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Christoph Wilibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck was born in 1714 in a village in Germany.
Gluck's importance is due to the fact that he advocated the first major reform of opera. Gluck's influence on the young Mozart is also evident. However, in contrast to Mozart's opera, Gluck's characters are still mythological heroes of the highest order. What the Gluckinian reform was really intended to do was to do away with the excesses of overloaded Italian baroque opera, that is, to purify and ennoble the genre. -
Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was a renowned Austrian composer. His long life resulted in a very extensive compositional oeuvre that includes symphonies and operas, overtures, cantatas, oratorios and other pieces.Thanks to the support for three decades of his patron, Prince of Esterházy. Haydn became one of the most important composers in instrumental music. Curious and innovative in new musical forms and formations, he earned the nickname ‘father of the symphony’ and ‘father of the string quartet’. -
María Anna Mozart
Maria Anna Mozart was born on 30 July 1751 in Salzburg, the same city where her brother Amadeus was born four and a half years later. She was the fourth child of a married couple of musicians. Only she and her brother Amadeus survived to adulthood. The instruments on which she performed best were the pianoforte and the harpsichord. Many people said that Maria Anna's talent was even superior to that of her brother, but when she turned 18, her father decided to take her away from the stage -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart was born on 27 January 1756. He was born into a family of musicians in Salzburg and showed great talent for music from an early age. At the age of five Mozart had already mastered the violin and keyboard and had composed several pieces of music on his own.
Mozart's musical career was full of debt and waste.
Mozart died in Vienna on December 5, 1791, at the age of 35. His most famous works are: ‘Symphony No. 40’, ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, ‘Requiem Mass’ and ‘The Magic Flute’. -
Maria Theresia von Paradis
Maria Theresia von Paradis was a virtuoso pianist, singer, composer and blind educator who achieved unprecedented success throughout Europe as a performer and intellectual. She was admired by great personalities of different statuses, including leaders such as King George III, Joseph II, Louis XVI, Empress Maria Theresa I and even Marie Antoinette; writers and poets such as Bürger, Burney and Klopstock; and musicians such as Haydn and Mozart, who even dedicated a concert to her. -
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer of classical and romantic music, and is considered one of the greatest musicians in history. Most famous for his nine symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas and string quartets, Beethoven was a great innovator and probably the most influential composer in the history of music. The most important works :
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, with its famous opening motif and Symphony No. 9 in D minor, also known as the ‘Chorale’ -
Gioacchino Antonio Rossini
(Pesaro, 1792 - Passy, de 1868). He was the son of the musician Giuseppe Rossini and the singer Anna Guidarini.He studied music with his father and at the conservatory in Bologna, where he wrote 37 operas, from Demetrio and Polybius (1806) to William Tell (1829). In 1816, in Rome, he wrote his most famous work, The Barber of Seville, based on the literary trilogy by the French baron Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais, the second part of which, The Marriage of Figaro, was set to music by Mozart. -
Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert was born on 31 January 1797 in Lichtenthal near Vienna.He was the twelfth of fourteen children. Franz Schubert received his first lessons at the age of eight. His father, who played the cello, introduced him to music.
At the age of ten he wrote his first works.
In 1813 he began teaching at his father's school. A year later he created his first opera, Des Teufels Lustschloss, his first mass (in F major) and seventeen songs. -
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz (La Côte-Saint-André, 1803 - Paris, 1869), was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and music critic largely renowned for his compositions. His ‘Grand Traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration moderne’ (1842-43) influenced later generations.
His works include the ‘Symphonie fantastique’, ‘Benvenuto Cellini’, ‘The Funeral and Triumphal Symphony’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘The Damnation of Faust’, ‘The Infancy of Christ’, ‘The Trojans’ and ‘Beatrice and Benedict’. -
Felix Mendelssohn
(Hamburg, 1809 - Leipzig, 1847) German composer, pianist and conductor. In 1815 he began serious piano studies with Ludwig Berger. He composed the overture A Midsummer Night's Dream when he was only seventeen and the work containing the famous ‘Wedding March’ seventeen years later. He toured Europe. He was musical director of the city of Düsseldorf (1833-1835), director of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig (from 1835) and musical director to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia (from 1841). -
Frédéric Chopin
(Poland, 1810-París, 849) Chopin's musical talent was evident from an early age. He composed his first piece at the age of seven. Over the course of his short life, Chopin created a wealth of beautiful and innovative music that continues to captivate audiences today.
Chopin's compositions were characterised by emotional intensity and technical brilliance, and he is credited with developing new forms of musical expression, such as the piano ballade and the nocturne. -
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann(1810-1856) fue un compositor alemán de la época romántica. En un principio aspiraba a ser pianista, pero una lesión en la mano le obligó a centrarse en la composición. Es conocido por sus expresivas obras para piano, lieder (canciones artísticas) y sinfonías, entre ellas Carnaval, Kinderszenen y Dichterliebe. Schumann estuvo casado con la pianista Clara Schumann, que influyó enormemente en su carrera. En sus últimos años luchó contra una enfermedad mental y murió en un manicomio. -
Franz Liszt
(Raiding,1811-Bayreuth,1886) was a famous Austro-Hungarian composer of 19th-century Romanticism.
He was noted for the originality of his compositions and the piano technique he developed. Between 1839 and 1847 he toured Europe and achieved unprecedented fame. In 1847 he abandoned his career as a virtuoso.
From 1848 to 1861 he was music director at the ducal court of Weimar, where he performed works composed by Hector Berlioz, Wagner and other composers, as well as his own. -
Richard Wagner
(Leipzig, 1813 - Venice, Italy, 1883) German composer, conductor, poet and music theorist. The composer's first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies) was completed in 1833. He is appointed musical director at the operas in Würzburg and Magdeburg. He writes Das Liebesverbot, an opera inspired by a play by William Shakespeare.
In 1840, Wagner finishes his opera Rienzi and returns to Germany for its premiere in Dresden. His first masterpieces are The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser -
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi (Le Roncole,1813-Milan,1901) was an Italian composer of the 19th century, known mainly for his operas. He is actually considered one of the most important opera composers in history, and his creations are still very popular today. In addition to his operas, Verdi also composed religious music, chamber music and choral works.
Among his most famous operas are ‘Rigoletto’, ‘La Traviata’, ‘Il Trovatore’ and ‘Aida’. His style was also influential on other composers, such as Puccini. -
Clara Schumann
(Leipzig, 1819-Frankfurt am Main, 1896), known as Clara Schumann, was a German pianist, composer and piano teacher. As a composer, Clara Schumann wrote works for solo piano, songs for voice and piano, chamber and orchestral music, as well as a cappella choral music. Famous works include Four Polonaises (for piano); Piano Concerto in F minor; Piano Trio in G minor, op. 17; Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 7. -
Bedřich Smetana
(Litomysl 1824-Prague, 1884) Czech composer and conductor. Smetana was the first to express the spirit, essence and yearnings of his homeland in his works. In this sense, he must be considered the father of the Czech nationalist school of music. He is famous for his symphonic poem Vltava (Vltava in German), the second of six entitled vlast MA (‘My Fatherland’), and for his opera The Bartered Bride. -
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic era. Known for works like Symphony No. 1, Hungarian Dances, and A German Requiem, he combined classical traditions with deep emotion. A close friend of Clara Schumann, he was a perfectionist who shaped orchestral and chamber music. Brahms spent much of his career in Vienna and remains one of classical music’s great composers. He was the greatest representative of the conservative circle in the ‘War of the Romantics’. -
Modest Mussorgsky
(Karevo, Pskov, 1839-St. Petersburg, 1881) was a Russian composer, member of the group ‘The Five’.
He possessed a bold and unorthodox harmony based on the scales of Russian folk music. His songs and the opera Boris Godunov show a desire to reproduce the rhythms and sonority of the Russian language. The opera Boris Godunov (1872), the symphonic poem A Night on Bald Mountain (1867) and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) are among his most important works. -
Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky o Chaikovski
Votkinsk, Russia, 1840 - St. Petersburg, 1893) Russian composer of the Romantic period. He is the author of some of the most famous works of classical music in today's repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, the overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet, the First Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, his Fourth, Fifth and Sixth symphonies and the opera Eugene Onegin. -
Anton Dvorak
(Nelahozeves, 1841 - Prague, 1904) Czech composer. He began his studies in Zlonice in 1853 and continued them in Prague during the period 1857-59. He then played the viola in an orchestra until 1871. At the same time he became a composer. His first success in this field was a hymn with a text by Viteslav Hálek (1873), which earned him the post of organist of the church of St. Etelbert, which he held until 1877. -
Edvard Grieg
(Bergen, 1843 - 1907) Norwegian composer considered the leading representative of his country's nationalist music. He studied piano with his mother, a professional pianist, and later at the Leipzig Conservatory. Grieg's compositions span several genres, but he is best known for his works for piano and orchestral music. A collection of 66 short piano works written throughout Grieg's career. Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16: One of the most famous piano concertos of Romanticism. -
Rimski Korsakov
(Tichvin, 1844 - Lyubensk, 1908) Russian composer and conductor. In 1861 he met the composer Mili Balakirev, and came into contact with a group of young nationalist composers including Alexandr Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky and César Cui. Together they formed the group of the Five.
His operas include Sadkó Snegurochka , May Night, Tsar Saltan, Mlada , The Tsar's Bride, Kästchei, the Immortal, Christmas Night and The Golden Cockerel and the symphonic works Spanish Whim and The Great Russian Easter . -
Giacomo Puccini
(Lucca,1858-Brussels,1924) was a prominent Italian composer, renowned for his influential operas.
He studied at the Milan Conservatory, where he trained in composition and perfected his melodic and emotive style. His first opera, ‘Le Villi’, was premiered in 1884, but it was with ‘Manon Lescaut’ and especially with ‘La Bohème’ that he achieved international fame and success. Puccini continued his success with works such as ‘Tosca’ and ‘Madama Butterfly' -
Hugo Wolf
(Windischgraz, 1860 - Vienna, 1903) Austrian composer. He was the most important composer of Lieder since Franz Schubert. In 1875 he entered the Conservatory in the Austrian capital and began to associate with Wagner, who came to Vienna to conduct Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.
In 1889 he began to compose the Spanisches Liederbuch. He composed the comic opera El corregidor, based on the story El sombrero de tres picos by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. -
Gustav Mahler
(Kaliste 1860 - Vienna, 1911) Austrian composer and conductor. Author of ten symphonies, as well as the monumental The Song of the Earth, he became assistant conductor in Bad Hall, Austria, in 1880 and opera conductor in various European cities such as Kassel, Prague, Leipzig, Pest and Hamburg.
His orchestral compositions are grandiose mosaics of colour and deep melancoly. The symphony Das Lied von der Erde and four of the nine numbered symphonies include solo voices. -
Claude Achille Debussy
( St. Germain-en-Laye, 1862 - Paris, 1918) French composer. He studied from the age of ten at the Paris Conservatoire with Lavignac and Marmontel. In 1879 he moved to Florence, Venice, Vienna and Moscow as a private musician for Nadejda von Meck, patron of the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. His most important works include the Quartet in G minor (1893) and the Prelude to a Faun's Nap (1894), based on a poem by the symbolist writer Stéphane Mallarmé. -
Jean Sibelius
(Tavastehus, 1865 - Järvenpäa, 1957) Finnish composer. His music is inspired by nature and Finnish legends, such as the Kalevala.
One of his most famous works, the symphonic poem Finlandia, was banned at the time by the Russian authorities because it aroused great patriotic fervour among the population. Among his major works are his 7 symphonies and the symphonic poems En Saga ,The Swan of Tuonela , Night Ride and Dawn, The Oceanic and Tapiola. -
Arnold Schönberg
(Vienna, 1874 - Los Angeles, 1951) Austrian composer and painter, naturalised American. He was one of the first composers to explore atonal composition, and to create the technique of dodecaphonism based on series of twelve notes. These developments and innovations were applied in his works such as the String Quartet, Erwartung, the Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, or Suite for Piano. -
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a French classical composer, best known for his innovative piano pieces and orchestral works, such as Bolero and Daphne and Chloe. Ravel's work is renowned for its complex, yet sophisticated and precise orchestration. Ravel wrote piano pieces Sonatine and Miroirs, the song cycle Histoires naturelles for voice and piano, chamber music including unusual works for harp, and one of his most popular orchestral pieces, Spanish Rhapsody. -
Manuel de Falla - Joaquín
(Cadiz, 1876 - Alta Gracia, Argentina, 1946) Spanish composer. He was one of the first composers to achieve success throughout Europe and America. His work has left an indelible mark, fusing the popular traditions of Andalusia with European classical forms.
His compositions include Noches en los jardines de España, the opera La vida breve, the ballets El amor brujo and El sombrero de tres picos, and the unfinished oratorio La Atlántida, which was completed by Ernesto Halffter. -
Béla Bartók
(Nagyszenmiklós, Romania, 1881-New York, 1945) Hungarian composer. He is considered one of the greatest Hungarian composers, along with Franz Liszt. He composed chamber works, string quartets and piano music, as well as orchestral and stage works. He also performed as a pianist and researched Eastern European folk music. His works include the eight Hungarian Romanian Dances for piano; the Allegro barbaro; the opera The Castle of Barbazul; the ballets The Wooden Prince and The Wonderful Mandarin -
Ígor Stravinski
(Oranienbaum, Russia, 1882 - New York, 1971) He was a Russian composer best known for his stage works, including the ballets The Firebird, Petrushka and the revolutionary The Rite of Spring. He lived in Switzerland, France and the United States, and his experiments with rhythms and dissonance have led him to be described as the most important composer of the 20th century. -
Joaquín Turina
(Seville, 1882 - Madrid, 1949) Spanish composer. He studied at the conservatory until 1905, when he moved to Paris to study at the Schola Cantorum, where he introduced elements of traditional Andalusian music into his compositions.
He wrote four operas (Margot in 1914, Navidad in 1916, La adúltera penitente in 1917, and Jardín de Oriente in 1923) and symphonic works: Procesión del Rocío, Sinfonía Sevillana and Danzas Fantásticas. He also wrote chamber music such as La Oración del Torero. -
Zoltán Kodály
(Kecskemét, 1882 - Budapest, 1967) Hungarian composer, music critic and ethnic musicologist. In 1900 he moved to Budapest and studied composition at the Musical Academy and philology at the university.
Among his best works are Psalmus hungaricus (1923) for tenor, choir and orchestra, the opera Háry János (1926), the Dances of Galanta (1933) for orchestra, the Te Deum Budavari, the Peacock Variations and the Missa brevis (1945). -
Heitor Villa-Lobos
(Rio de Janeiro, 1887-1959) Brazilian composer. Self-taught, he studied the cello and began composing at a very young age. He conducted orchestras in Brazil, the United States and Europe. He wrote more than 2,000 works and used practically all forms of musical composition. Famous are his Bachianas brasileiras, nine suites with varied instrumentation in which the musical language of Johann Sebastian Bach is ingeniously blended with the powerful rhythms and melodic styles of Brazilian folk music. -
Jacob Gershvin
(Brooklyn, USA, 1898 - Beverly Hills, id., 1937) American composer. From an early age, he showed a remarkable interest in music, which led him to study piano and composition. His natural talent and dedication to music enabled him to become a leading figure in the world of American classical and popular music. Gershwin is known for his ability to fuse different musical styles, especially jazz and classical music, creating a unique sound that has endured throughout time. -
Olivier Messiaen
(Avignon, France, 1908 - Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, id., 1992) French composer, organist, pedagogue and ornithologist. He was appointed organist at the Church of La Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post he held until his death. He is known for his unique musical style which combines elements of classical music with influences from nature, religion and spirituality. Works such as The Nativity of the Lord and The Last Judgement are clear examples of how Messiaen fused his faith with his art. -
Pierre Schaeffer
( Nancy,1910-Aix-en-Provence,1995) was a French composer. Known for being the father of musique concrète, a style using recorded sound materials and elaborated as a collage. In 1942 he established the Studio d'Essai, a centre for the work of musique concrète and experimental radio. His works include Étude aux chemins de fer and Symphonie de bruits, later reworked as Symphonie pour un homme seul. In 1958 he created the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, a pioneer in the creation of electronic music. -
John Cage
(Los Angeles, 1912 - New York, 1992) American composer. In the 1930s, he began to demonstrate in his early work an unusual talent for designing impossible rhythms and a special aptitude for inventing systems such as the twenty-five-tone system. He also used distortions for his instruments and invented the prepared piano. Possibly the most innovative of his compositions for this novel piano was Sonatas and Interludes. His works include Amores, Music of Changes and Theatre Piece -
- Pierre Henry
(Paris,1927-ibidem, 2017) was a French musician, considered to be the creator, together with Pierre Schaeffer, of the so-called musique concrète and one of the godfathers of electroacoustic music. One of his emblematic works is Symphonie pour un homme seul, a work divided into several parts, consisting of sounds created from the human body. Henry composed film and ballet music, among his best known works is the experimental work Messe pour le temps présent, in which his piece Psyche Rock appears -
Philipp Glass
(Maryland, 1937) is one of the most famous, controversial and influential American musicians and composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is considered the leading exponent of minimalism, a movement based on the construction of music through the combination of repetitive pulses that evolve throughout the piece. By 1976, he had composed a large collection of new music, culminating in Music in Twelve Parts, followed by the opera Einstein on the Beach, created with Robert Wilson.