Johann Pachelbel lived from 1653 until 1706 and was the German composer of Italian-influenced organ
compositions. He was one of the great organ masters before Bach.
Niccolò Paganini lived from 1782 until 1840. He was an Italian composer who was considered to be the greatest violin virtuoso of all time. His compositions include 24
caprices for violin, and two concertos for violin
and orchestra. Paganini published his Caprice Number 24 in 1820, at the height of his fame. In 1934, Rachmaninoff Composed his "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini".
Hubert Parry lived from 1848 until 1918. Parry's academic records from Oxford were not so outstanding that anyone would have believed the he would become a known and respected composer and music teacher.
Parry began composing chants and hymns at the age of eight and was publishing church music, piano pieces and songs during his teens. Eventually, he taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music and became its director in 1894. In 1900, Parry began teaching at Oxford. His most famous piece is "Jerusalem", set to a poem by William Blake.
Sir Peter (Neville Luard) Pears lived from 1910 until 1986. He was a British operatic tenor who was born in Farnham, Surrey, SE England, UK. He was organ scholar at Oxford, then studied
singing at the Royal College of Music (1933 until 1934). He toured the USA and Europe with Benjamin Britten, and in 1943 joined Sadler's Wells. After the success of Peter Grimes (1945), he joined
Britten in the English Opera Group, and was co-founder with him of the Aldeburgh Festival
(1948). Knighted in 1978, he was noted for his understanding of modern works.
Krzysztof Penderecki was born in 1933 in Poland.
He occupies an important position in the music of his native
Poland, while establishing an international reputation with music that
had a wide effect. His earlier more experimental musical language was
later subtly modified by his return to earlier traditions as a source of inspiration.
The best known composition by Penderecki is his St. Luke Passion, the Passio et mors domini
nostri Jesu Christi secundum Lucam, completed in 1965. This was followed in 1971 by
Utrenia, a choral work that deals with the events following the Crucifixion, drawing inspiration
from the Orthodox liturgy.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi lived from 1710 until 1736. He was a composer, born in Jesi, Italy. Pergolesi attended the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo at
Naples, became a violinist, and in 1732 was appointed maestro di cappella to the Prince of
Naples. His comic intermezzo La serva padrona (1732) was highly popular, and influenced the
development of opera buffa. He wrote much church music, and in 1736 left Naples for a
Capuchin monastery at Pozzuoli, where he composed his great Stabat Mater.
Jacopo Peri lived from 1561 until 1633. He was a Florentine singer and composer who aspired
to restore the true principles of Greek tragedy. He experimented with instrumentally accompanied declamatory style. His opera, "Dafne" (c. 1594), is believed to be the first genuine opera.
Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born cellist who performed worldwide and was a teacher at the University of Southern California. He lived from 1903 until 1976.
Walter Hamor Piston, Jr., was born in Rockland, Maine where he lived until he was ten and then moved to Boston. He lived from 1894 until 1976. He descended on his father's side from Antonio Pistone, his grandfather, who sailed
from Italy and settled in Rockland. Here the family, to seem more American, dropped
the final 'e' from their name. After serving the US Navy in
World War I he entered Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude in 1924. He then
spent two years in Europe from 1924-26 on a John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship, and
studied composition with Paul Dukas at the Ecole normale de musique, and also took private
lessons from Nadia Boulanger. From 1926 until his retirement in 1960 Walter Piston was a
member of the faculty of Harvard University, where he was Walter W. Naumburg
Professor of Music and he was one of the most significant musical
educators of his time. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and in 1961, and was three-time
winner of the New York Music Critics Circle Award.
He wrote four books on the technical
aspects of music which are considered to be classics in their fields - Principles of Harmonic Analysis (1933), Harmony (1944), Counterpoint (1947) and Orchestration (1955). All these books are available for student or parent use at the studio.
Few American composers have composed so extensively and yet with such uniform excellence.
His work habits were remarkably methodical; he rarely altered or revised his music once it was
put on paper, and his handwriting was calligraphic. He rarely wrote for
voices.
Piston died in Belmont, Massachusetts in 1976. Today, he is best known for his ballet The
Incredible Flutist, his two violin concertos, eight symphonies, and numerous wonderful chamber
works.
Amilcare Ponchielli lived from 1834 until 1886. He was among the most important Italian opera composers of the
19th century, second only to Verdi in the third quarter of the century.
The best known of the eleven operas written by
Ponchielli is La Gioconda, with the famous Dance
of the Hours from the opera a popular favourite.
Amilcare Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia.
Michael Praetorius lived from 1571 until 1621. He was a German music theorist
who is a principal source for knowledge of seventeenth century music. His
compositions of Lutheran chorales exemplify the religious music of his time.
André Previn is a conductor and composer who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1929. After studying music in Berlin and Paris, he fled
the Nazis with his Russian-Jewish family, who went to Los Angeles where his great-uncle was
musical director at Universal Studios. He continued to study music, played jazz piano, and began to
work as an orchestrator and composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. During his army service in 1950,
he began to study conducting with Pierre Monteux and made his debut with the St. Louis Symphony
in 1963. He went on to become conductor of various orchestras - Houston, London, Pittsburgh, the
Royal Philharmonic, and, in 1986, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to Oscar-winning film
scores, he composed musicals (such as Coco, (1969) and concert works; he also continued to play
jazz and was an articulate promoter of all types of music.
Leontyne (Mary Violet) Price was born in 1927, in Laurel, Miss, and is a Soprano. Price studied at Juilliard in New York before finding success on
Broadway in Four Saints in Three Acts in 1952 and the female lead in Porgy and Bess the same
year. In 1954 she presented a recital in New York's Town Hall, where she premiered Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs.She went on to an outstanding international career on both operatic and
concert stages, especially admired for her Italian opera roles; her Metropolitan Opera debut came
in 1961. For a time she was married to baritone William Warfield.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891 to 1953) was a Russian composer whose musical imagination and dynamic
rhythms made him important for the development of Russian
and modern music. He performed as a pianist at age six, composed an opera at nine, and was only 30 when he conducted the opera premiere of Love for Three Oranges in 1921. The "March" from this opera was used as a theme for the show The FBI in Peace and War on radio and TV.
Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, December 22, 1858 and died in Brussels, November 29, 1924. He was an Italian operatic composer known for his fluent melodic writing and bold dramatic harmonies. Continuing in the Italian operatic tradition of Verdi, Puccini is remembered for having
composed several of the most popular operas in the standard repertoire. His works largely
fall into the realm of verismo, or "realistic" opera, in which everyday characters live, love
and suffer amidst contemporary settings. His works are noted for their gorgeous melodies,
creative orchestration, and dramatic, even sentimental, plots. Puccini treats the orchestra as
a continuous means of conveying the drama, with arias, duets and ensembles developing
naturally out of the musical flow.
He achieved fame when
La Bohéme was
conducted by Arturo Toscanini in Turin,
followed by Tosca and
Madama Butterfly. The love duet from Act I of La Bohéme is a fine
example of Puccini's rich melodic style.
Henry Purcell lived from 1659 until November 21, 1695. Purcell was the most important English composer of the early Baroque.
Henry Purcell spent his entire career in various capacities as a musician in the
English royal court. He began as a singer in the Chapel Royal as a boy. When his
voice broke in 1673 he was named an assistant to John Hingeston, the keeper of
the king's instruments. Ten years later he succeeded Hingeston in the position. In
1677, he was appointed a composer to the king. A series of other court
appointments finally led to his taking the position of organist at Westminster Abbey
in 1679, and in 1682 he was appointed organist to the Chapel Royal.
Purcell is probably best known for his dramatic works, including songs and
instrumental music for some forty plays. His one true opera (short as it is) was Dido
and Aeneas, written for a girls' school in Chelsea. A larger work, The Fairy Queen,
based loosely on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, was a royal
entertainment with music. It, along with a number of his other works, is often
described as a semi-opera. His most famous choral work is his Ode to St. Cecelia,
but he also wrote more than fifty anthems and numerous other sacred pieces and
songs. In these works, his response to the text can be quite moving and his
settings of sorrowful texts often contain surprisingly harsh dissonances. Purcell's
instrumental music, especially his fantasies, shows his mastery of contrapuntal
technique.
Works:
Dramatic music, including Dido and Aeneas (1689) and The Fairy Queen
(1692), incidental music for plays
Sacred vocal music, including a Magnificat, Te Deum and anthems
Secular vocal music, including court odes
Instrumental music, including fantasias, sonatas, marches, overtures, and
harpsichord suites and dances
Purcell composed the first important English opera Dido and Aeneas. "Dido's Lament" from this opera is one of the most beautiful operatic songs of sorrow.
Composer Birthdays
All these books are available for student or parent use at the studio.
