German composer Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) was the 11th child of Johann Sebastian Bach. After his death, six of his symphonies where assigned to the opus number 18. Symphony No.6 actually began...
Johannes Brahms composed the Alt-Rhapsodie in September of 1869 as a wedding gift to the daughter of his close friend and confidant, Clara Schumann. The Alt-Rhapsodie is set to several verses of a poe...
Nowadays, Carmen is probably the most famous opera in the whole opera-repertoire, although its premiere in 1875 was a great disappointment because of the misunderstanding of the very realistic plot. C...
Josef Hellmesberger Jr. was an Austrian composer, violinist and conductor. His compositions include operettas, ballets, lieder and a variety of dances such as the 'Danse diabolique' ('Teufelstanz' or...
Johann Strauss wrote the bubbling 'Champagne Polka' for his 1858 summer concert season in Pavlovsk, where its first performance took place on 12 August under the title of 'Ball-Champagner-Polka'. Stra...
French composer Adolphe Adam composed his opera 'si j'etais roi' (if I Were King) in 1852. Though less popular than 'Le postillon de Lonjumeau', it is often regarded as Adam's finest work. The well-de...
'Vanda' (Wanda) is a grand opera in five acts by Antonín Dvorák which was premiered at the 'Provisional Theatre' in Prague on 17 April 1876. The story is about the Polish queen, Princess Wanda, who dr...
'H.M.S. Pinafore' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. 'H.M.S. Pinafore' was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and their firs...
The Helios Overture was composed in 1903 while Nielsen was on holiday in the Greek isles. The piece is said to depict the course of the sun through the sky from dawn to sunset. Even though the piece w...
In 1883, a singer named Johanna Richter made a guest appearance in the court theater at Cassel, Germany, where Gustav Mahler was the conductor. As a result of this engagement she entered into a regula...
The Ouverture Carnevalesca was performed in Bologna on April 19th of the same year (1913) as part of a ten-city tour. The piece was written shortly before the Sinfonia drammatica (1914) and Ottorino R...
Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) along with Granados, Albeniz and Manuel de Falla, was a defining voice in Spanish music. His music is typically very lyrical and deeply inspired by the rich musical heritage...
I Got Rhythm is a song composed by George George Gershwin published in 1930, which became a widely-known jazz standard. The song was introduced by Ethel Merman in the musical Girl Crazy. In 1933, Geor...
Cesar Franck's symphonic poem, 'Le Chasseur Maudit,' was written in 1883 and first performed in the following year. It is based upon the familiar ballad of Bürger's, 'Der wilde Jäger' ('The Wild Hunts...
With Les Pecheurs des Perles Bizet first made his mark in 1863. Set in ancient Ceylon, this tale of friendship, love and betrayal has been performed more and more often in opera houses around the worl...
Sullivan's Operetta The Gondoliers (first staged in 1889) was the last of the wildly successful Gilbert and Sullivan productions. The exuberant Dance a Cachuca is sung towards the beginning of the sec...
Tenor and Concert Band. Ruggiero Leoncavallo, both composer and librettist, based Pagliacci on real-life events he recalled from childhood. From these he fashioned a vivid musical play with intense pa...
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born in New Orleans in 1829. His father was of German-Jewish decent and his Catholic mother was a Creole from Haiti. His piano lessons commenced at the age of five and were...
In its original form, the Fete Polonaise from the Opera Le Roi Malgre, is scored for chorus and orchestra. Ever the artistic pragmatist, Chabrier turned the dance sequence into a glittering orchestral...
Respighi's Three Botticelli Pictures (1927) is a three-movement suite based on famous paintings by the Renaissance master Botticelli. It's fully as colorful and beguiling as the fulsome and flashy Pin...
With the deepest respect for Bach's genius, Respighi accepted Toscanini's request in 1930 for a transcription of Bach's great Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor. The result was a 'Bravo Respighi!' from...
Respighi's Gli Uccelli (The Birds) is a suite in five movements for small orchestra. Each movement is based on themes by 17th and 18th century composers.
In 1919, Spanish composer Reveriano Soutullo began his famous musical partnership with Juan Vert, which continued until the latter's early death in 1931. The Zarzuela La leyenda del beso (1924) is one...
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) finished his masterpiece Otello in October 1885. The libretto by Arrigo Boito was based on Shakespeare's tragedy. The Bonfire Chorus is sung in the very first act: the peopl...
The work of the Russian composer Anatol Liadov (1855-1914) is characterized by bizarre humour, originality, precision and imagination. Kikimora is a fairy tale for orchestra by Liadow about a female h...
Giuseppe Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera contains two famous soprano roles, strong male solo roles, fine choruses and sharp dramatic situations. And yet it is not quite as popular as some other Ver...
Zu den brillanten 'Danzas Fantasticas' wurde der spanische Komponist Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) durch die Erzählung 'La Orgia' von José Mas inspiriert. Das Werk ist dreisätzig, jeder Satz ist in einem...
Prokofiev composed his first piano concerto while at the Conservatory, in 1911 and 1912, and premiered it himself on August 7, 1912. The concerto is a single movement divided into clearly marked secti...
As a composer, Edward MacDowell is mostly remembered for his two piano concertos, a great number of compositions for piano including Woodland Sketches (with the very popular 'To a Wild Rose'), New Eng...
As a composer, Edward MacDowell is mostly remembered for his two piano concertos, a great number of compositions for piano (including Woodland Sketches (with the very popular 'To a Wild Rose'), New En...
In 1933 Revueltas composed his brief symphonic poem 'Janitzio' named after an island in Lake Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacßn, west of Mexico City, whose population had derived its income largely...
American composer and Cornetist Herbert L. Clarke was one of the first soloists to combine a pyrotechnic technique with a lush, romantic sound. His 'virtuoso-with-a-heart' style set the standard for C...
The diptych 'Estampes Simfoniques' (Symphonic Images) by the Spanish (Catalan) composer Joaquim Serra (1907-1957) would not be a unique piece in its production if it wasn't because in this occasion th...
Alejandro Garcia Caturla (1906 - 1940) was a Cuban composer of art music and creolized Cuban themes. He was fascinated by creolized Afro-Cuban rhythms and these Creole themes were characteristic of hi...
Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra' (Enigma), Op. 36, commonly referred to as the 'Enigma Variations', is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar...
In 1899 Edward Elgar finished his best-known large-scale composition, the 'Enigma Variations'. Elgar dedicated the piece to 'my friends pictured within', each variation being an affectionate portrayal...
As a composer Franz Lehár started with contributions to the opera-genre but the great triumph of his first operetta 'Die lustige Witwe', (The merry widow), in 1905 made him clear that he had to gif hi...
Ollantay' is one of the last scores of his nationalistic period of the Argentin composer Alberto Ginastera. The imagery for the music comes from the 'Popol Vuh', or Council Book, an assemblage of Maya...
Louis Moreau Gottschalk's compositions were the first to incorporate rhythms and 'native' melodies of the West Indies into the concert music mainstream. His music astutely predated what would become r...
'Pelléas et Mélisande', Opus 80 is a suite derived from incidental music by French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) for Maurice Maeterlinck's play of the same name. The 'Sicilienne' (Allegro molto m...
Gabriel Fauré composed the 'Pavane' during the summer of 1887 and it was originally be orchestrated for a chamber orchestra. Although he enjoyed composing and performing it, Fauré was unaware of (or t...
Franz von Suppé composed about 30 operettas and 180 farces, ballets, and other stage works. Although the bulk of Suppé's operas have sunk into relative obscurity, the overtures - particularly 'Dichter...
Claude Debussy's L'isle joyeuse (The Happy Island) is an extended solo piano piece that was inspired by Watteau's painting L'Embarquement de Cythère, in which a happy group of revelers depart for/from...
'Mignon' is an 'opéra comique' in three acts from the French composer Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel 'Wilhelm Meisters Leh...
Carmen' is probably the most famous opera in the whole opera-repertoire, although its premiere in 1875 was a great disappointment. The chorus 'Avec la garde montante' is sung in the first act: A group...
Carmen' is probably the most famous opera in the whole opera-repertoire, although its premiere in 1875 was a great disappointment. The aria 'Les tringles des sistres tintaient'is sung in 2nd act of th...
Arthur Benjamin (1893-1960) was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of 'Jamaican Rumba', composed in 1938. He was a brilliant light-music composer...
Although some of Revueltas's music might hint at somber, ancient Indian rites (Noche de los Mayas and Sensemaya) or paint austere landscapes (Planos and Itinerarios), Caminos (1937) is one of Revuelta...
Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916) was one of the composers who defined a Spanish nationalistic sound and profoundly affected the style of other Iberian composers. His 12 Danzas Españolas are relatively e...
The fast polka 'Auf der Jagd' opus 373 is one of six dance arrangements of melodies from Johann Strauss' operetta 'Cagliostro in Wien' which was premiered in February 1875. The polka received its firs...
In 1940, Sergei Rachmaninov composed 'The Symphonic Dances, Op. 45. It's an orchestral suite in three movements and it became Rachmaninov's last composition, summarizing his compositional output in to...
Music historians often cite Gottschalk's 'Pasquinade' as one of the earliest pieces that establish the ragtime style - an ''On beat' bass line and ''Off beat' accompanying rhythm beneath a syncopated...
The 'Banditen-Galop (Bandit's Gallop) is a gallop which was arranged from melodies in Strauss' operetta 'Prinz Methusalem'. The title of the composition is derived from the appearance in the stage wor...
Ernest Bucalossi (1859-1933) was a Britisch-Italian light music composer. The Grasshopper's Dance was written in 1905 and has enjoyed popularity ever since - even appearing in a recent milk commercial...
Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927) was a Swedish composer, conductor and pianist. In 1897 Stenhammar composed his '4 svenska sånger' (4 Swedish Songs) of which the fourth song, 'Fylgia', has become well-k...
As many composers in those days Johann Strauss also wrote a piece celebrating technological innovation. 'Vergnügungszug' (Pleasure Train) was written for the Association of Industrial Societies Ball a...
José Juventino Policarpo Rosas Cadenas (1868-1894) was a Mexican composer and violinist and was one of the best known Mexican composers of salon music. 'Sobre las Olas' (Over the Waves) is Rosas's bes...
George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931) was an American composer. His style is regarded as 'American' but this was overshadowed towards the end of his life when music by Gershwin and Copland became yet...
Victor August Herbert ( 1859-1924) was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Herbert was a prolific composer, producing an enormous oeuvre but he composed only one sol...
Josef Strauss was an Austrian composer and brother of Johann jr. and Eduard. He joined the 'Strauss' family orchestra, along with his brothers Johann and Eduard in the 1850s. He wrote 283 opus numbers...
In 1851 Johann Strauss jr. composed the 'Albion-Polka', dedicated to Count Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. The count and his wife, Priscilla, both loved music...
'A Shropshire Lad' is a collection of 63 poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman (1859 -1936). The poems tell of the transience of love and youth, and speak of duty to country, facing death be...
