikrokosmos, and Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936).
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971). He studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and completed two grand ballets for Sergei Diaghilev: The Firebird and Petrushka. His Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring (1913), however, is what inaugurated music's Modern era. A pagan story featuring polytonal music, The Rite of Spring shocked the audience so much that riots ensued, leading him stunned to pursue rational, "neoclassical" music, such as his Symphony of Psalms. In 1940 he moved to Hollywood, where he composed his one full-length opera, The Rake's Progress, with libretto by W. H. Auden. Late in life, he adopted the serialist, twelve-tone style of Anton Webern, producing the abstract ballet Agon (1957).
George Gershwin
(1898-1937). Known at first for producing popular songs and musicals with his older brother Ira, he successfully melded jazz and popular music with classical forms, most famously the Rhapsody in Blue (1924), the Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra (1925), and the folk opera Porgy and Bess (1935), based on a story by DuBose Heyward. His first major hit was 1919's "Swanee," sung by Al Jolson, and his 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He died of a brain tumor at age 38.
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington
(1899-1974) was a pianist and bandleader who wrote and recorded some of the most popular jazz standards of all time. He often collaborated with arranger Billy Strayhorn, who wrote what would become his signature tune, "Take the 'A' Train" (whose title refers to how to travel to Sugar Hill in Harlem). His other compositions that became jazz standards include "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "Mood Indigo," and "Prelude to a Kiss." He also performed and popularized works by his band's members, such as trombonist Juan Tizol's track "Caravan." His work as a composer extended beyond his own concert works: he wrote the score for the 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder.
Aaron Copland
(1900-1990). At first a modernist, he was the first American student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1920s, where he finished his Organ Symphony and Music for the Theater. By the 1930s, he turned to simple themes, especially the American West: El Salón Mexico was followed by the ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring (1944), the last containing the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." His Third Symphony contained his Fanfare for the Common Man, while Lincoln Portrait featured spoken portions of Abraham Lincoln's writings. He wrote several educational books, beginning with 1939's What to Listen For in Music.
Louis Armstrong
(1901-1971) was a renowned cornet and trumpet player, nicknamed "Satchmo" and "Pops." He grew up in New Orleans and is among the best-known performers of the Dixieland style of jazz. He got early experience playing in bands led by Kid Ory and King Oliver before heading up his own group known as the "Hot Five," whose members included both Kid Ory and his then-wife, pianist Lil Hardin —. The Hot Five's recording of the track "Heebie Jeebies" features his scat singing, or singing using random, nonsense syllables. He was a renowned vocalist as well as instrumentalist, with his recordings of the songs "What a Wonderful World" and "Hello, Dolly!" His notable instrumental jazz compositions include "Potato Head Blues."
Dmitri Shostakovich
(1906-1975). His work was emblematic of both the Soviet regime and his attempts to survive under its oppression. His operas, such as The Nose (1928) and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, were well received at first—until Joseph Stalin severely criticized his work in Pravda in 1936. Fearful for his security, he wrote several conciliatory pieces (Fifth, Seventh/Leningrad, and Twelfth Symphonies) in order to get out of trouble. He made enemies, however, with his Thirteenth Symphony ("Babi Yar"). Based on the Yevgeny Yevtushenko poem, Babi Yar condemned anti-Semitism in both Nazi Germany and the USSR.
Benny Goodman
(1909-1986) was a clarinetist nicknamed the "King of Swing" for his association with the style. He made more impact on jazz as a bandleader and performer of the works of others rather than as a composer himself; his orchestra's signature tune was Louis Prima's "Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)," best-known from a 1937 recording featuring an extended drum solo by Gene Krupa. He led his band in a landmark 1938 concert at New York's Carnegie Hall, the first time a jazz band had ever played in the venue; the event was widely seen as "legitimizing" jazz as a genre. He did not limit himself to performing only jazz music: he was the clarinet soloist at the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's work Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, and he commissioned Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto.
Samuel Barber
(1910-1981) was a classicist composer best known for his "Adagio for Strings" (1936), which he adapted from his String Quartet, and which was premiered under the baton of the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini. Other major orchestral works include his Piano Concerto (1962), his ballet score Cave of the Heart (1947) based on the Greek tale of Medea, and his single-movement "First Symphony" (1936, revised 1943). His vocal works include "Dover Beach" (1931) and "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" (1947). For much of his life, he maintained a romantic relationship with the opera composer Gian-Carlo Menotti. His first opera, Vanessa (1958), won the Pulitzer Prize; his second major opera, Antony and Cleopatra (1966), was a flop.
John Cage
(1912-1992). An American student of Arnold Schoenberg, he took avant-garde to a new level, and may be considered a Dada composer because he believed in aleatory, or "chance" music. His Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951) used twelve radios tuned to different stations; the composition depended on what was on the radio at that time. The following year's 4′33″ required a pianist to sit at the piano for that length of time and then close it; audience noise and silence created the music. He also invented the prepared piano, in which screws, wood, rubber bands, and other items are attached to piano strings in order to create a percussion sound.
Benjamin Britten
(1913-1976). Reviver of the opera in the U.K., most notably with Peter Grimes (1945), the story of a fisherman who kills two of his apprentices. He broke through with Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), a tribute to his composition teacher, and wrote incidental music for works by his friend W. H. Auden. With his companion, the tenor Peter Pears, he founded the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and wrote operas such as Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice. His non-operatic works include The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946) and War Requiem (1961), based on the anti-war poems of Wilfred Owen, who was killed during World War I.
Buddy Rich
(1917-1987) was a drummer and big band leader renowned for his near-perfect playing technique. He did not read music; he learned completely by ear. He did not form his own big band until the mid-1960s; prior to this, he played drums for many of jazz's other greats, including Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and Artie Shaw. He often engaged in "drum battles" with other jazz drummers, most notably Gene Krupa and Max Roach; he also appeared on an episode of the TV series The Muppets to engage in a drum battle with Animal. His recordings with his own big band include the 1968 album Mercy, Mercy (whose title is a reference to the Cannonball Adderley hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy") and the 1975 album Big Band Machine, which included a version of the West Side Story melody that was one of his signature pieces.
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie
(1917-1993) was a trumpet player who was a leading figure in the development of bebop. He notably performed using a trumpet whose bell was bent upwards; according to him, his standard trumpet was damaged by someone falling on it in 1953, causing the bell to bend, and he liked the way it changed the instrument's tone. He was also notable for performing with puffed-out cheeks. His composition "Salt Peanuts" features him yelling the title nonsense scat lyrics during the tune. His other bebop compositions that became jazz standards include "A Night in Tunisia" and "Groovin' High." His 1947 work "Manteca," which he co-wrote with percussionist Chano Pozo, was a landmark in Afro-Cuban jazz, the first genre of jazz to integrate Latin rhythms and influences.
Leonard Bernstein
(1918-1990) was a prolific composer and conductor who gave numerous televised "Young People's Concerts" during his eleven-year tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic (1958-1969). His concert works include his Symphony No. 1, "Jeremiah" (1942), and a jazz clarinet concerto premiered by Benny Goodman: "Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs" (1949). He is best known for his works for the stage, which include the musical West Side Story (1957), the ballet Fancy Free (1944), and the operetta Candide (1956; revised 1989). He also composed the score for the 1954 film On the Waterfront.
Charlie Parker
(1920-1955) was an alto saxophone virtuoso who helped develop the jazz style known as bebop, which generally featured a fast tempo, rapid modulations, and thicker chords than the earlier swing style. He was nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird"; although the origins of this nickname are disputed, one popular tale involves him cooking and eating a chicken that had been hit by a bus. He referenced his nickname in the titles of many of his compositions, such as "Ornithology," "Yardbird Suite," and "Bird Gets the Worm." His recording of his composition "Ko-Ko" features Miles Davis on trumpet; his composition "Blues for Alice" features a chord progression that heavily uses ii-V-I progressions and has become known as the Bird blues or the Bird changes. He died at the age of 34 following a long history of drug and alcohol abuse.
Dave Brubeck
(1920-2012) was a pianist whose lengthy career helped define the style of cool jazz. For most of his career, he led the eponymous — Quartet; the quartet's best known lineup, from the late 1950s through the 1960s, included Paul Desmond (sax), Eugene Wright (bass), and Joe Morello (drums). With this lineup, his quartet recorded the landmark 1959 album Time Out, which utilized non-traditional time signatures inspired by the folk music of Eastern Europe and Asia. The album's best-known track is "Take Five," a work in 5/4 time written by Paul Desmond. He continued to explore unusual time signatures on the follow-up albums Time Further Out (1961) and Time Changes (1964). His own notable compositions include "Blue Rondo a la Turk," which subdivides measures of 9/8 time into a "2+2+2+3" grouping.
Charles Mingus
(1922-1979) is arguably the most influential player of the double bass in the history of jazz. His compositions often feature sections of free improvisation, in which the musicians improvise without any planned chord changes or formal structure. His 1959 album — Ah Um includes his work "Fables of Faubus," a protest against Arkansas governor Orval Faubus's resistance to school integration—though Columbia Records refused to allow the lyrics to be included on the album. Mingus's other albums include The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, a single continuous piece originally conceived as a ballet. Near the end of his life, he was diagnosed with ALS, which eventually left him unable to perform in the years before his death.
John Coltrane
(1926-1967) was a saxophonist who was an influential figure in hard bop and modal jazz. He played saxophone on many other musicians's landmark albums; for example, he was the tenor sax player on Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue. His own major albums included Giant Steps, whose title track features chords that move down by major thirds (and which became known as the — changes) and a sax solo that led his playing to be described as "sheets of sound." His quartet, which usually included pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, produced the album My Favorite Things, whose title track is a cover of a song from The Sound of Music. He experienced a religious awakening while overcoming his addiction to heroin; his album A Love Supreme concludes with him "narrating" the words of a devotional poem via his sax playing. Following his death at age 40, he was named a saint of the African Orthodox Church.
Miles Davis
(1926-1991) was a trumpeter who developed or influenced the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, hard bop, electronic jazz, and jazz fusion over his long career. His 1959 modal jazz album Kind of Blue—which he recorded with the members of his First Great Quintet (which generally existed in the later 1950s), including John Coltrane—is widely considered to be the greatest jazz recording of all time. It includes the track "So What." His Second Great Quintet (1960s) featured Herbie Hancock on piano and Wayne Shorter on sax and formed the core of the group that recorded his album In a Silent Way, which marked his first use of electric instruments and first venture into a more rock-and-roll fusion aesthetic. His early career was marked by his struggles with heroin addiction. His other notable albums include Sketches of Spain and Birth of the Cool.
Stephen Sondheim
(1930-2021) was one of the most celebrated lyricists and composers in musical theater. His career included eight Tony Awards. He was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II (of Rodgers and Hammerstein), and was the lyricist for West Side Story, working alongside composer Leonard Bernstein. Musicals for which he was both lyricist and composer include Company (1970), a series of scenes about an unmarried bachelor and his married friends; Sweeney Todd (1979), about a barber's murderous quest for revenge; Into the Woods (1987), a dark mash-up of several fairy tales; and Sunday in the Park with George (1984), which portrays a fictionalized version of the painter Georges Seurat and won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Philip Glass
(1937-present) was a minimalist composer who is best known for his trilogy of "Portrait Operas," which include Einstein on the Beach (1976), Satyagraha (1979), and Akhnaten (1983). Einstein on the Beach is particularly notable for its use of solfege syllables and numbers in place of a standard libretto. His style is heavily influenced by Indian musical traditions, and focuses on additive processes; this focus can be seen in his early minimal works "Strung Out" (1967) and "Music in Fifths" (1969). He is a prolific composer of film scores; his most prominent include his scores for The Truman Show, The Hours, and Notes on a Scandal.
John (Coolidge) Adams
(1947-present) was a minimalist composer whose music, like that of Charles Ives, often features an "American" program. He may be best known for his opera Nixon in China (1987), which dramatizes the 1972 presidential visit and meeting with Mao. His other operas include Doctor Atomic (2005), which is about the Manhattan Project. He composed "On the Transmigration of Souls" (2002) to memorialize the September 11th attacks; that work received the Pulitzer Prize. Other major works for orchestra include Harmonium (1980), Harmonielehre (1985), Shaker Loops (1978), and his Violin Concerto (1993).
Carmen
(Georges Bizet, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, 1875): The title character is a young gypsy who works in a cigarette factory in Seville. She is arrested by the corporal Don José for fighting, but cajoles him into letting her escape. They meet again at an inn where she tempts him into challenging his captain; that treason forces him to join a group of smugglers. In the final act, the ragtag former soldier encounters Carmen at a bullfight where her lover Escamillo is competing (the source of the "Toreador Song") and stabs her. The libretto was based on a novel by Prosper Merimée.
La bohème
(Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, 1896): This opera tells the story of four extremely poor friends who live in the Latin (i.e., Students') Quarter of Paris: Marcello the artist, Rodolfo the poet, Colline the philosopher, and Schaunard the musician. Rodolfo meets the seamstress Mimì who lives next door when her single candle is blown out and needs to be relit. Marcello is still attached to Musetta, who had left him for the rich man Alcindoro. In the final act, Marcello and Rodolfo have separated from their lovers, but cannot stop thinking about them. Musetta bursts into their garret apartment and tells them that Mimi is dying of consumption (tuberculosis); when they reach her, she is already dead. This opera was based on a novel by Henry Murger and, in turn, formed the basis of the hit 1996 musical Rent by Jonathan Larson.
Madama Butterfly
(Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, 1904): The American naval lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton is stationed in Nagasaki where, with the help of the broker Goro, he weds the young girl Cio-Cio-San with a marriage contract with a cancellation clause. He later returns to America, leaving Cio-Cio-San to raise their son "Trouble" (whom she will rename "Joy" upon his return). When Pinkerton and his new American wife Kate do return, Cio-Cio-San gives them her son and stabs herself with her father's dagger. The opera is based on a play by David Belasco.
The Barber of Seville
(Gioacchino Rossini, Cesare Sterbini, 1816): Count Almaviva loves Rosina, the ward of Dr. Bartolo. Figaro (who brags about his wit in "Largo al factotum") promises to help him win the girl. He tries the guise of the poor student Lindoro, a drunken soldier, and then a replacement music teacher, all of which are penetrated by Dr. Bartolo. Eventually they succeed by climbing in with a ladder and bribing the notary who was to marry Rosina to Dr. Bartolo himself. This opera is also based on a work of Pierre de Beaumarchais and is a prequel to The Marriage of Figaro.
William Tell
(Gioacchino Rossini, Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, 1829): The title character is a 14th-century Swiss patriot who wishes to end Austria's domination of his country. In the first act he helps Leuthold, a fugitive, escape the Austrian governor, Gessler. In the third act, Gessler has placed his hat on a pole and ordered the men to bow to it. When the title character refuses, Gessler takes his son, Jemmy, and forces him to shoot an apple off his son's head. He succeeds, but is arrested anyway. In the fourth act, he escapes from the Austrians and his son sets their house on fire as a signal for the Swiss to rise in revolt. The opera was based on a play by Friedrich von Schiller.
Aida
(Giuseppe Verdi, Antonio Ghislanzoni, 1871): The title character is an Ethiopian princess who is held captive in Egypt. She falls in love with the Egyptian general Radamès and convinces him to run away with her; unfortunately, he is caught by the high priest Ramphis and a jealous Egyptian princess, Amneris. Radamès is buried alive, but finds that the title character has snuck into the tomb to join him.
Boris Godunov
(Modest Mussorgsky, 1874): The opera's prologue shows the title character, the chief adviser of Ivan the Terrible, being pressured to assume the throne after Ivan's two children die. In the first act the religious novice Grigori decides that he will impersonate that younger son, Dmitri (the [first] "false Dmitri"), whom, it turns out, the title character had killed. Grigori raises a general revolt and his health falls apart as he is taunted by military defeats and dreams of the murdered tsarevich. The opera ends with the title character dying in front of the assembled boyars (noblemen).
Salome
(Richard Strauss based on the play by Oscar Wilde, 1905): Jokanaan (John the Baptist) is imprisoned in the dungeons of King Herod. Herod's 15-year-old step-daughter becomes obsessed with the prisoner's religious passion and is incensed when he ignores her advances. Later in the evening Herod orders her to dance for him (the "Dance of the Seven Veils"), but she refuses until he promises her "anything she wants." She asks for the head of Jokanaan and eventually receives it, after which a horrified Herod orders her to be killed; his soldiers crush her with their shields.
The Marriage of Figaro
(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo Da Ponte, 1786): The title character and Susanna are servants of Count Almaviva who plan to marry, but this plan is complicated by the older Marcellina who wants to wed the title character, the Count — who has made unwanted advances to Susanna —, and Don Bartolo, who has a loan that the title character has sworn he will repay before he marries. The issues are resolved with a series of complicated schemes that involve impersonating other characters, including the page Cherubino. The opera is based on a comedy by Pierre de Beaumarchais. Be careful: Many of the same characters also appear in The Barber of Seville!
Don Giovanni
(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo Da Ponte, 1787): The title character (the Italian form of "Don Juan") attempts to seduce Donna Anna, but is discovered by her father, the Commendatore, whom he kills in a swordfight. Later in the act, his servant Leporello recounts his master's 2,000-odd conquests in the "Catalogue Aria." Further swordfights and assignations occur prior to the final scene, in which a statue of the Commendatore comes to life, knocks on the door to the room in which the title character is feasting, and then opens a chasm that takes him down to hell.
Sergei Prokofiev
1891-1953). He wrote seven symphonies, of which the First ("Classical," 1917) is the most notable. While in Chicago, he premiered the opera The Love for Three Oranges, based on Italian commedia dell'arte. He moved to Paris in 1922, where he composed works for Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, including The Prodigal Son. In 1936 he returned to the USSR, where he completed the popular children's work Peter and the Wolf and the score for the film Alexander Nevsky. When Stalin denounced him as "decadent," the composer was forced to write obsequious tributes to the premier. He survived Stalin, but only by a few hours; both died on March 5, 1953.
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, "Appassionata," op. 57 (1804-1806)
Again, Beethoven had no hand in the popular title of this sonata: the label was applied by a publisher some years after Beethoven's death. The sonata begins ominously: a theme descends in open octaves to the lowest note of the contemporary piano before rising again in an arpeggio, immediately repeated a minor second higher. The second movement has no stable conclusion, instead directly leading to the third through the use of a diminished seventh chord. The final movement's coda, which itself introduces new thematic material, is one of the most demanding and difficult passages in all of the composer's repertoire.
Wellington's Victory; or, the Battle of Vitoria, op. 91 (1813)
Also commonly known as the "Battle Symphony." This heavily programmatic work was originally written for the panharmonicon, an automated orchestra; Beethoven later revised the work for live performers. The work utilizes several familiar melodies — including "God Save the Queen," "Rule Britannia," and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" — and calls for special effects such as musket fire. The work is generally regarded as one of Beethoven's worst; even the composer himself acknowledged it as being a money-maker rather than serious art. Note that the piece specifically does not depict Wellington's victory over Napoleon at Waterloo.
Missa solemnis (in D major), op. 123 (1819-1823)
Generically, a "missa solemnis" ("solemn mass") is a setting of the Catholic liturgy on a more grand scale than a "missa brevis" ("short mass"). Although it uses the traditional text, Beethoven intended the work for concert performance rather than liturgical use. Beethoven became increasingly fascinated by the fugue during his third stylistic period; his Missa solemnis includes two immense examples that conclude the Gloria and Credo movements. The composer dedicated the work to his patron, the Austrian Archduke Rudolf. The Missa solemnis should not be confused with Beethoven's earlier C major mass, op. 86 (1807).
Requiem: Mozart's Requiem, K. 626
Mozart's last composition; it was anonymously commissioned by the Count von Walsegg. Mozart died before he could finish it; many musicians have completed it, including Mozart's student Franz Xaver Süssmayr, and more recently Richard Maunder and Robert Levin. The scoring is notably for low-timbered instruments, omitting oboes and flutes and substituting basset horns for clarinets. The theme of the "Kyrie" was taken from "And With His Stripes We Are Healed," a chorus from Handel's Messiah. After the dramatic "Dies Irae," the "Tuba Mirum" begins with a trombone solo. The circumstances surrounding Mozart's death remain mysterious, and the (unfounded) rumor that Antonio Salieri murdered him gave rise to the Aleksandr Pushkin play Mozart and Salieri, which in turn inspired a Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov opera and Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, which became an Academy Award-winning film.
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67 (1804-1808)
The iconic opening motif — a descending major third followed by a descending minor third, in a short-short-short-long rhythmic pattern — has become ubiquitous in popular culture, though the claim that it represents "fate knocking at the door" does not come from Beethoven himself. The work's third movement, a scherzo and trio in C minor, ends on a G major chord that proceeds directly into a C major final movement; that finale features one of the first orchestral uses (though not the first orchestral use) of trombones. The Fifth was premiered as part of a concert that also included the premiere of the Sixth Symphony.
The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, K. 620)
The libretto, by Emanuel Schikaneder, who took the role of Papageno at the premier, incorporates many Masonic elements (both Schikaneder and Mozart were Masons). Tamino is saved from a serpent by three maidens of the Queen of the Night, but Papageno, a bird-catcher, claims credit. Both are shown their counterparts — Pamina and Papagena — but must face several trials at the hands of the sorcerer Sarastro, who heads a cult of Isis and Osiris and is assisted by Monostatos, a treacherous Moor. The Queen of the Night, who has two very difficult arias ("O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn" and "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen," the latter of which is often just called "the Queen of the Night's aria"), attempts to stop Tamino and Pamina from joining Sarastro, but is magically exiled with Monostatos.
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, "Emperor," op. 73 (1809-1810)
This concerto, composed near the end of Beethoven's "heroic decade," is the last concerto of any type that he completed. Beethoven defies traditional concerto structure in the opening movement by placing the most significant solo material for the piano at the beginning of the movement, rather than near its end. Beethoven did not give the work its title; it was first dubbed "Emperor" by Johann Cramer, who first published the work in England. The "Emperor," which was premiered by pianist Friedrich Schneider, is the only one of Beethoven's piano concertos that the composer himself never performed publicly.
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, quasi una Fantasia ("Moonlight"), op. 27 No. 2, (1801-1802):
This name was coined several years after the composer's death by Ludwig Rellstab, who commented on the first movement's resemblance to moonlight on Lake Lucerne. Beethoven's score calls for the sustain pedal to be held down through the entirety of the first movement. Often overshadowed by the ubiquitous first movement is the violent third movement, a Presto agitato sonata-allegro form with an extended coda, which on a larger scale serves as a recapitulation for the entire sonata. Beethoven dedicated the sonata to Giulietta Guicciardi, his pupil.
Così fan tutte (roughly, They're All Like That, K. 588)
This opera is, along with The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, one of Mozart's collaborations with Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. The soldiers Guglielmo and Ferrando, who love the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, respectively, brag about the fidelity of their fiancées; in a coffeeshop, Don Alfonso makes a bet that he can make the sisters fall in love with other men in one day. Don Alfonso disguises the two men as Albanians after bribing the sisters' maid Despina; at first they resist (see Fiordiligi's aria "Come Scoglio"), but after Dorabella and Guglielmo trade a medallion and a heart-shaped locket, Fiordiligi is seduced by Ferrando. In the end, the sisters "almost" marry the wrong husbands, and only realize they've been tricked when the two men return to the stage half in disguise, half out.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, "Pastoral", op. 68 (1802-1808):
This symphony is a programmatic depiction of rural scenes; it is the composer's only truly programmatic symphony. The symphony's five movements, rather than the traditional four, each include a short title or description of their content: "Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country" (I), "Scene at the brook" (II), "Happy gathering of country folks" (III), "Thunderstorm" (IV), and "Happy and thankful feelings after the storm" (V). In the score for the second movement, Beethoven explicitly identifies several woodwind motifs as being based on bird calls.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, "Choral", op. 125 (1822-1824)
This symphony marks the first significant use of voices as part of a symphony, though they are only used in the final movement. The opening motif from the first movement reappears in altered form in a second movement scherzo, which itself is followed by a slow third movement that alternates between quadruple and triple time. The massive final movement, whose internal form closely resembles that of the entire symphony, utilizes both Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy" and original texts by Beethoven himself. A typical performance takes approximately 75 minutes; the fourth movement alone takes 25.
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, "Eroica", op. 55 (1803-1804):
This symphony was composed during the first part of his middle stylistic period, often referred to as his "heroic decade." Beethoven may have been influenced in the work's composition by his personal confrontation with his growing deafness. The second movement is a solemn, C minor funeral march, while the finale is a playful set of variations on a melody Beethoven used in several other works. The composer originally intended to title the symphony "Bonaparte"; in a popular but possibly apocryphal story, Beethoven ripped the title page from the score upon hearing that Napoleon had declared himself emperor.
Fidelio, op. 72 (1805; revised 1806 and 1814)
This work is Beethoven's only opera. The libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner, with revisions by Stephan von Breuning and Georg Treitschke. Leonore wishes to rescure her husband Florestan from the prison of the evil Pizarro; to do so, she disguises herself as a boy named Fidelio so that the jailer Rocco will hire her to help him, and thus grant her access to her husband. Beethoven struggled with his opera: he first presented it as a three-act work before cutting it to the present two-act form, and wrote four separate overtures. The opera utilizes some spoken (rather than sung) dialogue, and includes "O what joy," a chorus sung by prisoners.
The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K. 384):
While often called an opera, this work, is, like The Magic Flute, actually a Singspiel with spoken dialogue (as opposed to sung recitatives). The action takes place at the home of the Ottoman Pasha Selim, and the music uses "Janissary" military instruments associated with "Turkish" music. Belmonte is trying to rescue his lover Konstanze from the Seraglio (harem); he is assisted by Pedrillo, his servant, while Osmin works for the Pasha. In the end, the Pasha releases Belmonte and Konstanze, much to Osmin's chagrin. Famous arias include Osmin's "O, wie will ich triumphieren" and Konstanze's incredibly difficult "Martern aller Arten." According to one story, Joseph II accused it of having "too many notes."
L'amour est un oiseau rebelle ("Love is a Rebellious Bird")
is an aria from Act I of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (1875); it is sung by the title character the first time she appears on stage. The aria is in the style of an habanera, a dance developed in Cuba (and whose name refers to the city of Havana), and is often simply known by the name of the dance. Bizet adapted the aria's music from a piece by composer Sebastián Iradier, thinking it was a traditional folk melody rather than an original work. In the aria, Carmen sings that "love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame" to a seductive, chromatically-descending melody, proclaiming "if you don't love me, then I love you" and "if I love you, be on your guard." At the end of the aria, Carmen throws a flower to Don José, who subsequently falls in love with her and eventually kills her.
Summertime
is an aria sung by Clara at the beginning of Act I in George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess (1935). "Summertime," which is the first significant number in the opera, is sung by Clara as a lullaby to her baby. A languid, undulating harmony accompanies Clara, as she sings "Summertime and the livin' is easy / fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high." Clara and her husband Jake die in a hurricane at the end of Act II; in Act III, Bess reprises "Summertime" by singing it to their baby, who is now an orphan. Gershwin wrote "Summertime" in an attempt to capture the feel of a Black spiritual; the piece subsequently became a jazz standard. The lyrics for "Summertime" were written by DuBose Heyward, who also wrote the novel on which the opera is based.
Largo al factotum ("Make way for the factotum [servant] of the city")
is an aria sung by Figaro in Act I of Gioacchino Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville (1816). This is Figaro's first major aria of the opera, and he sings it when he first appears on stage. In it, he describes himself as a "barber of quality," notes that "everyone asks for me," and describes himself as equally skilled with a "young lady" as he is with "razors and combs." Figaro sings this as he is walking along the street; he is subsequently approached by Lindoro—really, Count Almaviva in disguise—who asks for Figaro's help in wooing Rosina, the ward of the elderly Doctor Bartolo. In the oft-parodied, best-known moment of the aria, Figaro repeatedly sings his own name.
Il dolce suono ("The Sweet Sound")
is an aria sung by Lucia in Act III of Gaetano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). In the opera (which is based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott), Lucia and Edgardo love one another; however, due to her brother Enrico's machinations, Lucia is forced to marry Arturo instead. Lucia goes insane and stabs Arturo to death in the bridal chamber. In the aria—which is commonly referred to as Lucia's "mad scene"—Lucia appears covered in Arturo's blood, and hallucinates a scene in which she is marrying Edgardo. Donizetti maximized the eerie nature of the scene by calling for a glass harmonica in the accompaniment. "Il dolce suono" was a signature piece for soprano Joan Sutherland.
Nessun Dorma ("None Shall Sleep")
is an aria sung by Prince Calaf at the beginning of Act III in Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot (1926). The Chinese princess Turandot swears she will only wed any man who can answer her three riddles; she executes any who fail. The disguised Prince Calaf correctly answers Turandot's riddles and poses one of his own: if she can learn his name by sunrise, then she can still execute him. Calaf sings "Nessun Dorma" as all of Turandot's subjects frantically try to discover his name. In the aria, Calaf claims he will only speak his name on the princess's mouth, when he kisses her. The aria ends with three triumphant cries of "Vincerò," or "I will win!" The aria was the signature performance piece of tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who also performed it in concert as part of the "Three Tenors" supergroup.
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen ("Hell's vengeance boils in my heart")
is an aria sung by the Queen of the Night in Act II of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (1791). The aria is commonly known as either just "Der Hölle Rache" or simply as "The Queen of the Night's aria." In the aria, the Queen of the Night gives her daughter, Pamina, a knife, and orders her to assassinate Sarastro; if Pamina does not kill Sarastro, the Queen will disown her. The aria is renowned as one of the most spectacular and most difficult soprano arias in the common repertoire; it requires the singer to not only hit several staccato high Cs in succession, but also for the singer to leap up to the F higher than that. Josepha Hofer, Mozart's sister-in-law, played the Queen at the premiere of The Magic Flute; Mozart wrote "Der Hölle Rache" to showcase her high range.
Vesti la giubba ("Put on the Costume" or "On with the Mottley")
is sung by Canio at the end of Act I of Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci (1892). Canio and his wife Nedda are members of a commedia dell'arte performing troupe; Canio's role is that of Pierrot (the clown), while Nedda's role is that of Colombina, Pierrot's unfaithful wife. At the end of Act I, Canio has discovered that Nedda has been unfaithful in reality; however, they have a performance scheduled, so Canio is faced with the torture of having to dress up as Pierrot and play out humorously, on stage, what is actually happening in his real life. In the aria's signature moment, Canio sings "Laugh, clown, at your broken love!" Enrico Caruso's 1902 recording of the aria became the first record to sell more than one million copies.
News has a kind of mystery
is sung by Richard Nixon in Act I of John Adams's opera Nixon in China (1987). The "News" aria is Nixon's first significant aria, sung after the Spirit of '76 touches down, he exits the plane, and greets Zhou Enlai (stylized as Chou En-lai in the opera's libretto). Nixon marvels at the instantaneous nature of the moment, and of news in general, singing that "when I shook hands with Chou En-lai on this bare field outside Peking, just now, the world was listening." As Chou introduces various officials, Nixon continues to sing about the news, noting "It's prime time in the U.S.A., yesterday night" and that the meeting is being broadcast on all three major U.S. networks. The aria features Adams's signature minimalist style; Nixon at first repeatedly sings the word "news," then repeats the phrase "has a" several times before singing the full sentence.
La donna è mobile ("Woman is fickle")
is sung by the Duke of Mantua in Act III of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto (1851). The aria is a canzone (literally, a song), with verses and a repeating refrain that compares a woman to a "feather in the wind." In Rigoletto, the title hunchbacked court jester swears revenge on the Duke of Mantua after the duke seduces Rigoletto's daughter, Gilda. Rigoletto pays the assassin Sparafucile to kill the duke; however, Gilda—in love with the duke—offers herself to die in the duke's place. The Duke first sings "La donna è mobile" after arriving at Sparafucile's house (having been lured by the promise of sex with Sparafucile's sister). Later, as Rigoletto is dragging the sack with what he thinks is the Duke's dead body, he hears the Duke again singing "La donna è mobile." His daughter—not the duke—is in the sack.
When I am laid in earth (also known as "Dido's Lament")
is the final aria sung by the Carthaginian queen Dido in Act III of Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (1683). Dido, who has fallen in love with the Trojan prince Aeneas, is heartbroken when she learns that he is planning to leave because of what he believes in an order from Mercury. Dido sings this aria as she is dying of grief following Aeneas's departure, after a recitative in which she asks for "Thy hand, Belinda" (her sister and handmaiden). In her aria, she urges "Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate." The aria uses a chromatic "lament bass," a common feature in Baroque opera involving a descent from tonic to dominant in a minor key, first introduced by Claudio Monteverdi.
