Adolphe Adam was a famous romantic era composer who was born on July 24, 1803 in Paris, France. He died on May 3, 1856 in his sleep. He became involved in music through his father, Jean-Louis Adam, a skilled concert pianist and a Professor of Pianoforte at the Conservatoire de Paris. This is the same school that Adolphe Adam would later be enrolled in to study the organ and harmonium, although his father disapproved of it. Over the years Adam learned to play the organ, piano, timpani, and harmonium.
In his youth Adam committed himself to secretly studying music, specifically under his friend, the famous composer Ferdinand Herold, despite his father’s wish for him not to make a career out of it. During his time at the Conservatoire de Paris
At the age of 17, Balanchine entered the Conservatory of Music. He studied piano, composition and th...
Liszt’s father, Adam Liszt, was an official in the service of Prince Esterhazy, whose palace in Eisenstadt was frequented by many celebrated musicians. By the time, Franz was five years old; he was already attracted to the piano and was soon given lessons by his father. He began to show interest in both church and Gypsy music. He developed into a religious child, also because of the influence of his father.
Ansel Adams was born on February 20th 1902 in San Francisco CAlifornia . He died April 22nd 1984
(2) Schubert was one of the most prominent composers in the Romantic era. He was the first composer to live off only the money he got from composing. He wrote many compositions during his short lifetime, especially art songs (“OnMusic”).
Schubert's instrumental works show development over a long period of time, but some of his greatest songs were composed before he was 20 years old. In Schubert's songs the literary and musical elements are perfectly balanced, composed on the same intellectual and emotional level. Although Schubert composed strophic songs throughout his career, he did not follow set patterns but exploited bold and free forms when the text demanded it. Except for his early training as a child, Schubert the composer, was largely untrained and self-taught. His gift of being able to create melodies that contained both easy naturalness and sophisticated twists at the same time was unprecedented for his time. On this quality rests the reputation that music history finally gave Schubert.
Parouty, Michel. Mozart From Child Prodigy to Tragic Hero. New York: Discoveries. 1993. pp. 13-127.
Extensive travels around Europe significantly improved his skills as a musician an composer, particularly the years he spent in Italy. He was exposed to the best of oratorio, chamber cantata, opera, and instrum...
Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, born May 17th 1866 to Scottish born Jane Leslie Anton and Norman born Alfred Satie in Honfleur, France. Satie is a well-remembered figure of 20th Century composers and pianist, who had always described himself as “a medieval musician who had wandered by mistake into the 20th Century”(1). Satie had suffered family tragedies in his early childhood losing his mother, Jane, at the age of 6. He was sent to live with his grandparents in 1872, along with his siblings. When he lived with his grandparents he started his musical career. At the age of ten, he had piano lessons from Vinot, local organist from St. Catherine’s church. According to Rollo H. Myers’s book of Erik Satie, there are two prominent figures in Erik’s life, his uncle Adrien who, like his nephew, had an odd character and his first piano teacher Vinot. After his grandmother passed away in 1878, Erik and his brother were sent to live with their father, Alfred Satie, whom one year later, married Mademoiselle Eugénie Barnetsche who was a pianist and teacher. Erik took quite a dislike to his new stepmother when she tried to teach Satie what she believed to be the correct and more traditional way to learn music. This was too strict for Satie. It is clear from this point in his early musical career that Satie was not going to be the traditional composer and wanted to break the traditional learning barriers. He died on the 1st of July 1925 in Arcueil, France from cirrhosis of the liver.
Beethoven born as Ludwig van Beethoven was born 1770 in Bonn, Germany. He was a musical composer of the classical and romantic periods. “He was born into a family of musicians.” (Ludwig). His father, Johann van Beethoven, was an ordinary court singer better known as an alcoholic than anyone with any musical ability (Ludwig). Beethoven 's grandfather was Bonn 's most prosperous and eminent musician. Beethoven childhood was very rough. Beethoven 's father first taught him music using punishment which affected Beethoven forever. He was usually forced, locked in a cellar to for long hours to practice (Ludwig). He studied the violin and clavier as well as taking additional lessons from organists around town. (Ludwig). Despite of the way his father
The concept of the Renaissance man is somewhat of a lost ideal, replaced by the specialized philosophy of the industrial era. From the 14th to 17th centuries; however, it would be common to find a man with a profound knowledge of both the Arts, music, poetry, literature, art, and the Sciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology. The Renaissance man embraced all forms of knowledge, and through a deep passion for both the Arts and Sciences, used each discipline to expand the other. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, this same philosophy is far gone. Where these two fields once were used together to create an ultimate beauty, they are now pitted against each other by many scholars. It is not uncommon now for a mathematician or physicist to dismiss the Arts as a waste of time; or for an artist or musician to proclaim the Sciences as useless to them. As both an avid blues guitarist and an IB math student, I aim to contrast this modern opinion. I will do so by exploring the relationship between the Arts and Sciences; specifically mathematics and music. On a personal level, I find this to be extremely important, as I hold a deep value for all means of human expression and learning. I believe also that the Arts and Sciences hold one great unifying thing together, which is the search for Truth and Beauty. In a modernized world where ideas and creations can be shared so quickly; the potential for a profound knowledge and passion of both these fields has never been greater. Concepts I plan to explore are: how musical scales can be made using Fibonacci ratios, the Golden Ratio’s relationship with music, equal temperament, where else the Fibonacci numbers occur in music, the exponential nature of octaves, and how exposure to music help...
Being “something of an experiment” (Brown, 2007, 465), Gade explores the versatility of the piano as both an accompanying and a solo instrument, as in a symphony versus a concerto. This is echoed in Berlioz’s sentiments that “the piano can be seen in two ways: as an orchestral instrument, or as a complete little orchestra in itself” (Shepherd, 2008, 9).
Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in Vokinsk, Russia. His childhood and teen years are not very well documented and, where he obtained his first musical knowledge is all but a mystery to us. All we know is that he aspired in school to be a lawyer, but Mozart had different plans for him. Reaching out from the grave and through the phonograph by means of his Don Giovani, Mozart captivated young Peter and this is what motivated him to devote his life solely to music. At the age of 23, he entered the Conservatory at St. Petersburg where he became the first Russian to receive systematic training in music fundamentals, which he completed in three years. Following his completion of the course, he began to teach h...
Igor Stravinsky was born near St. Petersburg, Russia into a very musical family. His father was famous for being an operatic bass and his mother was a pianist. Their home was filled with art, literature, and music, and Igor started piano lessons at age nine. But his parents didn’t want him to follow in their footsteps, so they encouraged him to study law, which he did. He went to a university to study, and it was there that he befriended Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, a celebrated composer, who Stravinsky was apprenticed under for three years. After a year and a half of this excellent music instruction, Stravinsky began his first symphony. It was around this time that he graduated from the university and married his cousin, Catherine Nossenko. When he and his wife went to the country that summer, Stravinsky promised Rimsky-Korsakov, his good friend as well as mentor, that he’d send him the finished music of the piece he was working on. A few weeks later, he sent the completed composition, his well-known Firworks, to him. But the parcel was returned with a message: “Not delivered owing to the death of the addressee”. This was a sad time for Stravinsky, but it was also one full of promise, because before his death Rimsky-Korsakov arranged for some of Stravinsky’s music to be performed. In the audience of one of these performances was Sergei Diaghilev, a dire...
and mimicked his sister during her lessons. His ability to excel in music became apparent to his
As an adult Mozart his career was not as successful as when he was younger. But he kept on composing anyway hoping one people would appreciate his work. He lived in poverty for the great majority of his life. In 1769 he became a concertmaster to the archbishop of Salzburg, which was another one of his jobs that afforded him little financial security. In 1777, he left on another concert tour. But, the courts of Europe ignored Mozart ‘s search for a more beneficial assignment. In 1782 he earned a living by selling compositions, giving public performances, and giving music lessons, which once again was a low paying job. The composer never did find a well paying job. The bizarre thing was is that even that he had ton of trouble finding jobs, he was still considered one of the leading composers of the late 1700s.