Great Composers Through History

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Great Composers Through History

• 1685 - 2000

Index
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Index

• 1685 - 1750

1750 - 1825
1825 - 1900
1900 - 2000
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The Baroque Era1685-1750

• Like most other historical titles, the Baroque
  era was given its name by posterity. The name
  Baroque is probably derived from a word meaning
  "irregular pearl", in other words, something that
  was very elaborate but badly misshapen. The name
  was not given out of affection, but out of
  contempt for the style that the next generation
  found badly out of date.
• While certain pieces and certain composers have
  always been popular, the Baroque period in
  general had to wait until the mid 1800s before
  general listening audiences became interested in
  it. This first appreciation of "golden oldies"
  continues through today, as Baroque music remains
  very popular with modern audiences.
• The Baroque musical style is very ornate,
  theatrical, elaborate, grandiose, and
  occasionally pompous. This also is a description
  often applied to Baroque art, painting,
  literature, and architecture. This should suggest
  some kind of a link between all of these and the
  era.
• Who had the gold and the power in the Baroque
  era? It was concentrated in two areas--the Church
  and the monarchy. Don't forget that the period
  ended several decades before the American and
  French revolutions, so the concept of "by the
  people and for the people" was only a faint
  glimmer on the horizon.
• Imagine you were a musician (or other artist)
  wishing to make a living at your craft. You would
  probably gravitate toward the sources that could
  pay you a living wage. Composing for the popular
  audience and musical freelancing were two things
  unknown to Baroque musicians. They operated under
  what is known as the "patronage system". Wealthy
  and powerful patrons (the Church being one of
  them) often retain a group of musicians to
  perform at their beck and call--a trade off of
  flexibility for job security. Most musicians of
  the era worked for patrons.

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• Think about this next idea for a few seconds--if
  you were to write music to please an important,
  powerful, and very rich boss, how would you go
  about it? What style would your work take on?
  While you're thinking about your answer, take a
  look at the ornamented and grandiose work
  produced by Baroque painters, architects,
  craftsmen, etc. and you'll probably come to the
  same conclusion as they did. Music with a
  powerful social message, one that appealed to the
  masses would not be conducive to keeping one's
  job very long.
• Is it any wonder that later eras, whose music
  was written to appeal to the common man, find
  Baroque art to be excessively ornate, pompous,
  and grand?
• Baroque performing ensembles were generally
  small and extensively used the harpsichord,
  recorder, and organ. The music is lavishly
  composed with a great complexity in each musical
  line. Music in general was far more polyphonic
  during this time than in later eras. Melody was
  less important than we are used to.
• Common types of instrumental music found in the
  Baroque era include the fugue, the suite, the
  concerto, and sonatas. Common types of vocal
  music included the opera and the oratorio, which
  was basically an opera with no action or
  staging--the singers stood still. The cantata, a
  smaller scale vocal piece, was very common to
  those who worked for the church.
• A great deal of modern musical theory is based
  on J. S. Bach's music. This means that musically,
  many of the things we do today are based on the
  way he chose to work with them almost 300 years
  ago.
• The modern form of the orchestra began to take
  shape in the Baroque era. Musical notation
  evolved to the point where it became very similar
  to what we use today.
• In Cremona, Italy, the violins being made by the
  Stradivari, Amati, and Guarneri families reached
  a quality that has never been topped--some would
  say has never even been matched.
• The Baroque era represents an age of exploration
  and discovery and what we would call the
  beginning of modern music. Similarly, many other
  non-musical disciplines find the Baroque era to
  be the beginning of their own modern thought,
  among them painting, philosophy, and the
  mathematical theory of probability.
• Among the most important Baroque composers were
  Handel, J.S. Bach, Buxtehude, Lully, Monteverdi,
  Purcell, A. Scarlatti, D. Scarlatti, Corelli,
  Telemann, and Vivaldi. Bach's music and influence
  were so strong that his death date is considered
  to be the end of the Baroque era.

Index
Timeline
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Baroque Era Timeline

• Historical Events
• King James Version of the Bible
• Jamestown founded (1607)
• Reign of Peter the Great
• Pompeii rediscovered
• Louis XIV reigns in France (1643-1715)
• Louis XV reigns in France (1715-1774)

• Musicians
• Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
  
• Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
  
• Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
• Henry Purcell (c. 1659-1695)
  
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
• J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
• G.F. Handel (1685-1759)

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Classical Era1750-1825

• Although the Classical Era lasted for only 75
  years, there was a substantial change in the
  music that was being produced. Classical music
  placed a greater stress on clarity with regard to
  melodic expression and instrumental color.
  Although opera and vocal music (both sacred and
  secular) were still being written, orchestral
  literature was performed on a much broader basis.
  The orchestra gained more color and flexibility
  as clarinets, flutes, oboes, and bassoons became
  permanent members of the orchestra.
• The classical style was dominated by
  homophony , which consisted of a single melodic
  line and an accompaniment. New forms of
  composition were developed to adapt to this
  style. The most important of these forms was the
  sonata. This form continued to change and evolve
  throughout the classical period, and it is
  important to note that the classical sonata was
  very different from the sonatas written by
  Baroque composers.
• The melodies of the Classical era were more
  compact and diatonic. Harmony was less
  structured. It used the tonic, dominant, and
  subdominant chords. In addition, during this
  period, diatonic harmony was more common then
  chromatic. Composers mainly used chords in
  triadic form and occasionally used seventh chords
  in their compositions.
• The four major composers of the Classical era
  were Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, and Beethoven. These
  composers wrote extensively for vocal and
  instrumental mediums.

Index
Timeline
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Classical Era Timeline

• Musicians
• C.P.E. Bach (1714 - 1788)
• Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
• Ludwig van Beethoven
• (1770 - 1827)
• Franz Schubert

• Historical Events
• Declaration of Independence (1776)
• Eli Whitney invents the Cotton Gin (1793)
• Ed Jenner introduces smallpox vaccination (1796)
• Napoleonic Wars (1796-1815)
• A. Volta builds first battery (1800)
• Robert Fulton produces first submarine (1801)
• Thomas Jefferson becomes president (1801)
• Child labor restricted to 12 hours
• Louisiana Purchase (1803)
• Gay-Lussac ascends in a hydrogen-filled balloon
  to 7000 meters
• Apert develops technique for canning food (1809)
• US declares war on Britain (1812)
• Brothers Grimm's "Fairy Tales" (1812)
• Stephenson builds his first steam locomotive
  (1814)
• First gas street lights (1814)
• Laennac invents the stethoscope (1816)
• "Missouri Compromise" (1820)
• Accordian invented (1822)

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The Romantic Era1825-1900

• The Romantic era was a period of great change and
  emancipation. While the Classical era had strict
  laws of balance and restraint, the Romantic era
  moved away from that by allowing artistic
  freedom, experimentation, and creativity. The
  music of this time period was very expressive,
  and
• melody became the dominant feature. Composers
  even used this expressive means to display
  nationalism . This became a driving force in the
  late Romantic period, as composers used elements
  of folk music to express their cultural identity.
• As in any time of change, new musical
  techniques came about to fit in with the current
  trends. Composers began to experiment with length
  of compositions, new harmonies, and tonal
  relationships. Additionally, there was the
  increased use of dissonance and extended use of
  chromaticism . Another important feature of
  Romantic music was the use of color. While new
  instruments were constantly being added to the
  orchestra, composers also tried to get new or
  different sounds out of the instruments already
  in use.
• One of the new forms was the symphonic poem ,
  which was an orchestral work that portrayed a
  story or had some kind of literary or artistic
  background to it. Another was the art song ,
  which was a vocal musical work with tremendous
  emphasis placed on the text or the symbolical
  meanings of words within the text. Likewise,
  opera became increasingly popular, as it
  continued to musically tell a story and to
  express the issues of the day. Some of the themes
  that composers wrote about were the escape from
  political oppression, the fates of national or
  religious groups, and the events which were
  taking place in far off settings or exotic
  climates. This allowed an element of fantasy to
  be used by composers.
• During the Romantic period, the virtuoso began
  to be focused. Exceptionally gifted performers
  -pianists, violinists, and singers -- became
  enormously popular. Liszt, the great Hungarian
  pianist/composer, reportedly played with such
  passion and intensity that women in the audience
  would faint. Most composers were also virtuoso
  performers it was inevitable that the music they
  wrote would be extremely challenging to play.

Index
Timeline
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Romantic Timeline

• Historical Events
• Neipce produces photographs on a metal plate
  (1827)
• Hans Christian Andersen publishes first of his
  tales for children (1835)
• Morse displays his electric telegraph (1837)
• Froebel opens his first kindergarten (1837)
• Thousands of eastern Native Americans are forced
  West (1838)
• First bicycle built (1839)
• Adolphe Sax invents the saxophone (1841)
• Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" (1843)
• Wood pulp paper invented (1844)
• Hunt patents the safety pin (1849)
• Bunsen invents the gas burner (1850)
• Singer devises a continuous stitch sewing machine
  (1850)
• Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by
  Natural Selection" (1859)
• Abraham Lincoln becomes President (1861)
• Civil War (1861 -1865)
• First oil pipeline (1865)

• Musicians
• Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)
• Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849)
• Robert Schuman (1810 - 1886)
• Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)
• Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883)
• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
• Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881)
• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
• Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff (1844 - 1908)
• Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899)
• Saint-Saens

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Romantic Timeline continued

• Alfred Nobel invents dynamite (1866)
• US buys Alaska from Russia
• Remington begins to make typewriters (1873)
• Color photographs invented (1873)
• AG Bell invents the telephone (1876)
• Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
  (1876)
• Edison invents phonograph (1877)
• Hughes invents the microphone (1878)
• Edison invents light bulb (1879)
• First skyscraper built (Chicago 1883)
• Benz builds gasoline engine for motor car (1885)
• First moving picture shows (New York 1890)
• Zipper invented (1891)
• Rontgen discovers X-rays (1895)
• Ramsey discovers helium (1896)
• First magnetic recording of sound (1899)
• Aspirin first manufactured (1899)

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Felix Mendohlssohn1809-1847

• Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn was a famous German
  composer. Born in 1809, Mendelssohn lived a happy
  life from the start. Like other virtuoso
  composers, he was a child genius when it came to
  music. At age nine he gave his first piano
  concert, composed productively from the age of
  ten, and was ready to conduct the Sunday morning
  musicales that were the joy of his youth, by age
  thirteen. At age seventeen, he composed one of
  his well known works, The Midsummer Night's
  Dream. One part of this work was the "Nocturne."
• Inspired by the music of J.S. Bach,
  Mendelssohn arranged for a performance of Bach's
  Passion According to St. Matthew, which had not
  been performed in the eighty years since Bach's
  death. Along with his friend Devrient,
  Mendelssohn raised money, engaged the soloists,
  sold tickets, trained
• the chorus, and played the organ for what were
  three sold out shows. Mendelssohn continually
  promoted J.S. Bach throughout his lifetime and is
  party responsible for the formation of the Bach
  Society.
• Mendehlssohn went on to complete the Scotch
  and Italian Symphonies, and a new piano concerto
  called the Reformation Symphony. One of his most
  famous works is Elijah, an oratorio that he
  composed and conducted. Mendelssohn also composed
  two other well known pieces, Fingals Cave
  Overture and the Wedding March. Later in life he
  became the director of the first German
  Conservatory of Music in Leipzig, where he also
  taught. Mendelhssohn's music is marked by a
  delicacy, sparkle, seamless flow, and clarity.

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Twentieth Century1900-2000

• The years spanning the end of the nineteenth
  century and the earliest part of the twentieth
  were a time of great expansion and development
  of, as well as a dramatic reaction to, the
  prevailing late Romanticism of previous years. In
  music, as in all the arts, expression became
  either overt (as in the early symphonic poems of
  Richard Strauss (1864-1949), the huge symphonies
  of Gustav Mahler, or the operas of Giacomo
  Puccini), or was merely suggested (as in the
  so-called "impressionist" music of Claude
  Debussy. The previous century's tide of
  Nationalism found a twentieth century advocate in
  the Hungarian Béla Bartók.
• It was a time of deepening psychological
  awareness, with the works of both Nietzsche and
  Freud in circulation and the horrors of the
  First World War brought death and destruction to
  the very doorsteps of many people living in
  Europe. Possibly in reaction to such influences,
  the expressionistic music of Arnold Schoenberg
  and his disciples germinated and flourished for a
  time. Experimentation and new systems of writing
  music were attempted by avantgarde composers like
  Edgard Varèse and although none gained
• a foothold with the public, these techniques had
  a profound influence on many of the composers who
  were to follow.
• Twentieth-century music has seen a great coming
  and going of various movements, among them
  post-romanticism, serialism and neoclassicism in
  the earlier years of the century, all of which
  were practiced at one time or another by Russian
  composer Igor Stravinsky. More recently, aleatory
  or "chance" music, neo-romanticism, and
  minimalism have been in vogue by a handful of
  American composers. With the commercial
  dissemination of music through the various media
  providing music as a constant background,
• the general populace has largely dismissed much
  of the music produced using bold, new, or
  experimental styles, preferring to turn to the
  forms and genres (and often the composers) with
  which it is most familiar. Many of the greatest
  and best-known composers of this century,
  including Russian composers Sergei Rachmaninoff,
  Sergei Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich, and
  British composer Benjamin Britten, have been
  those who have written music directly descended
  from the approved models of the past, while
  investing these forms with a style and
  modernistic tone of their own.

Index
Timeline
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20th Century Timeline

• Historical Events
• First flight by Wright brothers (1903)
• First Model-T (1908)
• San Francisco earthquake (1909)
• Titantic sinks (1912)
• Panama Canal opened (1914)
• World War I (1914 -1918)
• Jazz in New Orleans (1915)
• Insulin first given to diabetics (1922)
• Insecticides used for the first time (1924)
• Charles Lindbergh flies across Atlantic (1927)
• First scheduled TV broadcasts (1928)
• Fleming discovers Penicillin (1928)
• Great Depression begins (1929)
• Empire State Building completed (1931)
• Urey discovers Hydrogen (1931)
• Adolph Hitler appointed Chancellor (1933)
• First Freeways (1934)
• Radar device built by Watt (1935)

• Musicians
• Bartok, Bela (1881-1945)
• Britten, Benjamin (1913-1976)
• Bernstein, Leonard (1918-1990)
• Copland, Aaron (1900-1990)
• Gershwin, George (1898-1937)
• Ives, Charles (1874-1954)
• Stravinsky, Igor (1882-1971)
• Vaughn Williams, Ralph (1872-1958)

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George Gershwin1898-1937
American born composer George Gershwin was born
in Brooklyn, New York in 1898. He was a composer
of both pop and concert music. As a child,
Gershwin learned about music by playing the
piano. At age sixteen, he received additional
piano practice at a job where he played popular
song hits all day long. He began to compose and
play some of his original works but was largely
ignored. Eventually, Gershwin took a job as a
rehearsal pianist at a Ziegfeld production. At
this point in his life, he wrote his first
musical comedy, La La Lucille, which turned out
to be a hit. From then on he rapidly turned out
Broadway successes. These were the famous Oh Kay,
Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy, Funny Face, Of
Thee I Sing, Lady Be Good, and George White's
Scandals. These scores contained songs that the
country would grow to love, full of popular music
and touches of early rock and roll. Soon after,
George Gershwin produced another one of his most
famous works, Rhapsody in Blue. This was a jazz
piece written as a form of art. This whole
philosophy was very new to the public, and yet
they instantaneously fell in love with this
piece. It was performed in concerts, broadcast on
radio stations, and recorded and distributed in
high volume, making it a well-known musical
composition throughout the world.
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George Gershwin continued

• After Rhapsody in Blue, he composed two very
  famous compositions, American in Paris and the
  Cuban Overture. Porgy and Bess was George
  Gershwin's last important composition. This was a
  grand opera folk opera written about the African
  American Southern culture. The all-African cast
  was so important that it was hailed as the first
  completely successful and completely American
  opera. It was written so emotionally and
  dramatically that members of the cast could not
  believe that the opera's composer wasn't at least
  partially African American. Porgy and Bess
  exemplified the skill and talent that George
  Gershwin possessed.
• Tragically, Gershwin died at the young age of
  thirty-nine due to a cancerous brain tumor. His
  legacy continued on and Gershwin's music is still
  influential today, making him one of the most
  important composers of the twentieth century.

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J.S. Bach1685-1750

• He was the youngest son of Johann Ambrosius Bach,
  a town musician, from whom he probably learnt the
  violin and the rudiments of musical theory. When
  he was ten he was orphaned and went to live with
  his elder brother Johann Christoph, organist at
  St. Michael's Church, Ohrdruf, who gave him
  lessons in keyboard playing. From 1700 to 1702 he
  attended St. Michael's School in Lüneburg, where
  he sang in the church choir and probably came
  into contact with the organist and composer Georg
  Böhm. He also visited Hamburg to hear J.A.
  Reincken at the organ of St. Catherine's Church.
• After competing unsuccessfully for an organist's
  post in Sangerhausen in 1702, Bach spent the
  spring and summer of 1703 as 'lackey' and
  violinist at the court of Weimar and then took up
  the post of organist at the Neukirche in
  Arnstadt. In June 1707 he moved to St. Blasius,
  Mühlhausen, and four months later married his
  cousin Maria Barbara Bach in nearby Dornheim.
  Bach was appointed organist and chamber musician
  to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar in 1708, and in the
  next nine years he became known as a leading
  organist and composed many of his finest works
  for the instrument. During this time he fathered
  seven children, including Wilhelm Friedemann and
  Carl Philipp Emanuel. When, in 1717, Bach was
  appointed Kapellmeister at Cöthen, he was at
  first refused permission to leave Weimar and was
  allowed to do so only after being held prisoner
  by the duke for almost a month. Bach's new
  employer, Prince Leopold, was a talented musician
  who loved and understood the art. Since the court
  was Calvinist, Bach had no chapel duties and
  instead concentrated on instrumental composition.
  From this period date his violin concertos and
  the six Brandenburg Concertos, as well as
  numerous sonalas, suites and keyboard works,
  including several (e.g. the Inventions and Book I
  of the '48') intended for instruction. In 1720
  Maria Barbara died while Bach was visiting
  Karlsbad with the prince.

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J.S. Bach continued

• In December of the following year Bach married
  Anna Magdalena Wilcke, daughter of a court
  trumpeter at Weissenfels. A week later Prince
  Leopold also married, and his bride's lack of
  interest in the arts led to a decline in the
  support given to music at the Cöthen court. In
  1722 Bach entered his candidature for the
  prestigious post of Director musices at Leipzig
  and Kantor of the Thomasschule there. In April
  1723, after the preferred candidates, Telemann
  and Graupner, had withdrawn, he was offered the
  post and accepted it.
• Bach remained as Thomaskantor in Leipzig for the
  rest of his life, often in conflict with the
  authorities, but a happy family man and a proud
  and caring parent. His duties centred on the
  Sunday and feast day services at the city's two
  main churches, and during his early years in
  Leipzig he composed prodigious quantities of
  church music, including four or five cantata
  cycles, the Magnificat and the St. John and St.
  Matthew Passions. He was by this time renowned as
  a virtuoso organist and in constant demand as a
  teacher and an expert in organ construction and
  design. His fame as a composer gradually spread
  more widely when, from 1726 onwards, he began to
  bring out published editions of some of his
  keyboard and organ music.
• From about 1729 Bach's interest in composing
  church music sharply declined, and most of his
  sacred works after that date, including the b
  Minor Mass and the Christmas Oratorio, consist
  mainly of 'parodies or arrangements of earlier
  music. At the same time he took over the
  direction of the collegium musicum that Telemann
  had founded in Leipzig in 1702 - a mainly amateur
  society which gave regular public concerts. For
  these Bach arranged harpsichord concertos and
  composed several large-scale cantatas, or
  serenatas, to impress the Elector of Saxony, by
  whom he was granted the courtesy title of
  Hofcompositeur in 1736. Among the 13 children
  born to Anna Magdalena at Leipzig was Bach's
  youngest son, Johann Christian, in 1735. In 1744
  Bach's second son, Emanuel, was married, and
  three years later Bach visited the couple and
  their son (his first grandchild) at Potsdam,
  where Emanuel was employed as harpsichordist by
  Frederick the Great. At Potsdam Bach improvised
  on a theme given to him by the king, and this led
  to the composition of the Musical Offering, a
  compendium of fugue, canon, and sonata based on
  the royal theme.

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J.S. Bach continued

• Contrapuntal artifice predominates in the work of
  Bach's last decade, during which his membership
  (from 1747) of Lorenz Mizler's learned Society of
  Musical Sciences profoundly affected his musical
  thinking. The Canonic Variations for organ was
  one of the works Bach presented to the society,
  and the unfinished Art of Fugue may also have
  been intended for distribution among its members.
  
• Bach's eyesight began to deteriorate during his
  last year and in March and April 1750 he was
  twice operated on by the itinerant English
  oculist John Taylor. The operations and the
  treatment that followed them may have hastened
  Bach's death. He took final communion on 22 July
  and died six days later. On 31 July he was buried
  at St. John's cemetery. His widow survived him
  for ten years, dying in poverty in 1760.
• Bach's output embraces practically every musical
  genre of his time except for the dramatic ones of
  opera and oratorio (his three 'oratorios' being
  oratorios only in a special sense). He opened up
  new dimensions in virtually every department of
  creative work to which he turned, in format,
  musical quality and technical demands. As was
  normal at the time, his creative production was
  mostly bound up with the extemal factors of his
  places of work and his employers, but the density
  and complexity of his music are such that
  analysts and commentators have uncovered in it
  layers of religious and numerological
  significance rarely to be found in the music of
  other composers. Many of his contemporaries,
  notably the critic J.A. Scheibe, found his music
  too involved and lacking in immediate melodic
  appeal, but his chorale harmonizations and fugal
  works were soon adopted as models for new
  generations of musicians. The course of Bach's
  musical development was undeflected (though not
  entirely uninfluenced) by the changes in musical
  style taking place around him. Together with his
  great contemporary Handel (whom chance prevented
  his ever meeting), Bach was the last great
  representative of the Baroque era in an age which
  was already rejecting the Baroque aesthetic in
  favour of a new,'enlightened'one.

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G.F. Handel1685-1759

• He was born Georg Friederich Händel, son of a
  barber-surgeon who intended him for the law. At
  first he practiced music clandestinely, but his
  father was encouraged to allow him to study and
  he became a pupil of Zachow, the principal
  organist in Halle. When he was 17 he was
  appointed organist of the Calvinist Cathedral,
  but a year later he left for Hamburg. There he
  played the violin and harpsichord in the opera
  house, where his Almira was given at the
  beginning of 1705, soon followed by his Nero. The
  next year he accepted an invitation to Italy,
  where he spent more than three years, in
  Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice. He had operas
  or other dramatic works given in all these cities
  (oratorios in Rome, including La resurrezione)
  and, writing many Italian cantatas, perfected his
  technique in setting Italian words for the human
  voice. In Rome he also composed some Latin church
  music.
• He left Italy early in 1710 and went to
  Hanover, where he was appointed Kapellmeister to
  the elector. But he at once took leave to take up
  an invitation to London, where his opera Rinaldo
  was produced early in 1711. Back in Hanover, he
  applied for a second leave and returned to London
  in autumn 1712. Four more operas followed in
  1712-15, with mixed success he also wrote music
  for the church and for court and was awarded a
  royal pension. In 1716 he may have visited
  Germany (where possibly he set Brockes's Passion
  text) it was probably the next year that he
  wrote the Water Music to serenade George I at a
  river-party on the Thames. In 1717 he entered the
  service of the Earl of Carnarvon (soon to be Duke
  of Chandos) at Edgware, near London, where he
  wrote 11 anthems and two dramatic works, the
  evergreen Acis and Galatea and Esther, for the
  modest band of singers and players retained
  there.

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20
G.F. Handel continued

• In 1718-19 a group of noblemen tried to put
  Italian opera in London on a firmer footing, and
  launched a company with royal patronage, the
  Royal Academy of Music Handel, appointed musical
  director, went to Germany, visiting Dresden and
  poaching several singers for the Academy, which
  opened in April 1720. Handel's Radamisto was the
  second opera and it inaugurated a noble series
  over the ensuing years including Ottone, Giulio
  Cesare, Rodelinda, Tamerlano and Admeto. Works by
  Bononcini (seen by some as a rival to Handel) and
  others were given too, with success at least
  equal to Handel's, by a company with some of the
  finest singers in Europe, notably the castrato
  Senesino and the soprano Cuzzoni. But public
  support was variable and the financial basis
  insecure, and in 1728 the venture collapsed. The
  previous year Handel, who had been appointed a
  composer to the Chapel Royal in 1723, had
  composed four anthems for the coronation of
  George II and had taken British naturalization.
• Opera remained his central interest, and with
  the Academy impresario, Heidegger, he hired the
  King's Theatre and (after a journey to Italy and
  Germany to engage fresh singers) embarked on a
  five-year series of seasons starting in late
  1729. Success was mixed. In 1732 Esther was given
  at a London musical society by friends of
  Handel's, then by a rival group in public Handel
  prepared to put it on at the King's Theatre, but
  the Bishop of London banned a stage version of a
  biblical work. He then put on Acis, also in
  response to a rival venture. The next summer he
  was invited to Oxford and wrote an oratorio,
  Athalia, for performance at the Sheldonian
  Theatre. Meanwhile, a second opera company
  ('Opera of the Nobility', including Senesino) had
  been set up in competition with Handel's and the
  two competed for audiences over the next four
  seasons before both failed. This period drew from
  Handel, however, such operas as Orlando and two
  with ballet, Ariodante and Alcina, among his
  finest scores.

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21
G.F. Handel continued

• During the rest of the 1730s Handel moved between
  Italian opera and the English forms, oratorio,
  ode and the like, unsure of his future
  commercially and artistically. After a joumey to
  Dublin in 1741-2, where Messiah had its premiere
  (in aid of charities), he put opera behind him
  and for most of the remainder of his life gave
  oratorio performances, mostly at the new Covent
  Garden theatre, usually at or close to the Lent
  season. The Old Testament provided the basis for
  most of them (Samson, Belshazar, Joseph. Joshua,
  Solomon, for example), but he sometimes
  experimented, turning to classical mythology
  (Semele, Hercules) or Christian history
  (Theodora), with little public success. All these
  works, along with such earlier ones as Acis and
  his two Cecilian odes (to Dryden words), were
  performed in concert form in English. At these
  performances he usually played in the interval a
  concerto on the organ (a newly invented musical
  genre) or directed a concerto grosso (his op.6, a
  set of 12, published in 1740, represents his
  finest achievement in the form).
• During his last decade he gave regular
  performances of Messiah, usually with about 16
  singers and an orchestra of about 40, in aid of
  the Foundling Hospital. In 1749 he wrote a suite
  for wind instruments (with optional strings) for
  performance in Green Park to accompany the Royal
  Fireworks celebrating the Peace of
  Aix-la-Chapelle. His last oratorio, composed as
  he grew blind, was Jephtha (1752) The Triumph of
  Time and Truth (1757) is largely composed of
  earlier material. Handel was very economical in
  the re-use of his ideas at many times in his
  life he also drew heavily on the music of others
  (though generally avoiding detection) - such
  'borrowings' may be of anything from a brief
  motif to entire movements, sometimes as they
  stood but more often accommodated to his own
  style.
• Handel died in 1759 and was buried in
  Westminster Abbey, recognized in England and by
  many in Germany as the greatest composer of his
  day. The wide range of expression at his command
  is shown not only in the operas, with their rich
  and varied arias, but also in the form he
  created, the English oratorio, where it is
  applied to the fates of nations as well as
  individuals. He had a vivid sense of drama. But
  above all he had a resource and originality of
  invention, to be seen in the extraordinary
  variety of music in the op.6 concertos, for
  example, in which melodic beauty, boldness and
  humour all play a part, that place him and J.S.
  Bach as the supreme masters of the Baroque era in
  music.

Back to Baroque Timeline
22
Franz Joseph Haydn1732-1809

• Franz Josef Haydn was born on 31 March 1732, in
  Rohrau, a village in Österreich near the border
  of Hungary. He came from peasant folk. His
  father, Mathias Haydn, was a wagoner and parish
  sexton his mother, Elizabeth, was a woman of
  simple tastes and humble origin. Music was an
  instinct with these people. During the evening
  Mathias would play the harp, and Elizabeth would
  sing, as the children sat at their feet and
  listened. Of these younger Haydn's, Franz Josef
  was most keenly affected by the music he heard,
  and most clearly showed aptitude for the art.
  When his father discovered him one day, sitting
  outside the schoolhouse and simulating playing
  the violin by scraping two sticks of wood against
  each other, he determined to give the boy as
  competent a musical training as he could. For
  this purpose, he enlisted the cooperation of his
  kinsman, Johann Mathias Frankh, a choirmaster,
  who was the teach the boy of six the violin and
  harpsichord. Haydn later commented that he
  received "more blows than victuals" from his
  teacher, but Frankh was a competent teacher, and
  in two years the boy was able to enter the choir
  school of St. Stephen's church in Wein.
• At St. Stephen, Haydn was under the tutelage of
  Reutter, the chapel-master, who failed to discern
  any particular talent in the boy. Reutter not
  only neglected Haydn but frequently maltreated
  him. Josef Haydn, however, found musical guidance
  elsewhere. With a few gulden, which he had
  succeeded in saving, he bought several treatises
  on counterpoint and thorough bass, which he
  eventually learned by rote. Thus he acquired
  training in musical theory.

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Franz Joseph Haydn continued

• When Haydn was seventeen years old, his voice
  broke. Being of very little use to the church, he
  was summarily dismissed from the choir-the
  pretext being one of Haydn's practical jokes on a
  fellow pupil. There followed bitter days for
  young Haydn. He was without a home, friends, or
  money. The first night away from the church he
  was forced to sleep in the streets. An
  acquaintance from St. Stephen pitied him and gave
  him temporary lodging. Before long, Haydn
  succeeded in finding a few pupils and a few
  engagements as violinist. Thus he was able to
  subsist. His free moments still belonged to music
  study each evening was spent in the study of the
  sonatas of Philipp Emanuel Bach.
• In a short while, Haydn's fortunes improved. He
  had composed a mass which had attracted some
  notice, bringing the composer several
  commissions. There followed a lucrative post as
  music teacher in the home of an influential
  family in Wein. Then, Haydn became acquainted
  with Michael Porpora-a singer of great
  reputation-who at the time was in the employ of
  the Venezia ambassador to Wein. Porpora engaged
  Haydn as his accompanist, and through this
  engagement Haydn was given an opportunity to meet
  some of the outstanding musicians in Wein at the
  time, including Gluck and von Dittersdorf.
• Haydn composed his first string quartet in 1755
  on the encouragement of a musical amateur, von
  Fürnberg, who conducted chamber music
  performances at his home. This form of
  composition, which he inherited from the hands of
  Boccherini, so intrigued Haydn that for the next
  few months he created one string-quartet after
  another, establishing this form of composition as
  one of the major vehicles for musical expression.
  These quartets delighted von Fürnberg with their
  spontaneity and charm in partial gratitude, he
  enthusiastically recommended the composer to
  Count Morzin as worthy of filling the position of
  chapel master on the Count's private estate in
  Bohemia. Haydn eagerly accepted the position,
  which included salary and board. Here, Haydn
  found the peace, quiet and leisure necessary for
  composition. His pen became increasingly fertile
  and it was here that he composed his first
  symphony.

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Franz Joseph Haydn continued

• At this time, Haydn married Maria Anna Keller,
  daughter of a wigmaker. This was an ill-fated
  marriage. Surly, supremely selfish, extravagant,
  Maria Anna was hardly a suitable wife for Haydn.
  She was little interested in her husband's art,
  frequently using his manuscripts as curling
  papers. There were endless squabbles. The couple
  lived together several unhappy years, then
  separated permanently. Haydn supplied her with a
  generous income until the end of his life.
• Haydn's position at the private home of Count
  Morzin was soon succeeded by an even more
  important post, that of second chapel master to
  Prince Esterhazy of Eisenstadt. Five years later,
  he rose to the rank of First Kapellmeister. For
  twenty-five years he held this post. Here Haydn
  was in charge of the daily concerts. The
  magnificent festivals which regularly took place
  at the palace proved to be colorful backgrounds
  for Haydn's music-making. Dressed in a costume
  which consisted of a bright blue coat decorated
  with silver braid and buttons, white collar and
  cuffs as well as his powdered wig and shining
  pumps, Haydn personally directed the concerts.
  His pen likewise contributed a mountain of
  instrumental music for orchestra and chamber
• groups for these festivities.
• At this time, Haydn became acquainted with
  Mozart. Much to his credit, Haydn recognized
  Mozart's genius as being far superior to his own
  in fact, to anyone. Until the end of Mozart's
  life, Haydn fought vigorously to bring the genius
  to recognition. In 1785, Mozart composed a series
  of six quartets which he affectionately dedicated
  to Haydn. When Haydn heard these quartets, he
  told Mozart's father "I must tell you before
  God, and as an honest man, that your son is the
  greatest composer known to me, either in person
  or by name."
• The death of Prince Esterhazy in 1790 enabled
  Haydn to accept an offer which had been extended
  to him by Johann Peter Salomon, concert-manager
  and violinist-namely, to come to London, direct a
  few concerts, and supply six new symphonies. In
  1791, Haydn visited London for the first time.
  From March until May he directed orchestral
  concerts featuring his new works. His success was
  brilliant. Haydn's music became the conversation
  of the hour, and he himself was the recipient of
  much honour. Oxford bestowed upon him the decree
  of doctorate of music the Prince of Wales
  invited him as a guest to his home.

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Franz Joseph Haydn continued

• Haydn remained in London a year and a half before
  returning to Wein. En route home wards, he
  stopped off at Bonn where he became acquainted
  for the first time with Ludwig van Beethoven
  (then still in his adolescence) who showed him a
  cantata he had recently composed. This work Haydn
  "greatly praised, warmly encouraging the composer
  to proceed with his studies." Later on, in Wein,
  Beethoven became a pupil of Haydn, but their
  relationship was never successful Beethoven was
  far too much the iconoclast, Haydn too much the
  classicist, for these two temperaments to
  harmonize.
• In 1794, Haydn was once again a visitor to
  London, six new symphonies in his bag. Once again
  he was the recipient of great honour. At this
  time, he became a friend of Mrs. Schroeter, to
  whom he became very closely attached. "She was a
  very handsome woman, though over sixty," Haydn
  commented, "and, had I been free, I should
  certainly have married her." Three piano trios
  were dedicated by the composer to Mrs. Schroeter.
  Haydn was likewise greeted with honour in his
  own country. Upon his return to Wein from London,
  he found himself recognised as the greatest
  Österreichs composer of his time. Concerts of his
  music were planned in his honour in Wein a bust
  of him was erected in his native city. In 1797,
  on occasion of the birthday of Emperor Franz II,
  Haydn's national anthem (which was originally the
  second movement of his famous Kaiser Quartet) was
  performed and sung in every principle theatre in
  Österreich. One year later saw the first
  performance of one of Haydn's greatest works, The
  Creation , modelled after Milton's Paradise Lost.
  The success of The Creation was instantaneous.
  Choral societies were founded in Österreich
  expressly to give it performance. The Creation
  was followed by Haydn's last great work, also for
  chorus, The Seasons. Haydn's old age was quiet
  and dignified, although touched with a gentle
  melancholy brought on by illness. In 1805, on
  Haydn's birthday, Mozart's fourteen-year-old son
  came to the home of the master to bring him a
  cantata he had composed especially for his
  father's close friend. In March of 1808, Haydn
  heard a performance of his work for the last
  time, The Creation, directed by Salieri. From
  that time on he was confined to his home through
  weakness and ill-health.

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Franz Joseph Haydn continued

• Josef Haydn died in Wein on 31 May 1809. In his
  will he forgot no one-old friends, acquaintances,
  people who had done him favours in his youth and
  those who had been kind to him in his old age. "I
  commend my soul to my all-merciful Creator," he
  concluded his will reverently. Haydn was buried
  in an obscure churchyard near his home in Wein.
  Eleven years later, however-at the request of one
  of the Esterhazys-his body was brought to the
  parish church of Eisenstadt, where it rests
  today.
• Haydn was of middle height, with very short legs.
  His complexion was dark, marked by smallpox, his
  nose aquiline, the expression of his eyes soft
  and generous. He always wore a wig, with
  side-curls and qeue. He considered himself a very
  ugly man, and was consistently bewildered that so
  many striking women should have been attracted to
  him.
• His generosity, warm heart and simplicity have
  frequently been subject for comment. "Anybody can
  see by the look of me," he once said of
  himself-in an accurate stroke of self-appraisal,
  "that I am a good-natured sort of a fellow." He
  was fervently religious. Habitually, he began and
  ended his manuscripts with the words "In nomine
  Domini" and "Laus Deo" and when he was composing
  The Creation he fell on his knees each day and
  prayed to God to give him strength to bring the
  work to successful completion. By nature he was
  thrifty, hardworking, extremely methodical. He
  possessed a sunny sense of humour, and a lovable
  disposition. He was not a particularly educated
  man he read very little, and was only
  superficially acquainted with any subject out of
  the realm of music. When he composed, he
  preferred to wear his best clothing, his diamond
  ring and his most ornate pendants. He worked
  industriously and systematically. He sketched his
  works on the piano, then, a few hours afterwards,
  developed them on paper. He worked regularly each
  day, never waiting for inspiration or
  inclination. He was well aware of his importance
  and greatness. "I know," he once said, "that God
  has bestowed a talent upon me, and I thank him
  for it. I think I have done my duty and have been
  of use in my generation and by my works. Let
  others do the same."

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Franz Joseph Haydn continued

• Haydn's importance in the history of music has
  been so great that it is difficult to summarize
  his many achievements in a few paragraphs. He
  inherited the sonata form from Philipp Emanuel
  Bach and not only solidified it but infused into
  it succh vital
• genius that it became one of the most pliant
  forms of musical expression. He definitely
  established the form of the symphony, preparing
  the way for Mozart and Beethoven. He was the
  father of the string quartet Mozart frequently
  confessed that it was from Haydn that he learned
  how to compose for four stringed instruments. He
  enriched the harmonic language of his day,
  increased the resources of orchestration. He was
  one of the pioneers in the creation of program
  music. It is, therefore, with
• considerable justification that he is frequently
  termed the "father of instrumental music."

Haydns birthplace
Back to Classical Timeline
Prince Esterhazy's palace where Haydn lived.
St. Stephens Church where Haydn was a choir boy.
28
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart1756-1791
Mozarts birthplace, Salzburg, Austria
Back to Classical Timeline
29
Johann Strauss1825-1899
The Waltz King, Vienna, Austria
Back to Romantic Timeline