AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical

b. 1953 Italian conductor He was assistant conductor to Abbado at La Scala, Milan, then principal conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra 1983–89, music director at the Teatro Comunale, Bologna 1986–93 and chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 1988–2004. In 2005 he took over both the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the opera in Leipzig, resigning ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical

b. 1941 Italian conductor Muti won the Guido Cantelli International Conductors’ Competition in 1967. He was appointed principal conductor of the Florence Maggio Musicale in 1969. Principal conductor and music director of the New Philharmonia Orchestra 1973–82, and of the Philadelphia Orchestra 1980–92, he went on to become music director of La Scala, Milan 1986–2005 and of the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical
• Instrumentalist

b. 1942 Israeli conductor and pianist Barenboim studied in Salzburg and Rome, and under Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He made his UK debut as a pianist in 1956, but turned to conducting in the 1960s with the English Chamber Orchestra. He was music director of the Orchestre de Paris 1975–89 and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra 1991–2006, in both ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(Ed-gar’ Va-rez’) 1883–1965 French-American composer As a young man, Varèse became convinced that the twentieth century needed its own music, untrammelled by the legacy of the nineteenth. He emigrated to the US and began to write music (Amériques, Offrandes, 1921) that took the dissonance and rhythmic energy of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring as a starting-point. He ...

• Major Operas
• Late Baroque
• Opera

Alcina (composed in 1735) is the most celebrated of Handel’s ‘magic’ operas. Its dynamic situations are compelling and poignant: Handel’s portrayal of an enchanted hero, his brave true love and their evil enemy inspired him to create a particularly fine score that examines intense emotional experiences such as loss, guilt, lust, nostalgia and the restoration of memory. ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

‘A Masked Ball’ In 1857, Verdi was virtually asking for censorship trouble when he chose Gustavuse III, ou Le bal masqué (‘Gustavus III, or The Masked Ball’) for his next work. In 1792 King Gustavusus III of Sweden had been shot dead at a masked ball in Stockholm. Regicide was a taboo subject and the Neapolitan censors immediately ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

(Gas’-pa-ra Spôn-te’-ne) 1774–1851 Italian composer Spontini was the central figure in French serious opera between 1800 and 1820. Many of Spontini’s early Italian comic operas are now lost, and he achieved only modest success before settling in Paris in 1803. He was composer for Empress Joséphine from 1805, and in 1810 was appointed director of the Théâtre-Italien. His reputation was ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

1685–1759, German Handel composed 42 operas between 1704 and 1740, but most of these were neglected and seldom performed after his lifetime. In the twentieth century, Handel’s music dramas and in particular his operas underwent a renaissance that has established him as the definitive theatre composer of the late Baroque period. Handel was a maverick composer who pursued ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(Joo’-sep-pa Ver’-de) 1813–1901 Italian composer Verdi composed 28 operas over a period of 54 years. In his native Italy he became immensely popular early in his career, and by the time he died he was idolized as the greatest Italian composer of the nineteenth century. In other musical centres of Europe it took a little longer for Verdi’s genius to be ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

1832–1906, Russian Ivan Melnikov, the Russian baritone, was best known for creating the role of Boris Godunov in Mussorgsky’s opera in 1869. Trained in Russia and Italy, Melnikov had made his debut at the Maryinsky Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg only two years earlier, as Riccardo in Bellini’s I puritani. Melnikov continued to sing at the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical

1906–87 Russian conductor After studying at the Leningrad Conservatory, Mravinsky was conductor of the Leningrad Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre – now the Mariinsky Theatre, housing the Kirov companies – between 1932 and 1938. From 1938 he was chief conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, which he built up into a world-class ensemble. He excelled in the music ...