Great Composers and Their Lives

This composer was great, but was unfortunately overpowered by alcoholism and died of cancer. Yet, there were few during his lifetime that were so gifted on the piano as he was. Having been born in Dublin, John Field showed his talent at a very young age. His father played violin and I am sure that this was quite an influence upon Field's life, coming from a family involved in the music scene at the time.

He started playing at the age of nine, having first learned from his musician grandfather and then with Tommaso Giordani, a well-known organist. Field gave his first performance a mere year afterwards. But, it was not until his family moved to London that his true musical education began. At the young age of eleven, he started working in the piano shop of a truly great composer, Muzio Clementi. It was here that he became his personal apprentice and piano demonstrator. Only a year later, he made his first appearance in London at a benefit concert playing one of Clementi's pieces. After seven years of guidance under Clementi, he made his first debut in 1799 playing his famed First Piano Concerto, which him a great deal of recognition. Shortly after, he published his first work, Piano Sonatas, Opus 1, which had been dedicated to his maestro, Muzio Clementi.

This dedication along with the long acquaintanceship with his famous teacher brought along just what he needed to really boost his career. John Field was invited to go with his teacher on a concert tour starting in Paris, France and ending in St. Petersburg, Russia, It was here that met the Russian general, Marklovsky, who, with his great influence and contacts, sponsored him for several years to come. Along with giving concerts during his stay in Russia, he became a sought-after teacher and eventually married one of his own students to whom he had two sons. At the same time, he had a woman on the side that also bore an additional two sons making him not only a great musician, but a father of four children. After contributing a great deal to the musical world and giving concerts all over Europe, this great composer died in Moscow at the age of fifty-five years old.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

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Christoph Willibald von Gluck grew up in Bohemia in family of nine children. His father was a tree farmer. Not much is known about his mother. On account of his father’s job, the family had to move around quite a bit. This, as can be imagined was very diffiult. His father’s desire was for him to follow in his footsteps as a tree farmer. Yet, in Gluck’s early teens, seeing that music was quite popular, he started learning to play quite a few instruments. Music started to take over his soul and become his every passion. His parents did not support his idea of becoming a musician. At the age of 13, he ran away from home… to the golden City, Prague. He supported himself there by playing at dances and in churches. His musical talents kept getting better and better. In my own belief, as is that of many others. The best type of musical training one can have is to be a working musician.

At the age of seventeen, he studied mathematics and logic, although no one really knows if he finished his degree or not. Shortly after, he made his way to Vienna, where he worked as a musician for Prince Melzi. Prince Melzi got married and relocated to Milan, whereby he took Chistoph Gluck with him. This was a wonderful bout of luck for the young composer, who had always loved the Italian operas he had seen in Prague.

He started studying under Battista Sammartini and was able to compose his first opera after only four years! He wrote Artaserse. Its debut was in a Milan and it was a hit ! He started making a lot of money with his music and ended up moving to England in 1945 where he was commisioned bay the Italian Opera of London to creat two operas. Here he was known to be competing with Handel who had once stated that “Gluck knows no more about counterpoint than his cook.” Only a year after, he took a job conducting for Pietro Mingotti’s Italian Opera Company and traveled all thoughout Denmark and Austria.

He ended up settling down in Vienna and got married to a woman, Maria Anna Bergin, the daughter of a well-to-do merchant in 1750. She was half his his age and had lots of money, enabling him to become a bit more independent of the next few years to concentrate on his music.

It was during this time that he started developing ideas for his famous opera Orfeo ed Euridice, which was to become what he is most known for writing. Four years later, he was emplyed by the Empress Maria Theresa to be Kapellmeister, a job he kept for 15 years before moving to Paris. There, he enjoyed the patronage of his former student, Marie Antoinette. The success and the contraversy and experiences he had in Paris would take much to long to write.

Around 1780, Gluck moved back to Vienna, where his lived in luxious retirement for the rest of his life. He ended up dying due to a strok in 1787, yet dying a very wealthy and sucessful man. He still enjoys what some people call him, namely the father of the Rococo and Classical era.

To listen to music by this great composer click here.

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Muzio Clementi was born in Rome. His father, who was quite fond of music and an amateur musician himself, had been a successful silversmith. He recognized his son’s talent right away and started him up playing the organ at the age of 7. Only 2 years after, in direct competition with adults, he was appointed organist at his local church.

Seven years later, Sir Peter Beckford, a wealthy Englishman, heard Clementi play and was so impressed by his music that he wanted to become his patron. He offered to take him to England and sponsor his studies as well as offer him room and board. His father agreed and allowed him go. The only think that Clementi had to do in return for this grand gesture of kindness, was to entertain with his playing at the nobleman’s country residence of Steepleton Iwerne, just north of Blandford Forum in Dorset . It was here that the Muzio Clementi became a fine player, receiving not only a great deal of musical knowledge but also receiving quite a good academic education. The peaceful environment also provided for a great deal of alone-time for him to practice the harpsichord. He made his first public piano recital at the age of 18, the beginning of his concert career.

In 1774, having been freed of his obligations to Sir Peter Beckford, he moved to London. Only a year later, he made his first appearance. In 1779, he published his Six Piano Sonatas Opus 2, which he made a name for himself with. These pieces namely distinguished the piano sonata from the harpsichord sonata in the music world.

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There have been a great deal of classical composers that were centred in Vienna, Austria, whom we associate with the city itself. Among them are Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart, although Franz Schubert was only one of the above-mentioned who was actually born in the city. Unfortunately, he was also the only one of these composers who had never received the well-deserved recognition and fame during his lifetime. On the other hand, his works and everything he created cannot be appreciated enough today.

Having been born in a suburb in Vienna, known as Lichtental, he was the fourth son of a schoolmaster. He actually learned to play piano and violin from his family, although he had already surpassed them at a very early age. At age eleven, he won a choral scholarship to the Konvikt, Vienna’s Imperial College, a type of elite boarding school. Schubert was taught by Antonio Salieri, a famous composer at the time, who recognised the talents of the young man. By the age of 15, Franz Schubert had already written a great deal of string quartets as well as an opera. It was shortly after this that he left school to start training to be a teacher, after which he taught in his father’s school. During this period in time, he wrote a large amount of works, including five symphonies, 6 operas, and what he was most noted for, his songs - Lieder. (* German- ‘Das Lied’ plural ‘die Lieder’ is a term used to describe a German art song of the 19^th century for voice and piano.)

In 1914, he was very taken back by a literary work that had inspired a large number of musicians at the time, namely Faust by Goethe. This work gave him the inspiration he needed to write Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) and Erlkönig, two great masterpieces. Having been so enthralled by the works of Goethe, it led him to read a great deal of other distinguished poets of the time. Putting so many of the poets feeling and ideas into his ‘Lieder’ or songs did what no other musician could have imagined. It was once said that Schubert, “unleashed a Shakespearean canvas of characters.”

- He had the ability to incorporate the power of these literary works into his songs. The works he created were a product of the great deal of literature, painting, and music of the time, along with all the ideals that stood behind them. He wrote pieces as if he had not only been a musician, but a storyteller at the same time. The great composer Brahms once wrote, “There’s not one of Schubert’s songs from which you cannot learn something.”

In 1816, Schubert stopped teaching and went to Vienna to live with his friend, Franz von Schober, who admired his music quite a bit. In Vienna, Schubert made the acquaintance of a famous baritone player, Johann Michael Vogl, a famous baritone singer at the time. Meeting him was quite significant on account of the fact that Vogl performed a lot of Schubert’s pieces for the public.

To his great despair, Schubert contracted syphilis in 1823. He was working on his Eighth Symphony, which he had begun a year before his illness. It is still debated, but many believe that his illness had contributed to the fact that he never finished it.

His illness did not stop him from writing altogether though. It was during this time that he wrote a great deal of works including Winterreise (Winter Journey), the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux. In the last years of his life, he wrote the Piano Sonatas in C minor, A major, and B flat, as well as his String Quintet in C. The latter was the last piece he composed before his illness entered its last stage and he died in 1828 at the age of 31. Franz Schubert had unfortunately been destined to have a short life, but gave so much to the world to be enjoyed for an eternity.

To listen to music by this great composer, click here

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Franz Berwald was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1796. Having been largely self-taught, he did study music with his father, who had been a German violinist in the Royal Opera Orchestra, and composition with J. B. E. De Puy, the conductor of the court orchestra. The story of this composer is unique on account of the fact he never gave up as a musician. He achieved greatness and made his name in history despite many setbacks and disappointments.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the Royal Opera Orchestra at the age of 16, having held the position until he composed his Grand Septet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, and string quartet in 1828. It was at this time that, due to the lack of enthusiasm for his music in Sweden and financial difficulty on account of his father’s death in 1825, he travelled abroad to make his career in music. After a tour in Norway, he studied in Berlin for a time, having received a scholarship from Sweden’s king. To make a living, he started an orthopaedic and physiotherapy clinic in Berlin in 1835 and was able to get by quite well. He had even invented a great deal of orthopaedic devices which were still used in the following century.

Determined to make a career in music, Berwald set forth to Vienna, Austria, where his opera, Estrella di Soria, was performed. He also ended up getting married there to a woman named Mathilde Scherer. In 1842, he got the chance to hear the performance of a symphony he had written, La Sérieuse. This was to be the only one of his symphonies that he will have seen during his lifetime.

He then returned to Sweden, where he was not received with open arms. In fact, despite his success abroad, the audiences in Sweden were less than impressed. The Royal Opera performance of his operetta(-a short opera), Modehandlerskan, in 1845 turned out to be a complete flop. Nevertheless, Berwald maintained his love for music and composed three more symphonies, including one of his best works, Sinfonie singuliére. This work, in particular, shows his superior orchestration skills, and although it only contains three movements instead of the usual four in a symphony, it is probably one of the best works he had ever written.

Travelling throughout Europe, he did experience bouts of success. In Vienna, one of his operas named Ein Landliches Verlobungsfest in Schweden (A Swedish Country Engagement Party), was performed. He was even made an honorary member of the Mozarteum Academy for Music in 1847. Nonetheless, once again, upon his return to Sweden, his efforts to become a musical director at Uppsala University as well as the director of the court orchestra turned out to be a string of failure and disappointment.

During this time, to get by, he had been forced into a series of jobs to earn a living. For example, he became a manager of a Swedish glass factory in Angermanland for ten years starting in 1849. Despite the consumption of time set forth by his job as manager, this did not keep him from devoting as much time as possible to teaching and composing. After publishing a series of chamber works, the Stockholm Royal Opera ended up performing Estrella di Soria in 1862.

After completing his last opera in 1864, Drottningen av Golconda(the Queen of Golconda), he had finally been accepted into the Fellowship of the Swedish Academy, becoming a professor of composition in 1867. His dream of being truly accepted as a great musician in his own country had become a reality. Unfortunately, within a year, at the peak of his career, he passed away due to pneumonia. A truly sad ending for such a great man, yet his dreams really did become reality. One of the, if not the best Swedish composer of all time, he will not only be remembered for his gift of music to humanity, but also for the perseverance he had shown in times of hardship.

To listen to music by Berwald, click here

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This Italian composer was actually born into a family full of artists. Amazingly enough, he wrote 300 chamber works, 18 symphonies, and 93 string quartets. His chamber works also included 9 guitar quintets, which guitarists are quite grateful for.

What made this composer special was the fact that he not only came from Italy during the classical era, which was full of liveliness and elegance, but he travelled to Vienna and discovered the beginnings of the Romantic Era. Along with this, he went to Spain, discovering the guitar music of Andalusia along with its rhythm , which influenced his music a great deal.

This passion and drama he found in Vienna with regard to music and literature was part of a movement known even in English under the German phrase ‘Sturm und Drang’. This was also known as the ‘Time of Genius’. In order to understand this term, it is important to know what was going on during the 18^th century, namely another movement known as the Age of Enlightenment, the time where man discovered himself and began to use reason to reappraise social institutions and ideas. ‘Sturm und Drang’ was a furthering of this, being the time when a genius was considered a superior human being raised up amongst the masses and glorified as a creator of art. By the way, in German ‘Sturm’ means ‘storm’, and ‘drang’ means either ‘stress’ or ‘urge.’

Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy. His whole family were filled with great artists. His father, being a double-bass and cello player, taught Boccherini to play the cello at a very young age. At 13, he studied with the Maestro di Cappella(choir director) at St. Peter’s in Rome. Before the age of 21, he had already made 3 visits to the Viennese royal court.

Along with his best friend and violinist, Filippo Manfredi, he formed a string quartet. At the age of 23, the group started giving a concert tour in the north of Italy. Only a year later, they were received in Paris at the Concert Spirituel, which was a public concert series, the first of its kind which lasted from 1725-1790. It was actually the Spanish ambassador to Paris who originally invited Boccherini to come to Spain, for which he started working for as a composer for the Spanish Court under Don Luis.

Following the death of Don Luis in 1789, he went to the court of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, but ended up returning to Spain on account of Wilhelm’s death. In Spain, he organised concerts and composed for the French consul Lucien Buonaparte, Napoleon Buonaparte’s brother.

All in all, there was a point in Boccherini’s career where he had become so famous that his publisher in Paris started putting out music by other composers under his name. Yet, following the deaths of not only Prince Wilhelm, Lucien Buonapart, his wife and two daughters, despite the fame he was awarded, which had been to the extent of influencing Mozart and Haydn and winning Gluck’s admiration, Boccherini ended up dying in 1805 in complete poverty.

To listen to music by this great composer click here.

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Auber was the son of a hunter that became quite wealthy by going into the business of dealing art in Paris. Auber was actually born in Normandy. This was on account of his parents once making a trip from Paris to Caen, the capital of lower Normandy.

Showing a great deal of talent on the piano at an early age, by the time he was a teenager, he had already written concert arias(-elaborate songs for solo voice), a piano sonata(-composition containing 3 or 4 contrasting movements), and a string quartet(-instrumental containing 2 violins, a viola and cello). Nevertheless, his father was quite determined to make his son a businessman like himself.

It was in 1802, that France signed a treaty with England, known as the Treaty of Amiens. Auber’s father seized the chance to send his son to England to study commerce. Yet, seeing that the treaty was breached after only one year and war broke out, Auber was forced to return home, giving him the opportunity to concentrate on his music.

Auber had written a pasticcio named L’Erreur d’un Moment (-an opera whose music derives from various composers or a single composer’s various works). This opera was performed in Paris in 1805 and seen by the famous Italian composer Cherubini, who, having recognised his talents, wished to give him further instruction. He began writing a great abundance of works in various forms. With Cherubini’s guidance, he had composed his first successful operas, namely La Bergére châtelaine in 1820 and Emma in 1821.

Having written these great works, eventually led to meeting and making friends with Eugéne Scribe, an important and well-known librettist(-a person responsible for writing the texts for an opera to be set to music). Meeting Eugéne Scribe was very significant in Auber’s life. Over the next 40 years, of the 45 operas by Auber performed in Paris, 37 had been the result of teaming up with Scribe.

The great composer Rossini was also a great influence upon Auber’s music. In light of the fact that Rossini’s operas had received a great deal of recognition and success in Paris, it is no wonder that Auber had admired his work so much. Auber had since used a great deal of Rossini’s ideas in his own music, thereby enriching his own style.

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber was one of the most significant 19^th century composers, most known for his works revolving around the opéra comique (-comic opera, an opera performed with regular spoken text instead of the ‘sing-song recitative’ which usually has a happy ending. The word comic refers more to satire than comedy, seeing that many of these types of operas are not funny at all in nature and at times can be quite tragic.)

In 1825, Auber was bequeathed the Légion d’Honneur by Charles X. In 1842, following Cherubini, he became the director of the Paris Conservatoire. Ten years later, in addition to directing the latter, one of the most significant music conservatories in the history(a position he kept up until a year before his death in 1871), Napoleon III made him the music director of his Imperial Chapel. He was not only a great composer, yet was given a great deal of well-deserved honour throughout his lifetime.

To listen to music by this great composer click here

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