Composers with last names beginning with S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z listed here include:







Schubert, Franz Peter (1797-1828)

Franz Peter Schubert, a distinctively outstanding Austrian composer. His in-born talent for music and his imaginative mind helped him with his composition. Born on the 31st January 1797, in the Lichtenthal district of Vienna. Born to a parish schoolmaster and a cook, Schubert was the youngest son of the family. Father played the violin cello, both brothers were violinists. Franz also showed his explicit talent in the art.

At 11, Schubert passed the entrance examinations for the Convict School. At school he made friends with Josef Spaun who remained a close friend to Schubert for the rest of his brief life.

In the Convict School, Schubert made his first compositions: Hagars Klage, which was noticed by director of Convict, Salieri. Salieri, acknowledging the pupil's talent, placed Schubert under the teaching of Ruzizka, professor of harmony. Ruzizka who was, in turn, impressed by his pupil's achievement, confided to Salieri that Schubert was a music genius. Salieri took Schubert under his own guidance. Before long, the boy's talent in the art also largely impressed Salieri.

In 1813 the musician's voice broke and was forced to leave the Convict School. In order to earn a living, he had to adopt the teaching profession. He assumed a post in his father's school, but he was a terrible teacher. At night he devoted his time to compositions and made an enormous output of works.

In 1815, Schubert produced one well-known masterpiece: Erikig. Schubert had just came across Goethe's ballad, which sparked off Schubert's imagination. Schubert set off to compose, but the composition was greeted coldly by his friends. During this time, Schubert and his friends called themselves "Schubertians" and held social evenings, "Schubertiaden" where they enjoyed themselves. In 1818 Schubert became the music teacher to the Johann Esterhazy family. He stayed at the job for the summer then devoted his life to intense composition when he roomed with a friend that winter on.

In 1820 there were 2 performances of Schubert's works: Zwillingsbrer and Zauberharfe. Unfortunately, both works were not that warmly received at that time. In 1821 in a desperate effort, some of his friends published Schubert's works by themselves, which was followed by a few more publications but the published work was not that successful. In 1822 He wrote an opera "Alfonso and Estrella" but was turned down by Karl Maria von Weber. In 1823 Schubert composed the "Rosemunde" for a drama, which was performed in Vienna but it was criticized by the critics of the time.

In this series of disappointments, Musikverein of Graz appointed Schubert honorary member. Schubert was so gratified that he composed a song in its honor. The song was famous: Unfinished Symphony, which comprises of two instead of four movements. On 26 March 1828 the Musikverein of Vienna gave a public concert devoted entirely to Schubert`s music. The concert was overwhelmingly successful--the first and only taste of fame which Schubert had in his lifetime.

From 1828 onwards the composer showed symtoms of sickness.
In 1828, on the nineteenth of November this great composer passed away.
Schubert was buried near Beethoven, as he has requested.


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Schumann, Robert Alexander (1810-56)

Schumann was born on June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Saxony (Sachsen), and educated at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg. In 1830 he abandoned the study of law in order to devote himself to music. He studied piano with the German teacher Friedrich Wieck, but a permanent injury to one of his fingers forced him to abandon the career of pianist. He then turned to composition and the writing of musical essays. Schumann married the pianist Clara Josephine Wieck, the daughter of his former teacher, in 1840. In 1843 Schumann was appointed to the faculty of the newly founded Leipzig Conservatory, but he soon resigned. In 1850 he was named town music director at Düsseldorf; advancing mental illness, which had threatened him since adolescence, forced him to resign in 1854. That same year Schumann attempted suicide and was confined to an asylum near Bonn, where he died on July 29, 1856.

Among his more famous works are the piano suite Carnaval (1834-35), and some of his songs: Liederkreis and Dichterliebe. Other works include Fantasy in C Major (1836) and Études Symphoniques (1854), Album für die Jugend (Album for the Young, 1848), Piano Quintet (1842), Second Symphony (1846), and Piano Trio (1847).




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Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

An adventurous composer, a bringer of changes to the ordinary way of writing. Igor Stravinsky was born on the 17th June in Lomonosov. Stravinsky's music was influenced by many of the leading composers like Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Borodin and Dukas, etc.

Stravinsky wrote The Firebird in 1910 for the Diahilev company, and then went to Paris with the company in the same year. Stravinsky then stayed in Paris. More compositions for the Diahilev company followed, for example Petrushka. These pieces gained Stravinsky fame and he was talked about throughout Europe. Unfortuanately the public did not warmly welcome the new piece "The Rite of Spring" and thought it a terrible crash of noise.

Due to World War I and the Russian Revolution Stravinsky left Russia for switzerland and America respectively. During this time Stravinsky carried on his music-writing. From his experience Stravinsky now put his writings in a more simple form, no longer as hard as The Rite of Spring. In this period were birth of the songs like Lenoces and Renard.

In 1920 Stravinsky produced a surprisingly new kind of music for the Diahilev company, Pulcinella which imitated the style of 18th century Italian music. This reviving of the classical style led to a long period of "neoclassicism".

In 1939 Stravinsky went to America and took up American nationality. In 1940's Stravinsky wrote The Rake's Progress. In 1953 The Rake was finished.

Stravinsky contiued composing in his mid eighties. This most courageuous explorer of music passed away in the year 1971 on 6th April, in New York.


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Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

The best-known Russian composer of classical music is undoubtedly Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. His music is thoroughly Russian and yet international and cosmopolitan in technique. While his music expresses the excitability of his Russian temperament, he did not use national folk melodies as a basis for his compositions.

Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia on 7th May, 1840, the son of a mining engineer. Unlike so many other great composers, he was not a child prodigy, nor did he exhibit particular musical talent early in his life.

He studied law and only later became interested in music while working as a civil servant. Gradually he was enrolled in the new music conservatory in Leningrad. In the Russia capital, he wrote his first opera.

In the late 1870's Tchaikovsky composed his first ballet music, SWAN LAKE, which was to become enormously popular. At this time he also wrote the opera EUGEN ONEGIN, whcih became the most popular of his dramatic works.

Tchaikovsky had a disastrous marriage and after his return to Russia he wrote the famous 1812 Overture and later, in 1888, his Fifth Symphony. The composer's love of dance also spurred him on to write The Sleeping Beauty in 1889. The following year he wrote The Nutcracker Suite - his most popular work.

He visited the United States in 1891 to conduct six concerts. Among the works performed were his B-flat minor piano concerto, still a great favourite with American audiences.

In 1893 he began work on the crowning achievement of his career: his Sixth Symphony, the Pathetique. Indeed, the Sixth Symphony is perhaps the most purely symphonic music ever composed.

Unfortunately Tchaikovsky was not fated to witness success of this work. Only ten days after it was first performed, the world was shocked by the news of his death. He had not paid attention to the warnings of friends who admonished him not to drink unboiled water during a cholera epidemic. A week later, on 6th November, 1893, he passed away.


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Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

One of the greatest composers of opera is undoubtedly Giuseppe VERDI. His music is the highest expression of Italian art in the Wagnerian era - bold and dramatic. Moreoever, it reflects the time in which Verdi lived. In the 1840's, when he wrote his first successful operas, the nationalistic movement against Austrian rule in Italy was taking on a revolutionary fervor.

Verdi was born on 10th October, 1813 in Le Roncole, Italy. His first exposure to music was primitive. Indeed, the only secular music he knew was that of the barrel organ and the military band. When Verdi was thirteen, he became exposed to more serious music.

In 1838 he took his family to Milan to pursue his musical career. The next two years, however, brought him great tragedy. His infant daughter died in 1838, followed by his son in 1839 and his wife in 1840. These deaths left Verdi on the edge of a nervous breakdown. At this time he decided to give up composing music forever. The libretto of Nabucodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) interested Verdi, and he made up his mind to set it to music.

One of Verdi's greatest operas, Falstaff, was written when he was seventy-nine years old. Verdi had always been fascinated with Shakespeare and he had used the playwright's characters as models for operas Macbeth and Othello.

Verdi died on 27th January, 1901, at the age of eighty-seven, in Milan.


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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678- 1741)

A celebrated composer and an excellent and promising violinist. Antonio Vivaldi, one of remarkable character was born on the 4th March 1678, in Venice. Antonio was the son of Giovanni Battista Vivaldi, a barber who took up violin. Antonio's father was a violinist good enough to get a job in performing at San Marco and later performed in operas. Unlike the Strauss family, Antonio was the only musician among his own kin. A lot of credit had to be given to Antonio's father Giovanni who taught him violin (at a pretty early age) and brought him along to some various performances. In 1703, Vivaldi became an ordained priest. In the same year, Vivaldi gave up saying mass due to, as he claimed, ill health (chest pain, asthma, and sickness of bronchitis).

In the year 1703 right after he became an ordained priest, Vivaldi was appointed by the church as violin teacher to charitable home for female offspring Ospedale della Pietà. There, Vivaldi played his works as exercises with his many musically talented pupils. Vivaldi's appointment at the home was continued year by year until 1709 and then taken up again in year 1711. Between the time from 1709-11 Vivaldi was engaged in his work with the opera theatre Teatro Sant' Angelo and he remained an active composer.

In 1713 Vivaldi staged his first opera "Ottone in villa", in Viczenza.
In 1716 Vivaldi's first oratorio was performed in Osprdale della Pieta --- Juditha Triunphans devita holofernis barbaric. This oratorio is the description of the recent victory of the Venetian Christians over the Turks in August 1716.
In 1717, Vivaldi went to Mantua to take up his post as Chamber Kapellmeister at the court of Landgrave Philips van Hessen-Darmstadt. His opera Armida had been staged in Mantua earlier and then in 1719 his other two works Teuzzone and Tito Manlio followed.

In Mantua Vivaldi made aquaintance with the singer Anna Giro (Giraud), she moved in to live with him and stayed with him for the rest of Antonio's life. After 1720, Vivaldi composed the serenade La Sena Festeggiante (Festival on the Seine) for French King Louis XV. Vivaldi like musicians before him stayed in Rome and profited from a city that has such favorable culture climate. Though staying in Rome, Vivaldi still served the Ospedale della Pieta. He sends 2 concertos back to Vienna each month and his presence was never required.

Between 1925 and 1928, Vivaldi wrote 8 operas, while being actively involved in writing concertos. His concertos were overwhelmingly successful. Louis XV of France become so obsessed with Vivaldi's music that they were ordered to be played at unexpected times and Vivaldi also received commissions at the court at Versailles.

In 1730, Vivaldi went to Prague. During the time between 1730-31, Vivaldi opened two operas, which both were premiered.
In 1738 Vivaldi conducted a festive opening for the 100th anniversary of the Schowberg Theater. He resigned from Ospedele in 1740.
On July 28th, 1741, in Vienna, the great composer and violinist, Vivaldi died. He received a modest burial.


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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

One genius who writes the words for his own operas. Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in Germany in the year 1813.His father died soon after, and his mother remarried. Wagner studied first in Dresdan and then in Leipzig. At the age of 15 Wagner wrote a play and then the next year he wrote his first music. Wagner studied at the Leipzig University in the year 1831.Wagner learned the piano but he never became as professional in the instrument as other master composers did. Wagner was largely self-taught .

He made a successful performance of his own symphony in the year 1832. He became a chorus master for a theatre and while he worked as choir master he wrote his first opera with his very own text. His first opera was not performed until 1888 and Wagner never lived to see it onstage. His second opera was staged in 1836.

In 1836 Wagner married the singer Minna Planer. Later Wagner traveled to Riga and started his next opera Rienzi. In Riga Wagner became deeply in debt and had to escape to London and Paris respectively.

In Paris Wagner worked on his opera based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman. Surprisingly in the year 1842, his opera Rienzi was highly successful in its performance in Rome and was allowed to be staged in Dresdan.

His next opera "The Dutchman" was less well received than Rienzi. In 1845 Wagner started his opera "Lohengrin". In 1848 he got involved in political revolution. He escaped to Weimar where he was helped by Franz Liszt. Wagner's exile was carried on for several years where he went to both Switzerland and France.

By the year 1853 the text part of his famous Four night cycle was completed.

Then Wagner got involved in an extra-marital affair was one of his patron's wife Mathilde Wesendonck. This affair gave Wagner the inspiration for one of his operas Tristan und Isolde which was started in the year 1854 and finished in the year 1859.

The greatest and mostly applauded opera of Wagner's life Die Meistersinger was finished in the year 1861.

In 1855 Wagner took up conducting in London. In 1862 he was, at last, allowed to go back to Germany after quite a number of years of exile fro his home country. Unfortunately in the same year the Wagner couple decided to seperate permanently due to Richard Wagner's marriage infidelity.

In 1864, Wagner's music brought him the admiration of King Ludwig II who gave him a residence near Munich and offered him a salary which allowed him to compose freely. Wagner did not stay with the King for long, for he was discovered to have an extra-marital affair with Franz Liszt's daughter who had already been married to a conductor. In 1868, Wagner's all famous opera Die Meistersinger was premiered and staged in 1868.

In 1866 Wagner's wife Minna died and in 1870 Wagner married Franz Liszt's daughter, Cosima.

The generous King Ludwig II paid Wagner's debts and provided money for a new opera house at Bayreuth. This theatre was built for the performing of Wagner's music drama The Ring. The Ring drama cycle took Wagner a whole 22 years to finish. It's performance was a financial disaster. In order to recoup some of his losses on the performance, Wagner conducted in London. There, Wagner made his last opera a sacred music drama--Parsifal. It was performed in 1882.

In the year 1883 Wagner the composer who brought changes to the conventional operas pass away in Venice due to heart failure. He was buried at Bayreuth.




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