AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Modern Era

1886–1954 German conductor After various positions in German opera houses, Furtwängler became conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 1922–45 and 1947–54. He was guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s, and he conducted at Bayreuth and Covent Garden. His treatment of the German classics as works to be interpreted anew at each performance won him ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

(Vil’-helm Fre’-da-man Bakh) 1710–84 German composer The eldest son of J. S. Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann sadly did not have the opportunities to establish himself as a gifted musician that his brothers found. He studied with his father and at Leipzig University, was organist at the Dresden Sophienkirche and, from 1746, at the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle. In the 1760s ...

• Personalities
• Early Romantic
• Opera

1804–60, German Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient was born into ‘show business’. Her father was Friedrich Schröder (1744–1816), the first German Don Giovanni in Mozart’s opera of that name, and her mother was the ‘Mrs Siddons of Germany’, the actress Sophie Bürger (1781–1868). Wilhelmine was a child actress and ballet dancer before making her debut at the Kärnterthortheater in Vienna as Pamina ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(Vil’-elm Sten’-ham-här) 1871–1927 Swedish composer Like his friends Sibelius and Nielsen, the Swedish composer Stenhammar sought a national language independent of nineteenth-century Romanticism. He wrote two symphonies, two concertos for his own instrument, two operas, choral music, six fine string quartets and numerous songs, in a style that is distinctively Nordic but owes something to ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Instrumentalist
• Modern Era

1895–1991 German pianist Kempff studied at the Berlin Hochschule and appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1918. He toured throughout the world, but made his US debut only in 1964. He was noted for his lyrical playing. His recordings include the complete sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | William Kincaid | Modern Era ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Modern Era

1889–1983 English conductor Boult studied under Nikisch at the Leipzig Conservatory before joining the music staff at Covent Garden in 1914. In 1918 he conducted the first performance of Holst’s The Planets, soon becoming known as a champion of contemporary English music. He was musical director of the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra 1930–50 and of the London Philharmonic Orchestra ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical

1908–89 Austrian conductor Appointed music director at Aachen in 1934, he conducted Tristan und Isolde three years later in Berlin. From 1948 to 1960 he had a close association with the Philharmonia Orchestra. He succeeded his rival Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954) as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1955, was artistic director of the Salzburg Festival 1956–60, ...

• Classical
• Early Romantic

The first half of the nineteenth century was essentially a period of insurgence in Europe, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the series of uprisings that rocked the continent around 1848. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was also underway, beginning in Britain, then spreading south through the rest of Europe. With these two strands of revolution came ...

• Opera
• Early Romantic

The early nineteenth century was a period of insurgence in Europe, beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 to the uprisings in 1848. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain before spreading south to the rest of Europe, was also making its mark. These two strands of revolution caused transformations in society: growing awareness of national identity, ...

• Opera
• High Romantic

In 1891, when the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote his famous words ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life’, he had somehow managed to overlook the artistic realities of the late nineteenth century. By that time, after some 50 years of the High Romantic era, music and opera had brought real life on stage and ...

• Classical
• Late Romantic

The political structure of Europe changed greatly during the second half of the nineteenth century. Germany and Italy became united countries under supreme rulers. The Habsburgs’ Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna, became fragmented into Austria-Hungary. The borders of this new confederation contained the cauldron of difficulties that eventually developed into the confrontations which culminated in World War I in ...

• Inside the Music
• Classical
• Classical Era

It was in the late eighteenth century, as Enlightenment thinking developed, that the business of writing about music for an informed public began to flourish. There were historians, such as Padre Martini in Italy, La Borde in France, Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg in Germany and Charles Burney in England; there were lexi­cographers; and there were theorists, ...

• Instruments
• Brass
• Electric & Electronic
• Keyboards
• Percussion
• Stringed
• Woodwind

The history of musical instruments has always been very closely linked to the history of music itself. New musical styles often come about because new instruments become available, or improvements to existing ones are made. Improvements to the design of the piano in the 1770s, for instance, led to its adoption by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ...

• Instruments
• Brass

The tuba is essentially a large, valved bugle, designed to take the bass part in an orchestra or band. Like the trumpet, it is sounded by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece. It is conically bored, like the horn, and consequently has a smooth, velvety sound. History The tuba is a youngster among brass instruments; ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(D’me’-tre Shus-ta-ko’vich) 1906–75 Russian composer Shostakovich was the first of his country’s composers to come to attention after the Russian Revolution of 1917, and since Stravinsky, Rachmaninov and (until the 1930s) Prokofiev were all living abroad, his early successes made him the great hope of Soviet music. He became associated with the Western-influenced modernist movement in the Soviet ...