ARCT History Composers

Franz Schubert

This composer combined Classical and Romantic traits and increased the role of piano in art songs

This composer wrote 9 symphonies including No. 8 (“Unfinished”), and over 600 Lieder

Felix Mendelssohn

This composer wrote 5 symphonies including No. 3 (“Scottish”), and No. 4 (“Italian”)

This composer was influenced by the choral techniques in Handel’s oratorios, and his close study of Bach led to a love of counterpoint and part writing

In 1829, this composer organized an historic revival of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion - the first performance since Bach’s death

Robert Schumann

In 1830, this composer began piano lessons with the famous Friedrich Wieck where he met his daughter Clara whom he eventually married

Also an author, this composer co-founded the publication Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal of Music) in 1844

In addition to chamber music, piano music, and operas, this composer also wrote many song cycles including Dichterliebe, and Frauenliebe und Leben

The musical style of this composer embodied the spirit of Romanticism with an intensely subjective viewpoint, heightened emotionalism, and an underlying sense of pathos (pity or sadness)

Clara Schumann

This composer’s music absorbed many of the main currents of the times but with conservative restraint, and the harmonic language embraced mixed modes, progressive harmonies, and modulation

In addition to orchestral, concertos, chamber, and vocal works, this composer wrote numerous character pieces and dances including Quatre pièces fugitives and Variations on a theme by Robert

Franz Liszt

During his later years, this Hungarian composer attained minor orders in the Catholic Church

In addition to vocal, chamber, and orchestral works, this composer wrote piano works such as Transcendental Etudes, and Années de pèlerinage

This composer was an important figure in the development of modern piano technique and used unprecedented bravura effects such as extreme registers, wide leaps, a variety of arpeggiated figures, thunderous octaves, tremolos, cascading passages, and rapid repeated notes

Among the individuals with whom this composer had a romantic relationship were the countess Marie and Princess Carolyne Sayn Wittgenstein

Johannes Brahms

This composer respected the Classical tradition by continuing to use sonata form, theme and variations, and even the passacaglia, and he inherited the legacy of the German symphonic tradition

Among this composer’s repertoire are orchestral works such as Academic Festival Overture and Tragic Overture

Characteristic rhythmic elements in the music of this composer include cross-rhythms, syncopation, hemiola, and augmentation

Giuseppe Verdi

This composer is acknowledged as the greatest Italian composer of opera in the 19th century, and his virtuoso coloratura arias contain soaring melodies, spectacular runs, and vivid ornamentation

This composer wrote 28 operas including Rigoletto and Il trovatore

This composer became involved in the rising tide of Italian nationalism, and his surname became an acronym and rallying cry for unification of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel

Richard Wagner

This composer replaced the “numbers” approach used in Italian opera with a more seamless, through-composed type of opera in which the distinction between recitative and aria was blurred

In addition to a vast musical output, this composer wrote literary works such as Art and Revolution and Opera and Drama

This composer’s dream of a permanent festival for performance of his operas was realized with the construction of the new festival theater at Bayreuth in 1872

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky

Among this composer’s musical output are ballets such as Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty

This composer embraced the symphonic forms and language of Western European composers and balanced Russian nationalism with Western traditions

Gustav Mahler

Like Beethoven, this composer wrote 9 symphonies including No. 2 (“Resurrection”) and No. 6 (“Tragic”)

This composer employed a progressive use of harmony and tonality with sudden modulations, beginning in one key and ending in another, and bitonality

Maurice Ravel

This composer’s expanded tonal language includes the use of modes, pentatonic and whole parallel chord streams, unresolved seventh and ninth chords, and polychords

This composer had a natural affinity for Spanish music due to his mother’s Basque heritage and this is evident in such compositions such as Rapsodie espagnole, and Boléro

Alban Berg

This composer balanced tonal and atonal elements in his music, and his approach to serial technique was liberal as his tone rows often had tonal implications

Arnold Schoenberg

This composer developed the twelve-tone method, an approach used to organize atonal music

György Ligeti

This composer developed a technique he referred to as “micropolyphony”, the weaving of many separate melodic strands into a complex polyphonic fabric

Bela Bartok

This composer’s Hungarian nationalism was manifested in the use of various folk elements including pentatonic and other non traditional scales, irregular rhythms and phrase structures, as well as dance types

This composer wrote orchestral works, concertos, chamber music, piano works, vocal works, ballets, as well as one opera called Bluebeard’s Castle

Sergei Prokofiev

This composer’s fervent Russian nationalism was demonstrated through quotation of hymns and folk songs, and his harmonic language was grounded in tonality though often very dissonant

Olivier Messiaen

This composer’s musical style was inspired by his devout Catholic faith, non-Western musical sources, as well as birdsong

Anton Webern

This composer preferred traditional forms and absolute music, and his twelve-tone works display a radical, strict approach - not only pitch, but also rhythm a and dynamics are at times subject to mathematical ordering

Aaron Copland

His music reflects American nationalism combined with European traditions, and influences of neo-Classicism, folk music, and jazz.

This composer developed a populist style based on European traditions but overlaid with American elements; his musical nationalism is proudly reflected in A Lincoln Portrait, scored for orchestra and narrator, and ballets such as Appalachian Spring

Steve Reich

In this composer’s minimalist works, change is emphasized through the slow evolution of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and contrapuntal features as seen in the work Drumming

Jean Coulthard

This composer’s musical style has many facets, including neo-Romantic characteristics (such as lyricism, lush harmonies, and emotional intensity) as well as experimentation with serialism, aleatoric procedures, and electronic music

John Cage

This composer experimented with non-traditional “instruments” (pots, pans, sheet metal) which led to the invention of the “prepared piano”; philosophical explorations included Zen Buddhism and the Chinese I Ching