Top Classical Period Artists on Rhapsody Online

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:31:51 -0800

Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has been celebrated as the quintessential Western musical genius, the embodiment of divine creativity whose life story took on the air of romantic tragedy almost immediately upon his death in 1791.

Mozart's numerous works span many genres, but he is best known for his operas. Among the seven children born to the Mozart family, only Wolfgang and his older sister Maria Anna (called Nannerl) survived. Their father, Leopold, a deputy Kapellmeister and violinist, encouraged both children to play and compose, and encouraged Wolfgang's unnatural talent, which saw him composing short pieces by age five and unremarkable but complete symphonies at age nine. Leopold's entrepreneurial exploits of the Mozart children gained them fame -- but at a price. Their many tours to European cities introduced the young Mozart to new composers and patrons, but caused him the reputation as the eternal child who went around Europe performing like a beggar. Three trips to Italy, from 1770 to 1773, were meant to familiarize Mozart with the country's composition style, and resulted in the operas Mitridate and Lucio Silla. Mozart stayed in Salzburg, Austria, from 1774 to 1777, working productively but unhappily as a Konzertmeister for Archbishop Colloredo. When Mozart asked for a dismissal from service, Colloredo responded by firing both father and son. While Leopold eventually returned to service, Mozart traveled to various cities in search of a job. In Augsburg, Germany, Mozart met his cousin Maria Anna Thekla, with whom he began a notoriously salacious correspondence. Shortly after, he met Aloysia Weber in Mannheim, Germany.

Unlike previous trips, Mozart journeyed to Paris only with his mother, and there with him she died. This caused Leopold to further turn against his increasingly independently-minded son. Still, Mozart returned home and again secured a position with Colloredo. In 1780, he traveled to Munich to compose his first great opera, Idomeneo, and was again flushed with success. When Colloredo called Mozart from Munich to Vienna, to celebrate the coronation of Joseph II, Mozart found himself placed among butlers and cooks, and asked to again be let from service. Mozart was fired, with, literally, a kick in the behind. In Vienna, he taught pupils, performed and composed for patrons, and staged concerts. It was not until 1787 that he secured a permanent salary writing music for balls.

In 1782, Mozart married Constanze, the younger sister of Aloysia. The couple would have six children together, although only two survived through childhood. It was also at this time that Mozart wrote most fruitfully, beginning with the successful 1782 singspiel (a form in which all dialog is spoken instead of sung) The Abduction from the Seraglio. Between 1782 and 1786, he wrote 15 piano concerti, exhibiting his full range of orchestral writing and a passion for the piano-forte, an instrument still being perfected in the late 18th century. Mozart's work in comic opera began with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote the controversial The Marriage of Figaro (1786), which was based on a banned play, in addition to Don Giovanni (1787) and Cosi Fan Tutte (1790).

In the final year of his life, Mozart premiered The Magic Flute and La Clemenza di Tito and was in the process of working on his Requiem, which was composed in secret for Count Walsegg-Stuppach to honor the count's recently deceased wife. Some historians suggest that the count had intended to claim authorship of the work, while myth suggests that the "anonymous" commission was a harbinger of death. After taking to bed in November 1791, Mozart died on December 5 of that year. His body was buried in a mass grave as part of the spirit of the times, not, as is popularly suggested, because of his financial or social status.

Luigi Boccherini

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:55:21 -0800

Franz Joseph Haydn

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:14:59 -0800

There's a reason that young piano students learn a jingle about "Papa" Haydn: the prolific Austrian composer is not only regarded as the father of the symphony and the string quartet, but was also a teacher and father figure to Beethoven. With his instrumental music, "Papa" Haydn's influence far outlasted his own life. Born on Match 31, 1732, Haydn was the son of a wheelwright who began musical training in the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. After early appointments with Hungarian royals and high society, he began writing symphonies for twice-weekly concerts at the prince's Tafelmusik and earned a wide reputation. He wrote a few operas with limited success, but throughout his life instrumental music -- symphonies, sonatas, and quartets -- remained his chief interest. In the 1780s, he wrote quartets of consequence and, at the behest of violinist J P. Salomon, traveled to London where his last 12 symphonies were composed. Returning to Vienna he penned his most important work, The Creation oratorio and sophisticated late quartets. By his death in 1809, he had won wide renown, even though he was considered a bit old-fashioned compared to his celebrated student. - Nate Cavalieri

John Field

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:43:30 -0700

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:44:58 -0800

Though currently overshadowed by the astonishing output of his father, Johann Sebastian Bach, C.P.E Bach was much more influential in his day, introducing new ways of thinking about composition and performance technique. His development of the Sonata Symphony form influenced the way that composers would begin to think about developing a theme. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms were among his followers, and his music, though rooted in the Baroque and Classical eras, had emotional elements and sonic oddities that served as a preface to the Romantic style of the second half of the nineteenth century. Bach's exacting attention to detail led to a more focused role for the composer -- an influence which is felt to this day. - Jessy Terry

Franz Danzi

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:39:24 -0700

Muzio Clementi

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:37:31 -0800

Clementi's early keyboard and organ skills landed him a free, first class education early in life and led to a long musical career. His skill led him to performances for Queen Marie Antoinette and Austria's Emperor Joseph II. Mozart performed with Clementi at this time and, while impressed by Clementi's technique, had little opinion of Clementi's musicianship, calling him a charlatan and a machine. The insults, however, did little damage to Clementi's career. He later made a name for himself in England composing and performing. He was also involved with piano manufacturing and music publication rights issues. - Chris Rolls

Antonio Salieri

Sun, 5 Jul 2009 10:07:44 -0700

Louis Spohr

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:14:37 -0700

Giuseppe Tartini

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:10:47 -0700

Radu Lupu

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:13:28 -0700

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:45:18 -0800

Hummel was a highly decorated Austrian who wrote at the turn of the nineteenth century. His teachers and friends demonstrate just how "in" he was with the music of his day: he studied with Clementi and Haydn, was a friend of Beethoven, and lived with Mozart for two years. The generation directly after his (including both Schumanns, Chopin, and Mendelhssohn) couldn't say enough about him, and they absorbed much of his compositional style and technique. Today, however, history has labeled him "mediocre" with little reason. - Henry B.

Johann Hermann Schein

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:43:39 -0700

Emanuel Ax; Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:44:20 -0700

Michael Haydn

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:55:32 -0700

Ferdinando Carulli

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:55:28 -0700

Mauro Giuliani

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:15:25 -0800

KREMER

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 05:45:52 -0700

Choeurs et orchestre de la Camerata Academica du Mozarteum de Salzbourg

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:33:59 -0700

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:16:57 -0800

(born: Erasbach, 2 July 1714; died: Vienna, 15 Nov 1787).

Bohemian-German composer. His father was a forester in the Upper Palatinate (now the western extreme of Czechoslovakia); Czech was his native tongue. At about 14 he left home to study in Prague, where he worked as an organist. He soon moved to Vienna and then to Milan, where his first opera was given in 1741. Others followed, elsewhere in Italy and during 1745-6 in London, where he met Handel's music. After further travel (Dresden, Copenhagen, Naples, Prague) he settled in Vienna in 1752 as Konzertmeister of the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen's orchestra, then as Kapellmeister. He also became involved in performances at the court theatre of French opéras comiques, as arranger and composer, and he wrote Italian dramatic works for court entertainments. His friends tried, at first unsuccessfully, to procure a court post for him; but by 1759 he had a salaried position at the court theatre and soon after was granted a royal pension.

He met the poet Calzabigi and the choreographer Angiolini, and with them wrote a ballet-pantomime Don Juan (1761) embodying a new degree of artistic unity. The next year they wrote the opera Orfeo ed Euridice, the first of Gluck's so-called 'reform operas'. In 1764 he composed an opéra comique, La rencontre imprévue, and the next year two ballets; he followed up the artistic success of Orfeo with a further collaboration with Calzabigi, Alceste (1767), this time choreographed by Noverre; a third, Paride ed Elena (1770), was less well received.

Gluck now decided to apply his new ideals to French opera, and in 1774 gave Iphigénie en Aulide (as well as Orphée, a French revision of Orfeo) in Paris; it was a triumph, but also set the ground for a controversy between Gluck and Italian music (as represented by Piccinni) which flared up in 1777 when his Armide was given, following a French version of Alceste (1776). Iphigénie en Tauride followed in 1779 - his greatest success, along with his greatest failure, Echo et Narcisse. He now acknowledged that his career was over; he revised Iphigénie en Tauride for German performance, and composed some songs, but abandoned plans for a journey to London to give his operas and died in autumn 1787, widely recognized as the doyen of Viennese composers and the man who had carried through important reforms to the art of opera.
Gluck aimed to make music serve the poetry through its expression of the situations story, without interrupting it for conventional orchestral ritornellos or, particularly, florid and ornamental singing; to make the overture relevant to the drama and the orchestration apt to the words; to break down the sharp contrast between recitative and aria: 'in short … to abolish all the abuses against which good sense and reason have long cried out in vain '. Orfeo exemplifies most of these principles, with its abandonment of simple recitative in favour of a more continuous texture (with orchestral recitative, arioso and aria running into one another) and its broad musical-dramatic spans in which different types of solo singing, dance and choral music are fully integrated. It also has a simple, direct plot, based on straightforward human emotions, which could appeal to an audience as the complicated stories used in contemporary opera seria, with their intrigues, disguises and subplots, could not. He had a limited compositional technique, but one that was sufficient for the aims he set himself. His music can have driving energy, but also a serenity reaching to the sublime. His historical importance rests on his establishment of a new equilibrium between music and drama, and his greatness on the power and clarity with which he projected that vision; he dissolved the drama in music instead of merely illustrating it. - Jessy Terry

Kim Kashkashian

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:06:41 -0700

The St. Christopher Ensemble

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:45:25 -0700

Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 13:47:18 -0700

St. Christopher's Gregorian Choir

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:25:46 -0700

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:11:42 -0700

English Chamber Orchestra; Murray Perahia

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:32:09 -0700

Jiri Antonin Benda

Sun, 9 Nov 2008 21:14:05 -0800

Ferruccio Busoni

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:16:47 -0800

Arco Baleno Ensemble

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:36:14 -0700

Joseph Arnold Gross

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:25:16 -0700

Maria Theresia von Paradis

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:09:00 -0700

Atar Arad

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:58:00 -0700

János Rolla

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:22:40 -0700