Thomas Augustine Arne (12 March 1710 5 March 1778) was an English composer, best known for the

e patriotic song Rule, Britannia!. He also wrote a version of God Save the King, which was to become the British national anthem, and the song A-Hunting We Will Go. Arne was the leading British theatre composer of the eighteenth century working at Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

Paul Francis Webster (December 20, 1907 March 18, 1984) was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award. He was born in New York City, the son of Myron Lawrence Webster and Blanche Pauline Stonehill Webster. He attended the Horace Mann School (Riverdale, Bronx, New York), graduating in 1926, and then went to Cornell University from 1927 to 1928 and New York University from 1928 to 1930, leaving without receiving a degree. He served in the United States Navy and then became a dance instructor at a studio in New York City.[1] By 1931, however, he turned his career direction to writing song lyrics. His first professional lyric was Masquerade (music by John Jacob Loeb) which became a hit in 1932, performed by Paul Whiteman. In 1935 Twentieth Century Fox signed him to a contract to write lyrics for Shirley Temple's films, but shortly afterward he went back to freelance writing. His first hit was a collaboration in 1941 with Duke Ellington on the song "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)". After 1950, Webster worked mostly for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He won two Academy Awards in collaboration with Sammy Fain, in 1953 and 1955, and another with Johnny Mandel in 1965. Altogether, sixteen of his songs received Academy Award nominations; among lyricists, he is second only to Johnny Mercer, who was nominated eighteen times, in number of nominations. In addition, a large number of his songs became major hits on the popular music charts. He is the most successful songwriter of the 1950s on the U.K. charts. In 1967 he was asked to write the famed lyrics for the Spider-Man theme song of the television cartoon. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.[2]He died in Beverly Hills, California and is buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

La fille aux cheveux de lin is a musical composition by French composer Claude Debussy. It is the eighth number from the composer's Prludes, Book I (1909-1910). The title is in French and translates roughly to "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair". The piece is 39 bars long and has a running time of about two and a half minutes. It is one of the most recorded of Debussy's pieces, both in its original version and various arrangements. It is in the key of G Major.

Sonny Burke (born Joseph Francis Burke; March 22, 1914, Scranton, Pennsylvania May 31, 1980) was a big band leader. In 1937, he graduated from Duke University where he had formed and led the jazz big band known as the Duke Ambassadors. During the 1930s and 1940s he was a big band leader in New York, including Sam Donahue's band, and during the 1940s and 1950s he worked as a band arranger for the Charlie Spivak and Jimmy Dorsey bands, among others. In 1955 he wrote, along with Peggy Lee, the songs to Disney's Lady and the Tramp. He also wrote songs with John Elliot for Disney's Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom which won the 1953 Oscar for Best Short Animated Feature.[1] He is credited as co-composer of "Midnight Sun", the Lionel Hampton tune with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. He was an active arranger and bandleader in major recording studios, including Decca Records. Burke was musical director of Reprise Records and was responsible for many of Frank Sinatra's albums. He was also bandleader for recordings of leading singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torm. He is one of the original founders of NARAS and is credited with the formation of the Grammy Awards and was on the original selection committee.[citation needed] He died on May 31, 1980, aged 66

Ludvig Schytte (28 April 1848, Aarhus 10 November 1909, Berlin) was a Danish composer, pianist, and teacher. Born in Aarhus, Denmark, Schytte studied with Niels Gade and Edmund Neupert. In 1884, he travelled to Germany to study with Franz Liszt. Schytte lived and taught in Vienna between 1886 and 1907 and spent the last two years of his life teaching in Berlin. Originally trained as a pharmacist, Schytte composed a Piano Concerto in C# minor, Opus 28, and a Sonata in B-flat among numerous other piano works. He also wrote two operas, Hero (25 September 1898 Copenhagen) and Der Mameluk (22 December 1903 Vienna).[1] His shorter works are still used today as educational studies for piano students.

Robert Schumann,[1] sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann,[2] (8 June 1810 29 July 1856) was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law to return to music, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher, Friedrich Wieck, that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury caused by a device he created with the false belief that it would help increase the size of his hands prevented that. One of the most promising careers as a pianist had thus come to an end. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzigbased publication which he jointly founded. In 1840, Schumann married pianist Clara Wieck when she was 21 of age, following a long and acrimonious legal battle with her father, his former teacher, to gain his approval of the match. Clara Wieck also composed music and had a considerable concert career. For the last two years of his life, after an attempted suicide, Schumann was confined to a mental institution, at his own request. hide

Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmller, generally known as Friedrich Burgmller (4 December 1806 13 February 1874) was a German pianist and composer. He was born in Regensburg, Germany. Both his father, August, and his brother, Norbert, were musicians. His father was a musical theatre director in Weimar and other Southern German centers. After years of studies with Ludwig Spohr and Moritz Hauptmann, Friedrich moved to Paris in 1832, where he stayed until his death. There, he adopted Parisian music and developed his trademark, light style of playing. He wrote many pieces of salon music for the piano and published several albums. Burgmller also went on to compose piano tudes intended for children. They are popular to this day. Selections from his Opp. 68, 76, 100, 105 and 109 etudes and his Ballade appear in a wide variety of educational collections. In addition to these piano pieces, he composed works without opus numbers including variations, waltzes, nocturnes and polonaises. He composed stage works and two ballets, La Pri and Lady Harriet. His most performed piece is the so-called Peasant Pas de Deux added to the ballet Giselle for its 1841 premiere. This music was originally titled Souvenirs de Ratisbonne, and is still performed today in every production of Giselle.

In his Op. 100 set of 25 studies he has charmed many people with pieces like La Candeur, La Chevalresque, L'Arabesque, and Ballade. More demanding pieces are the 18 Characteristic Studies, Op. 109, but the 12 pieces of Op. 105 are even more demanding. Op. 109 contains popular pieces like Les perles (The Pearls) and L'Orage (The Storm).

Claude-Achille Debussy (French pronunciation: [klod ail dbysi])[1][2] (22 August 1862 25 March 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions.[3] Debussy is among the most important of all French composers, and a central figure in European music of the turn of the 20th century. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903.[4] His music is noted for its sensory component and for not often forming around one key or pitch. Often Debussy's work reflected the activities or turbulence in his own life. His music virtually defines the transition from late-Romantic music to 20th century modernist music. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.[5]

PIECES

Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scnes mignonnes sur quatre notes (Little Scenes on Four Notes). It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent. Schumann gives musical expression to himself, his friends and colleagues, and characters from improvised Italian comedy (commedia dellarte). For Schumann the four notes were encoded puzzles, and he predicted that "deciphering my masked ball will be a real game for you."[1] The 21 pieces are connected by a recurring motif. In each section of Carnaval there appears either or both of two series of musical notes. These are musical cryptograms, as follows:

A, E-flat, C, B - signified in German as A-S-C-H A-flat, C, B - signified in German as As-C-H E-flat, C, B, A - signified in German as S-C-H-A.

The first two spell the German name for the town of Asch (this is now A in the Czech Republic), in which Schumann's then fiance, Ernestine von Fricken, was born as well as representing the German word Fasching or carnival. Asch is also German for "Ash," as in Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. It also encodes a version of the composer's name, Robert Alexander Schumann. The grouping S-C-H-A encodes the composer's name again with the musical letters appearing in Schumann, in their correct order. Carnaval had its origin in a set of variations on a Sehnsuchtswalzer by Franz Schubert, whose music Schumann had only discovered in 1827. The catalyst for writing the variations may have been a work for piano and orchestra in the form of variations on the same Schubert theme, by Schumann's close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Schumann felt that Schuncke's heroic treatment was an inappropriate reflection of the tender nature of the Schubert piece, so he set out to approach his Variations in a more intimate way. He worked on his variations in 1833 and 1834. The work

was never completed, however, and Schuncke died in December 1834, but Schumann did re-use the opening 24 measures for the opening of Carnaval. Andreas Boyde has since reconstructed the original set of Variations from Schumann's manuscript.[2] In Carnaval, Schumann goes further musically than in Papillons, Op. 2, for in it he himself conceives the story of which it was the musical illustration. Each piece has a title, and the work as a whole is a musical representation of an elaborate and imaginative masked ball during carnival season.[3] Carnaval remains famous for its resplendent chordal passages and its use of rhythmic displacement, and has long been a staple of the pianist's repertoire. Schumann dedicated the work to the violinist Karol Lipiski. Both Schumann and his wife, Clara, considered his solo piano works too difficult for the general public. Frdric Chopin is reported to have said that Carnaval was not music at all.[4] Consequently, the works for solo piano were rarely performed in public during Schumann's lifetime, although Franz Liszt performed selections from Carnaval in Leipzig in 1840. However, today, despite its immense technical and emotional difficulty, it is one of Schumann's most often performed works.[5] Heinz Dill has mentioned Schumann's use of musical quotes and codes in this work.[6] Eric Sams has discussed literary allusions in the work, such as to novels of Jean-Paul.[
Carnaval

Robert Schumann, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber, in 1839.

Carnaval, Op. 9 (1834) is one of Schumann's most characteristic piano works. Schumann begins nearly every section of Carnaval with a musical cryptogram, the musical notes signified in German by the letters that spell Asch (A, E-flat, C, and B, or alternatively A-flat, C, and B; in German these are A, Es, C and H, and As C and H respectively), the town (then in Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic) in which Ernestine was born, and the notes are also the musical letters in

Schumann's own name. Schumann named sections for both Ernestine ("Estrella") and Clara ("Chiarina"). Eusebius and Florestan, the imaginary figures appearing so often in his critical writings, also appear, alongside brilliant imitations of Chopin and Paganini. The work comes to a close with a march of the Davidsbndler the league of King David's men against the Philistines in which may be heard the clear accents of truth in contest with the dull clamour of falsehood embodied in a quotation from the seventeenth century Grandfather's Dance. The march, a step nearly always in duple meter, is here in 3/4 time (triple meter). The work ends in joy and a degree of mock-triumph. In Carnaval, Schumann went further than in Papillons, by conceiving the story as well as the musical representation (and also displaying a maturation of compositional resource).

La fille aux cheveux de lin is a musical composition by French composer Claude Debussy. It is the eighth number from the composer's Prludes, Book I (1909-1910). The title is in French and translates roughly to "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair". The piece is 39 bars long and has a running time of about two and a half minutes. It is one of the most recorded of Debussy's pieces, both in its original version and various arrangements. It is in the key of G Major.