Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3

Joseph Joachim Raff, was the son of an organist and teacher, Franz Joseph Raff, who early in 1822 left the little Würtemberg city of Weisenstetter in the Horb district of the Bl...

After giving a few other concerts, Marxsen kept him for several years from appearing in public, until in 1853 he could send him as a master of his instrument upon his first jour...

We have thus seen how many strong features Brahms has introduced in the symphonic form, without departing from its classic foundation; but it is still more important that as a g...

Goldmark has devoted his life to composition. He takes no pupils and has refused not only all orders and distinctions, but all offers of posts as conductor. The only office he h...

The true successor of “Frithjof” was to come later in the shape of another warrior, this time a Grecian; in the “Odysseus,” Op. 41, with Ulysses as his hero, we find the compose...

At last we reach in our review the field, in which Rheinberger has been especially fertile and successful, his many choral compositions. As a writer of chorus-ballads, he occupi...

Thus we find him impelled by the demands as well as the artistic possibilities of a fruitful story to the construction of his great tetralogy, consisting of the dramas eventuall...

These words make it plain that Gluck distinctly perceived the fundamental principle of artistic truth in opera,—that the music must be considered as a means and not an end. He f...

We have already seen that, according to his ideas, the union of poetry, painting, music, and action in the “art work of the future” could be effected only by some sacrifice on t...

In “Die Götterdämmerung,” when Siegfried has become a fully developed man, this melody is modified so as to signify his mature heroism. It is then proclaimed by the orchestra th...

Hand in hand with the development of orchestral accompaniment, the seventeenth century witnessed a wonderful development of organ and clavier playing. In this also Italy took th...

While Gluck increased the significance of accompanied recitative and insisted on truer methods of declamation, he would not allow the air the same prominence that the Italians d...

The most eminent of all these epigones was Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763–1850), who presents the melancholy example of an able and worthy master who entirely outlived his fame. As a y...

In depth of sentiment and emotional power, Schumann was the worthy successor of Beethoven. Like Mendelssohn, he was an earnest student of Bach’s music, and we perceive the influ...

It would much exceed the narrow limits set by this article to attempt to discuss the far-reaching questions connected with the great musical and dramatic reform of Wagner. This...

The æsthetics of music have been extensively treated by the foremost German philosophers. Hegel and his followers Vischer and Kahlert, laid the foundation of a comprehensive con...

We have already observed that the distinguishing trait of the dramatic music of Lully, as compared with his contemporaries, is pre-eminently the grandeur of his style, with a de...

This article would be very incomplete were we not to say a few words concerning the pieces for the harpsichord composed by Rameau, which form such an important item in the fine...

After this work Grétry produced several others, which did not, however, meet with the same good fortune. Nevertheless, Grétry occupies a place of honor in the history of theatri...

Méhul was born at Givet, in the Ardennes, June 22, 1763. Like many other great composers, he was of low degree, had but few opportunities for study at the start, and struggled h...

Hérold returned to Paris shortly after the successful production of his first opera, stopping en route in Vienna, where he made many musical acquaintances. Arrived at the French...

Planard, having witnessed the failure of “Le Testament,” would have liked to take back the libretto of “La Bergère Châtelaine” which he had handed over to Auber some time before...

Jacques François Fromental Elias Halévy was born in Paris, May 27, 1799, of Jewish parents, whose family name was Lévi. The same considerations of expediency that induced Meyerb...

Halévy, despite all his industry and the fame he enjoyed through his greatest successes, made no lasting impression on the music of his day. Even “La Juive,” notwithstanding its...

On his return to Paris he organized, first, a monster festival at the Exposition of the Products of Industry, in August, 1844, then four grand concerts at the Circus of the Cham...

After _Faust_ and _Romeo_, comes the _Requiem_,—another triumph; a romantic composition of the first class, written with feverish enthusiasm by a master who rather sought to pai...

Ambroise Thomas was born in Metz on the fifth day of August, 1811. He was the son of a musician and received his first instruction in music from his father. In his earliest chil...

And then Bizet busied himself in the completion of “Noah,” a biblical opera left unfinished by Halévy; in arranging operas for pianoforte solo; in original compositions for the...

The preparations for the opera had made great progress, and everybody expected, at any moment, the composer’s return. Not only did he refrain from reappearing in Paris to assist...

“Good. I will tell you what I think of it and whether it pleases me as much as it pleases you. Let me say that I think very little of the music of young men who win the Prix de...

This article fell like a thunderclap on Paris, where people were scarcely giving Gounod a thought. A very distinguished French musical critic, Louis Viardot, was then in London...

It is a singular thing that the two musicians whose personal and original genius characterize in some sort, from points of view otherwise very different, the reform tendencies o...