C

omposers
 Passed By: Joshua David Ranin
Passed To: Maam Mary Grace Labong

Chapter I

Classical Period

C lassical music is art music produced or rooted in the

traditions of Western culture, including both liturgical (religious)
and secular music. While a more precise term is also used to refer to the
period from 1750 to 1820 (the Classical period), this article is about the
broad span of time from before the 6th century AD to the present day,
which includes the Classical period and various other periods.[1] The
central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900,
which is known as the common-practice period.

Given the wide range of styles in European classical music, from

Medieval plainchant sung by monks to Classical and
Romantic symphonies for orchestra from the 1700s and 1800s to
avant-garde atonal compositions from the 1900s, it is difficult to list
characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type.
Nonetheless, a universal characteristic of classical music written since the
late 13th century is] the invariable appliance of a standardized system of
precise mensural notation (which evolved into modern bar notation after
1600) for all compositions and their accurate performance. Another is
the creation and development of complex pieces of solo instrumental
works. The first symphonies were produced during the Classical period,
beginning in the mid 18th century, the symphony ensemble and the
compositions became prominent features of Classical-period music.
Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a

composer of Italian and French opera in the
early classical period. Born in the Upper
Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part
of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained
prominence at the Habsburg court at
Vienna. There he brought about the
practical reform of opera's dramaturgical
practices for which many intellectuals had
been campaigning. With a series of radical
new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he
broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much
of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using
simpler recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later
operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera.
The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris
in November 1773. Fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French
into a unique synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian
stage. Iphigénie en Tauride was a great success and is generally
acknowledged to be his finest work. Though he was extremely popular
and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera,
Gluck's mastery of the Parisian operatic scene was never absolute, and
after the poor reception of his Echo et Narcisse, he left Paris in disgust and
returned to Vienna to live out the remainder of his life.
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn is the composer
who, more than any other, epitomizes the
aims and achievements of the Classical era.
Perhaps his most important achievement
was that he developed and evolved in
countless subtle ways the most influential
structural principle in the history of music:
his perfection of the set of expectations
known as sonata form made an epochal
impact. In hundreds of instrumental
sonatas, string quartets, and
symphonies, Haydn both broke new ground and provided durable
models; indeed, he was among the creators of these fundamental genres
of classical music. His influence upon later composers is
immeasurable; Haydn's most illustrious pupil, Beethoven, was the
direct beneficiary of the elder master's musical imagination,
and Haydn's shadow lurks within (and sometimes looms over) the
music of composers like Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
Part and parcel of Haydn's formal mastery was his famous sense of
humor, his feeling for the unpredictable, elegant twist. In the Symphony
No. 94 ("Surprise") (1791), the composer tweaks those audience
members who typically fall asleep during slow movements with the
sudden, completely unexpected intrusion of a fortissimo chord during a
passage of quietude. Haydn's pictorial sense is much in evidence works
like his epic oratorio The Creation (1796-1798), in which images of the
cosmos taking shape are thrillingly, movingly portrayed in tones. By one
estimate, Haydn produced some 340 hours of music, more
than Bach or Handel, Mozart or Beethoven. Few of them lack
some unexpected detail or clever solution to a formal problem.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was
a prolific and influential composer of
the Classical period. Born in Salzburg,
Mozart showed prodigious ability from
his earliest childhood. Already
competent on keyboard and violin, he
composed from the age of five and
performed before European royalty. At
17, Mozart was engaged as a musician
at the Salzburg court but grew restless
and travelled in search of a better
position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his
Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved
fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he
composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas,
and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of
his early death at the age of 35. The circumstances of his death have been
much mythologized.
He composed more than 600 works, many of which are acknowledged as
pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic,
and choral music. He is among the greatest and most enduringly popular
of classical composers, and his influence is profound on subsequent
Western art music. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his early works in
the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote: "posterity will not see
such a talent again in 100 years".
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a
German composer and pianist. A crucial
figure in the transition between
the classical and romantic eras in classical
music, he remains one of the most
recognized and influential musicians of this
period, and is considered to be one of the
greatest composers of all time.
Beethoven was born in Bonn, the capital of
the Electorate of Cologne, and part of
the Holy Roman Empire. He displayed his
musical talents at an early age and was vigorously taught by his
father Johann van Beethoven, and was later taught by composer and
conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At age 21, he moved to Vienna and
studied composition with Joseph Haydn. Beethoven then gained a
reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and was soon courted by Karl Alois,
Prince Lichnowsky for compositions, which resulted in Opus 1 in 1795.
The piece was a great critical and commercial success, and was followed
by Symphony No. 1 in 1800. This composition was distinguished for its
frequent use of sforzandi, as well as sudden shifts in tonal centers that
were uncommon for traditional symphonic form, and the prominent,
more independent use of wind instruments.[2] In 1801, he also gained
notoriety for his six String Quartets and for the ballet The Creatures of
Prometheus. During this period, his hearing began to deteriorate, but he
continued to conduct, premiering his third and fifth symphonies in 1804
and 1808, respectively. His condition worsened to almost complete
deafness by 1811, and he then gave up performing and appearing in
public.
 Chapter II

Romantic Period

R omantic music is a stylistic movement in Western

classical music associated with the period spanning
the nineteenth century, commonly referred to as the Romantic
era (or Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader
concept of Romanticism—the intellectual, artistic and literary
movement that became prominent in Europe from
approximately 1800 until 1850.
Romantic composers sought to create music that was
individualistic, emotional, dramatic and often programmatic;
reflecting broader trends within the movements of
Romantic literature, poetry, art and philosophy. Romantic
music was often ostensibly inspired by non-musical stimuli,
such as nature, literature, poetry or the plastic arts.

Influential composers of the early Romantic era include , Franz

Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, John Field, Gioachino
Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo
Meyerbeer, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Hector
 Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner. Later
nineteenth-century composers would appear to build upon
certain early Romantic ideas and musical techniques, such as
the use of extended Chromatic harmony and
expanded Orchestration.
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish
composer and virtuoso pianist of
the Romantic era who wrote primarily for
solo piano. He has maintained worldwide
renown as a leading musician of his era,
one whose "poetic genius was based on a
professional technique that was without
equal in his generation."
Chopin was born Fryderyk Franciszek
Chopin in the Duchy of Warsaw and
grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child
prodigy, he completed his musical
education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving
Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of
the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafter—in
the last 18 years of his life—he gave only 30 public performances,
preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported
himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which
he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and
was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries
(including Robert Schumann).
In 1835 Chopin obtained French citizenship. After a failed engagement
to Maria Wodziń ska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often
troubled relationship with the French writer Amantine Dupin (known by
her pen name, George Sand). A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with
Sand in 1838–39 would prove one of his most productive periods of
composition. In his final years, he was supported financially by his
admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in
1848. For most of his life, Chopin was in poor health. He died in Paris in
1849 at the age of 39, probably of pericarditis aggravated
by tuberculosis.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was
a Russian composer of the romantic period,
whose works are among the most popular
music in the classical repertoire. He was the
first Russian composer whose music made a
lasting impression internationally, bolstered
by his appearances as a guest conductor in
Europe and the United States. He was
honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III,
and awarded a lifetime pension.

Although musically precocious,

Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant
opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time and no system of
public music education. When an opportunity for such an education
arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from
which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he
received there set him apart from composers of the
contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian
composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was
mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had
learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed
from childhood. From this reconciliation he forged a personal but
unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The
principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of
Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western
European music; this seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian
music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite
style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's
self-confidence.
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt was a
Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist,
conductor, music teacher, arranger,
and organist of the Romantic era. He
was also a writer, a philanthropist,
a Hungarian nationalist and a Franciscan
tertiary.
Liszt gained renown in Europe during
the early nineteenth century for his
prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He
was a friend, musical promoter and
benefactor to many composers of his
time, including Frédéric
Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Camille
Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka,
and Alexander Borodin.
A prolific composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent
representatives of the New German School (German: Neudeutsche Schule).
He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work which influenced
his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated 20th-century ideas
and trends. Among Liszt's musical contributions were the symphonic
poem, developing thematic transformation as part of his experiments
in musical form, and radical innovations in harmony.
Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French

composer, organist, conductor and pianist of
the Romantic era. His best-known works
include Introduction and Rondo
Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano
Concerto (1868), the First Cello
Concerto (1872), Danse macabre (1874), the
opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third Violin
Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ")
Symphony (1886) and The Carnival of the
Animals (1886).
Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert debut at the age
of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a
conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and,
from 1858, La Madeleine, the official church of the French Empire.
After leaving the post twenty years later, he was a successful freelance
pianist and composer, in demand in Europe and the Americas.
As a young man, Saint-Saëns was enthusiastic for the most modern
music of the day, particularly that of Schumann, Liszt and Wagner,
although his own compositions were generally within a conventional
classical tradition. He was a scholar of musical history, and remained
committed to the structures worked out by earlier French composers.