SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Carl Maria von Weber
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‘The Free-shooter’ The Faustian theme, with its connotations of the black arts, was not new to opera when Weber wrote Der Freischütz. Since 1796 there had already been eight operas based on the sixteenth-century legend as composers responded to one of the most seductive themes of the early Romantic era: a pact with the devil for personal gain or ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Kârl Ma-re’-a fun Va’-ber) 1786–1826 German composer Weber was a central figure in the growth of the Romantic movement in Germany, and one of its most important composers. He resuscitated and spread an enthusiasm for German opera, to which his own three-act opera Der Freischütz (‘The Free-shooter’, 1812) contributed. A gifted Kapellmeister and astute critic, he raised standards of ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1786–1826, German Carl Maria von Weber was a teenage prodigy who wrote his first opera aged 14. By 1804 Weber, still only 18, was musical director in Breslau. By the time he had moved on to Stuttgart, Weber had reworked his first opera, Das Waldmädchen (‘The Forest Girl’, 1810), and gave it the new title of ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Oz’-valt fun Vol’-ken-shtin) c. 1376–1445 South Tyrolean poet Oswald von Wolkenstein has been called the most important poet writing in German between Walther von der Vogelweide and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). He is known to have been a singer and was also very active in the political sphere. Well over 100 poems can be attributed to him, but it ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Vol’-ter fun dâr Fo’-gel-vi-da) fl. c. 1200 German Minnesinger Both in his time and in ours Walther von der Vogelweide has been considered the leading figure in medieval German poetry, and his music was mentioned for its excellence by his contemporaries. His poetic works are found in a large number of manuscripts – an indication of his popularity – but ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Kär’-lo Ja-zoo-al’-do) c. 1561–1613 Italian composer Gesualdo may be more famous than he deserves to be. Everyone loves a good story and Gesualdo, who brutally murdered his wife and her lover, provides one of the most colourful and scandalous in all music history. A nobleman of minor rank, he found, strangely, that his marital history did not ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Spanish guitar legend Carlos Montoya (1903–93) helped propel the flamenco style of music from accompaniment for gypsy folk dances and songs to a serious and internationally popular form of guitar music. Montoya was born into a gypsy family in Spain. He studied guitar with his mother and a local barber, eventually learning from professionals and becoming an expert on the ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

With his work as a studio player and as a prolific solo and guest artist, Larry Carlton (b. 1948) has long been known as a guitarist’s guitarist. Carlton has won three Grammys for his performances and compositions. Carlton started learning to play guitar when he was six years old. He warmed to jazz in high school and was influenced by ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

Multitalented guitarist Carlos Santana was born the son of a mariachi musician in the Mexican town of Autlan de Navarro in 1947. The family moved to Tijuana when he was nine, and Carlos, who first played violin before changing to guitar, became interested in rock’n’roll and blues. At 13, he was earning money playing in cantinas and ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

(Hin’-rikh Eg’-nats Frants fun Be’-ber) 1644–1704 German composer Biber was a violin virtuoso and one of the most imaginative composers of his time. He was employed at the Moravian court of Kromeriz (near Brno in today’s Czechoslovakia) during the 1660s, but from the early 1670s worked at the Salzburg court of the Prince-Archbishop, where he subsequently became Kapellmeister (‘chapel master’) ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Al-es-san’-dro Skär-lat’-te) 1660–1725 Italian composer Scarlatti was born in Sicily but spent most of his working life in Rome, where he studied, and in Naples. He made important and prolific contributions to the genres of opera, oratorio, serenata and cantata forms, composing a much smaller quantity of instrumental and keyboard music. His musical talent attracted the attention ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Do-man’-e-ko Skär-lat’-te) 1685–1757 Italian composer and harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti was the son of Alessandro Scarlatti. He was born in Naples and lived there until 1704, when he joined his father in Rome. The following year he travelled to the cities of Florence and Venice; during his time in the latter he met the great composer of the era, Handel. Scarlatti ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Kärl Fre’-drikh A’-bel) 1723–87 German composer Abel was born at Cöthen, where his father played in J. S. Bach’s group. In 1759 he travelled to London, where he eventually settled, becoming a chamber musician to King George III’s wife Charlotte. It was also in London, in 1764, that Abel, together with J. C. Bach, established ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Kärl Fe’-lip E-ma’-noo-el Bakh) 1714–88 German composer In the eighteenth century, ‘Bach’ usually meant C. P. E. Bach, not his father Johann Sebastian. Born in Weimar, he studied under his father, then read law at the university in Frankfurt an der Oder. He took up a post in Berlin at the court of Prince Frederick, later Frederick ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Kärl Dit’-ters fun Dit’-ters-dôrf) 1739–99 Austrian composer One of the most important Viennese composers in the age of Haydn and Mozart, Dittersdorf held appointments as violinist, composer and Kapellmeister in Vienna, Grosswardein (now Oradea, Romania) and other courts in the Austrian Empire. He was a prolific composer, particularly of symphonies (among them 12 based on texts from ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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