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(Volf-gang Reem) b. 1952 German composer Rihm studied with Stockhausen. He was influenced by a diverse range of composers, including Webern, Bartók, Mahler and Beethoven. His early music is strongly expressive, even Romantic (Symphony No. 3, 1976–77). From the 1980s a more distinctive and personal voice emerged as his music became more economical of means and ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

b. 1952, German Initially a student of Stockhausen, Rihm, like several other German composers of the 1970s, moved away from the intellectual and structural forms of serialism in favour of a more expressive and flexible approach. Rihm was drawn to the work of Frenchman Antonin Artaud and his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, which Artaud defines not as an ...

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• Classical Era
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(Wôlf’-gäng Am-ä-da’-oos Mot’-särt) 1756–91 Austrian composer The ‘miracle which God let be born in Salzburg’ – to quote his father, Leopold – came into the world on 27 January 1756 and was baptized the next day as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus; he normally used only the last two names, in the forms Wolfgang Amadeus or Wolfgang Amadè. His father, ...

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• Classical Era
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1756–91, Austrian Alone of the great Viennese classical ‘trinity’ – Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven – Mozart (1756–91) was a born theatre animal. From boyhood, opera was his greatest passion and he built on existing conventions to enrich and deepen three distinct types of opera: opera seria, opera buffa and German Singspiel. The Child Prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ...

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Mozart had long admired the inspired synthesis of French and Italian opera in Gluck’s ‘reform’ works. His greatest opera seria, Idomeneo, premiered in Munich on 29 January 1781, draws much from Gluck, especially the hieratic scenes of Alceste (another opera concerned with human sacrifice). Yet its harmonic daring, orchestral richness and lyrical expansiveness are entirely Mozart’s ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
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‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’ Premiered on 16 July 1782, Die Entführung aus dem Serail quickly became his most popular work and sealed the composer’s operatic reputation in German-speaking lands. The Viennese expected plenty of laughs from a Singspiel. Mozart obliged with his first great comic creation: the ‘foolish, coarse and spiteful’ (Mozart’s words) harem overseer Osmin, a larger-than-life ...

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• Classical Era
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‘The Marriage of Figaro’ The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote that Le nozze di Figaro offered ‘a new kind of spectacle … to a public of such assured taste and refined understanding’, and it would be fair to say that after Figaro’s premiere on 1 May 1786, opera buffa was never quite the same again. There were precedents, of ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
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Composed in 1787 and triumphantly premiered in Prague on 29 October that year, Don Giovanni reworks the old legend of the serial seducer, drawing on the Spanish play by Tirso de Molina (1630) and Molière’s Don Juan (1665). The opera revolves around the tensions of class and sex that were so central to Figaro. Ensembles and propulsive ‘chain’ finales ...

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‘That’s Women for You’ While Don Giovanni was the nineteenth century’s favourite Mozart opera, Così fan tutte, premiered on 26 January 1790, was widely considered frivolous, immoral and (not least by Beethoven) an insult to women. Today we can see it as perhaps the most ambivalent and disturbing of Mozart’s three Da Ponte comedies. In the composer’s ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
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‘The Magic Flute’ The librettist of Die Zauberflöte, Emanuel Schikaneder, Mozart’s old friend and fellow freemason, drew on an eclectic variety of sources, including a French novel, Sethos, Paul Wranitzky’s magic opera Oberon (1789) and the oriental fairy tale Lulu. In the bird catcher Papageno, Schikaneder created for himself a character that could exploit ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
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‘Titus’ Clemency’ Premiered in Prague on 6 September 1791, Mozart’s last opera is based on an old Metastasio libretto, updated (with added ensembles and choruses) for contemporary taste. Popular in the early nineteenth century, it then went into eclipse. Nowadays, though, La clemenza di Tito is valued on its own terms rather than as a pale ...

• Personalities
• Early Romantic
• Opera

1749–1832, German Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, greatest of all German poets and dramatists, created what became almost a genre in its own right with his Faust (1808). The theme captured the imaginations of numerous composers and among the 122 operas based on Goethe’s writings, the Faustian legend formed the plot for 20 of them. Goethe did more ...

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• Modern Era
• Opera

1897–1957, Austrian The son of music critic Julius Korngold, Erich was declared a genius aged nine by Gustav Mahler. Four years later, Korngold wrote a ballet pantomime, Der Schneemann (‘The Snowman’, 1910), orchestrated by his teacher Zemlinsky. The work drew the admiration of Puccini and Strauss, both of whom were already major influences on Korngold’s compositional ...

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1875–1937, French A meticulous craftsman whose constant reworking and rewriting may have accounted for his relatively small body of work, Ravel composed music that consciously moved away from the influence of Richard Wagner. Along with Claude Debussy, he invented a highly personalized French style. Ravel also imbued his music with his love for Spanish culture (perhaps because his ...

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b. 1936 American composer Reich studied with Hall Overton (1920–72), Vincent Persichetti (1915–87), William Bergsma (1921–94), Milhaud and Berio. A particular focus of his development was Asian music, especially its rhythmic structures. Much of Reich’s music is characterized by phasing, in which a number of instruments play identical music starting one after the other, giving an echo or ...