Among his most famous works are Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826), Italian Symphony (1833), a violin concerto (1844), two piano concerti (1831, 1837), the oratorio Elijah (1846), and several pieces of chamber music. He was a grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.

What was Frederic Chopin known for?

Frederic Chopin was a Polish-born pianist and composer of matchless genius in the realm of keyboard music. As a pianist, his talents were beyond emulation and had an impact on other musicians entirely out of proportion to the number of concerts he gave — only 30 public performances in 30 years of concertizing.

When did Felix Mendelssohn become famous?

Bach), combined with his own highly original contributions, Mendelssohn forged a musical language that was distinctly his own. As a result, he became known as the foremost living composer in Germany by the 1830s, a reputation that he enjoyed until his death in 1847.

What is Stravinsky known for?

Igor Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, Russia. He rose to fame in the early 1900s for his compositions for the Ballets Russes, including the controversial The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky brought his family to Switzerland and then France, continuing his output with such works as Renard and Persephone.

What are Fanny Mendelssohn most famous works?

Mendelssohn composed over 200 lieders (including her famous “Swan Song”), over 100 pieces (including bagatelles, fugues, preludes and sonatas), choral music (the cantata “Oratorium nach den Bildern der Bibel” being most famous) and instrumental music for string and piano.

Was Chopin the greatest pianist?

Frederic Chopin Throughout the 19th century, Chopin battled with Franz Liszt for the title of the era’s best pianist. … Chopin is considered a great in many circles, with one his contemporaries stating: ‘One may say that Chopin is the creator of a school of piano and a school of composition.

What was Chopin most famous piece?

Chopin was an expert in the art of writing and playing ‘cantabile’ (in a singing style), and you won’t find more charming melodies than those of the Nocturnes in B flat minor and E flat, largely considered Chopin’s most famous, from his Nocturnes Op. 9.

What was unique about Mendelssohn as a child?

A true prodigy Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy came from a wealthy Hamburg family who mixed with many of Germany’s leading artists and musicians. A frighteningly clever child prodigy, the young Felix excelled as a painter, poet, athlete, linguist and musician.

What era of music was Stravinsky?

Stravinsky’s professional life encompassed most of the 20th century, including many of its modern classical music styles, and he influenced composers both during and after his lifetime. Included among his students in the 1940s was the American composer and music educator Robert Strassburg.

Did Mendelssohn play the viola?

Mendelssohn himself was an accomplished violinist and violist, playing one of the viola parts in an early performance of his own String Octet in E flat major, and was fully aware of the difficulties of writing for the viola.

Article first time published on

Who was Mendelssohn compared to?

During his lifetime, Mendelssohn was regularly compared (with good reason) to Mozart. He won the championship of Robert Schumann. However, by the 1880s, his reputation, after such inflation, predictably began to sink.

What are 3 interesting facts about Fanny Mendelssohn?

(3) Like her brother, Fanny Hensel was a child prodigy with perfect pitch, and a formidable pianist who played the Well-Tempered Clavier from memory, wrote cadenzas for Beethoven’s piano concertos, and was among the first generation of pianists to essay that most intractable of piano sonatas — Beethoven’s Hammerklavier …

What did Fanny Hensel do?

Fanny Mendelssohn, in full Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy), married name Fanny Hensel, (born November 14, 1805, Hamburg [Germany]—died May 14, 1847, Berlin, Prussia), German pianist and composer, the eldest sister and confidante of the composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Why is Fanny Mendelssohn important?

Fanny wrote over 460 pieces of music, including a piano trio and several books of solo piano works. She wrote many works in the form ‘Songs Without Words’, a genre which her brother later became famous for. But some musicologists now believe that Fanny pioneered this music form.

Why is Chopin's music so good?

Aside from revolutionizing the piano itself, enlarging its scope, the genres it lent itself to, and its breadth of color, Chopin essentially invented the scherzo and instrumental ballade as virtuoso piano movements, and reinvented the etude as a musically engaging genre, rather than a mere exercise.

Was Chopin a great composer?

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) is a Polish songwriter and pianist who marked his time through a highly personal style. He is considered one of the greatest piano composers of the Romantic period. Today, the study of his works is essential to understanding the universal piano repertoire.

Who plays the best Chopin?

If you fancy covering all Chopin’s works in one fell swoop, then this is the collection for you. Polish-American pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887–1982) is considered by many to be the greatest Chopin interpreter of all time. His performances are crisp, sparkling and sophisticatedly shaped.

Was Chopin a good piano player?

His playing was nuanced, sensitive, and expressive Pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles said that Chopin “required no powerful forte to produce the required contrasts”, which suggests that he could be very subtle in achieving the desired dynamic effects on the piano.

Who is the No 1 pianist in the world?

Martha Argerich (1941-) The world woke up to the phenomenal talent of the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich in 1964 when she won the International Chopin Piano Competition at the age of 24. She is now arguably the greatest living pianist and can sell out concerts in minutes.

Who plays Beethoven best?

  • Franz Liszt (1811-86) …
  • Arabella Goddard (1836-1922) …
  • Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) …
  • Artur Schnabel (1882-1951) …
  • Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954) …
  • Herbert von Karajan (1908-89) …
  • The Busch Quartet (1919-51) …
  • Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004)

Did Stravinsky live in NYC?

In 1969 Stravinsky moved to New York. After several stays in hospital, he spent the summer of 1970 in Evian, where he visited with his European family. Stravinsky died on April 6, 1971 in his New York apartment at the age of 88.

Who did Igor Stravinsky married?

Igor married his cousin Catherine Nossenko and had four children. In 1940, after the deaths of his eldest daughter (1938), his wife (1939), and his mother (1939), he married Vera de Bosset.

Where is Tchaikovsky from?

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky also spelled Chaikovsky, Chaikovskii, or Tschaikowsky, name in full Anglicized as Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, (born April 25 [May 7, New Style], 1840, Votkinsk, Russia—died October 25 [November 6], 1893, St. Petersburg), the most popular Russian composer of all time.

What was Igor Stravinsky most famous piece?

Rite of Spring (1913) All three of Stravinsky’s pre-World War I ballets are wonderful works, but start with the greatest masterpiece of the three: The Rite of Spring, which is perhaps Stravinsky’s most famous piece of music.

Why is Stravinsky important?

Was Stravinsky the 20th century’s greatest composer? Unquestionably. He wrote masterpieces in almost every genre and his ability to continually reinvent himself ensured that the music he composed in his 80s sounded as fresh as when he first unleashed The Rite Of Spring upon an unsuspecting musical world in 1913.

Who wrote La Mer?

Today one of the most beloved orchestral works in the literature, La Mer was composed by Claude Debussy in 1903–05 and was premiered October 15, 1905, at the Concerts Lamoureux in Paris under conductor Camille Chevillard, to whom Debussy had assigned the right of premiere performance.

What musical style did Igor Stravinsky uses?

His “Russian phase” was followed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned to neoclassical music. The works from this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue and symphony). They often paid tribute to the music of earlier masters, such as J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky.

Was Felix Mendelssohn a great composer?

Felix Mendelssohn (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847) was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. He is often considered the greatest child prodigy after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Robert Schumann, a close friend, perceptively described him as, “the Mozart of the 19th century”.

Was Felix Mendelssohn a great composer GRE?

Was Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) a great composer? … From then on, he was recognized as an artist of preternatural abilities, not only as a composer but also as a pianist and conductor. But Mendelssohn’s enduring popularity has often been at odds — sometimes quite sharply — with his critical standing.

Is Mendelssohn a classical composer?

Mendelssohn’s music is firmly classical in form and romantic in nature. Like his contemporary Schumann, his music is largely pleasant and evocative, without the strong passions, opinions or inner turmoil of other composers.

What did Felix Mendelssohn contribute to music?

Mendelssohn was an extemely precocious musical composer. He wrote numerous compositions during his boyhood, among them 5 operas, 11 symphonies for string orchestra, concerti, sonatas, and fugues.