Poetry, stories and strange odds and ends from the desk of a writer
Brahms was a composer, pianist, and conductor. He spent much of his professional life in Vienna. Brahms composed for orchestras, chamber ensembles, organ, piano and voice. A virtuoso pianist he premiered many of his own works himself. He is grouped with Bach and Beethoven as one of the ‘Three B’s’ of music...
Telemann was a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He became a composer against his family’s wishes and was almost self-educated musically. Before settling in Hamburg in 1721 as a musical director of the city’s five main churches, he held important positions in Leipzig, Eisenach, and Frankfurt. He is one of the most prolific composers in history and considered to be one of the leading composers of the time...
Djawadi is a score composer, best known for his scores for the Marvel film Iron Man in 2008 and the TV series Game of Thrones. He has also written the scores for Clash of Titans, Warcraft, and West World...
Tchaikovsky was a Romantic composer and the first Russian composer to make a lasting international impression. In 1884 Tsar Alexander III honoured him with a lifetime pension...
Vangelis is a musician and composer of progressive, electronic, ambient, jazz and orchestral music. He is best-known for his Academy award winning score to Chariots of Fire and also composing scores for Blade Runner, Antarctica, Conquest of Paradise and Alexander. From a career spanning over 50 years Vangelis is considered one of the most important figures in the history of electronic music...
Purcell was a composer of a uniquely English form of Baroque music which incorporated Italian and French elements. He is one of the greatest English composers and the most famous before the 20th century’s Elgar, Williams, and Britten...
Copland was a composer, writer, composition teacher and conductor. The open, slowly changing harmonies of his music evoke vast landscapes and the pioneer spirit of America. Best known for his vernacular style of the 1930s and 1940s including the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, and Fanfare for the Common Man...
Handel was a Baroque composer who spent most of his career in London, becoming naturalised British in 1727. He was well known for his operas, oratorios, concerti grossi, organ concertos and anthems. Handel trained in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg before settling in London in 1712. He started three opera companies to supply Italian opera to the English nobility. Handel is considered one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era with works such as Messiah, Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks and four coronation anthems; Zadok the Priest, composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at the coronation of every subsequent coronation during the anointing of the monarch...
Telemann was a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He became a composer against his family’s wishes and was almost self-educated musically...
Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. A child prodigy he was competent on both keyboard and violin from the age of five, performing before European royalty. Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court at 17 but grew restless and travelled to find a better position. He was dismissed from his post in 1781 while visiting Vienna where he stayed. During his final years, he composed many of his best-known works, including symphonies, operas, concertos, and parts of the Requiem which was unfinished at the time of his death at just 35
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer and musician of the Baroque era. Best known for his instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and for vocal music such as St Matthew Passion. Since a Bach revival in the 19th century he has been regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time...
First broadcast in 1958, Blue Peter is a children’s television programme which has had continuous seasons since it was first aired and is the longest-running children’s TV show in the world...
Barry was a composer and conductor of film music. He composed scores for eleven of the James Bond movies between 1963 and 1987, and arranged and performed the ‘James Bond Theme’ to the first film, ‘Dr. No’ in 1962. Other scores include the Grammy and Academy Award-winning ‘Dances with Wolves’ and ‘Out of Africa,’ ‘Mary, Queen of Scots,’ and for the TV series ‘The Persuaders.’
Williams is a composer, pianist, and conductor regarded as the greatest film score composer of all time. He has composed some of the most popular, critically acclaimed, and most recognizable film scores in cinematic history and won 25 Grammy Awards, 7 British Academy Awards, 5 Academy Awards, and 4 Golden Globe Awards. Williams’ film scores include Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra Terrestial, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones...
Schumann was a composer, pianist, and music critic. Regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, Schumann left the study of law to pursue a career as a pianist but a hand injury ended his dream. Instead he turned his talents to composing and until 1840 he wrote exclusively for the piano. Later he composed for piano and orchestral works, and many Lieder...
Schubert is among the last of the Classical composers and among the first of the Romantic ones. His music is noted for its melody and harmony. He received a thorough education in music and won a scholarship...
Beethoven was a composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transition between the classical and romantic eras in classical music, and arguably one of the greatest composers of all time....
Haydn was a composer of the Classical era and instrumental in the development of chamber music. He spent much of his career as a court musician for the remote estate of the Esterházy family. This isolated him from other composers and music trends. However, Haydn’s music was circulated widely and he was the most celebrated composer in Europe...
King is an award -winning composer, singer, and actor. He is best-known as a member of the family ensemble, The King Brothers...
Chopin was a composer. His first published composition at aged 7 which was followed a year later as he began his performing career. He moved to Paris in 1832 and mixed with high society and was well known as a piano tutor...
Telemann was a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He became a composer against his family’s wishes and was almost self-educated musically. Before settling in Hamburg in 1721 as a musical director of the city’s five main churches, he held important positions in Leipzig, Eisenach, and Frankfurt. He is one of the most prolific composers in history and considered to be one of the leading composers of the time...
Best known for the instrumental ‘Eye Level’, the theme tune for the original Van der Valk television series...
Schubert was a composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He left behind a cast oeuvre despite his short life...
Corelli was a violinist and composer of the Baroque era. His music was significant in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto as well as the rise in the pre-eminence of the violin and the coalescing of the instruments tonality and functional harmony....
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer and musician of the Baroque era. Best known for his instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and for vocal music such as St Matthew Passion. Since a Bach revival in the 19th century he has been regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time....
Morricone is a composer, orchestrator, trumpet player and conductor. He has composed over 400 scores for film and television and over 100 classical works...
Jarre is a composer, performer, and record producer. He is a pioneer of electronic, ambient, and new-age genres, and well-known for his outdoor spectacular performances of music, lasers, fireworks, and visual projections...
Goldsmith was a composer and conductor best known for his work in film and television scoring. His scores include Star Trek, Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes, The Omen, Capricorn One Gremlins and three Rambo movies...
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer and musician of the Baroque era...
Zimmer is a film score composer and record producer. His work is noted for integrating electronic musical sound with traditional orchestral arrangements...
Martin Fulterman, better known as Mark Snow is a composer for film and television...
Richard Georg Strauss was a composer, conductor, violinist, and pianist...
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer and musician of the Baroque era...
Holst was a composer, arranger, and teacher best known for his orchestral suite The Planets...
Beethoven was a composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transition between the classical and romantic eras in classical music, and arguably one of the greatest composers of all time...
Composer: Guillaume Dufay Born: 13 August 1397, Beersel, Belgium Nationality: Franco-Flemish Died: 27 November 1474, Cambrai, France...
Title: Mercury, the Winged Messenger Date: 1916 Orchestral
Le quattro Stagioni (the Four Seasons) is four violin concerti composed by Antonio Vivaldi. Each concerto gives a musical impression to a season
The Lark Ascending is a short, single-movement work by Vaughan Williams, inspired by the 1881 poem of the same name by George Meredith.
Antoni Leopold Dvořák was a composer and one of the first to achieve worldwide recognition. In line with the Romantic era’s nationalist idiom he frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the traditional folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia.
Title: Pictures at an Exhibition Date: 1874 Composer: Modest Mussorgsky Movement: Romantic Born: 21 March 1839, Karevo, Russia Russian Died: 28 March 1881, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Title: Minuetto Date: 1771 Composer: Luigi Boccherini Movement: Classical Born: 19 February 1743, Lucca, Italy Italian Died: 26 May 1805, Madrid, Spain
Title: Figaro’s Aria Date: 18123 Composer: Gioachino Rossini Movement: Opera Italian Born: 29 February 1792, Pesaro, Italy Died: 13 November 1868, Paris, France
Aaron Copland was a composition teacher, composer, writer and conductor.
Gustavos Theodore von Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. There had been professional musicians on the Holst family and it was noted when he was a young boy he would follow the same calling. Apart from the Planet Suite and a few other pieces his music was largely ignored until the 1980s.
https://youtu.be/Q8AN0jWNrJA Title: The Four Seasons - Autumn Date: 1723 Composer: Antonio Vivaldi Movement: Baroque Italian 1678 - 1741 Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was a composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. He is recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and within his lifetime his influence was widespread across Europe. He composed numerous concertos for … Continue reading The Four Seasons – Autumn by Antonio Vivaldi
https://youtu.be/vvVl15XXrOg Title: Dance of the Furies Date: 1776 Composer: Christoph Wilibald Ritter von Gluck Movement: Classical German 1714 - 1767 Christoph Wilibald Ritter von Gluck was a composer of Italian and French opera during the early classical era. With a series of radical works, including Orfeo ed Euridice, he broke into the stranglehold of … Continue reading Dance of the Furies by Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck
Sung by Luciano Pavarotti https://youtu.be/d_mLFHLSULw Title: O Sole Mio Date: 1898 Composer: Eduardo di Capua and Alfredo Mazzucchi Tenor Vocals: Luciano Pavarotti Opera 1935 – 2007 Luciano Pavarotti was an operatic tenor. He also crossed over into popular music becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. As one of the finest … Continue reading Eduardo di Capua and Alfredo Mazzucchi: O Sole Mio
https://youtu.be/iCEDfZgDPS8 Title: A Night on Bald Mountain Date: 1867 Composer: Modest Mussorgsky Romantic Era Russian 1839 - 1881 Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a composer and an innovator of Russian music during the Romantic period. In defiance of the conventions of the Western music establishment, he deliberately strove to give Russian music its own identity. … Continue reading Modest Mussorgsky: A Night on Bald Mountain
https://youtu.be/WpEpS1FX5ic Title: Libertango Date: 1974 Composer: Astor Piazzolla Nuevo Tango Argentine 1921 - 1992 Astor Pantaléon Piazzolla was a composer, particularly of music for the tango, a bandoneon player and arranger. His compositions revolutionised tango music into the nuevo style combining elements of jazz and classical music. He has been described as the ‘world’s … Continue reading Astor Piazzolla: Libertango
