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[English Version] Saint-Saëns, Camille (9.10.1835 Paris – 16.12.1921 Algier), franz. Komponist. Schon früh als Wunderkind auftretend, wirkte S.-S. ca.80 Jahre in der Öffentlichkeit, u.a. 1858–1877 als Organist an der Madeleine, Paris. Seit 1878 führte er ein unstetes Wanderleben mit Reisen bis ins höchste Alter. Seinem klassizistischen Stil mit impressionistischen Anklängen blieb er treu, so daß je nach musikpolit. Stimmungen Phasen von Bewunderung und Verurteilung einander abwechselten. (Letzteres…

[English Version] , Hugo (13.2.1860 Windischgraz/Slovenj Gradec – 22.2.1903 Wien), bedeutendster Komponist von Klavierliedern neben F. Schubert. Chaotische Jugend- und Ausbildungsjahre entsprechen dem Bild vom exzentrischen Künstlergenie, das sich mit vielen Gönnern überwarf. Stimmungswechsel sind als Vorboten des 1897 ausbrechenden Wahnsinns anzusehen. Seinen Durchbruch erzielte W. 1888/89, als mit Liedern nach E. Mörike, J. Frhr. v. Eichendorff und J.W.v. Goethe öfftl. Anerkennung einsetzte. Dort…

[English Version] Tschaikovskij, Peter Il'ič (7.5.1840 Votkinsk, Ural – 6.11.1893 St. Petersburg), bedeutendster russ. Komponist des 19.Jh. und der erste, der seinen Weltruhm selbst erlebte. Die ungebrochene Popularität des Künstlers kontrastiert stark zur depressiven, homosexuellen, bohemehaften und tendenziell menschenscheuen Existenz des Komponisten. T. wurde als Kind nicht konsequent musisch gefördert und mußte mit zehn Jahren nach St. Petersburg zur Vorbereitung auf eine juristische Laufbahn, d…

[English Version] . Ma. Vorformen der (geistl.) O. sind das Passions- und das Osterspiel (Passionsspiel). Die Entstehung der bis heute lebendigen O. ist dagegen eng mit der griech.-röm. Mythologie verbunden und resultiert aus der Anschauung der Spätrenaissance über Musik als Gesamtkunstwerk mit Sprache, Bewegung und Kulisse im alten Griechenland. Während Jacopo Peri mit »Dafne« (1598) und »Euridice« (1600, zus. mit Giulio Caccini) den Anfang machte, experimentierten andere nordital. Komponisten mi…

[German Version] The passion play and Easter play were medieval precursors of (religious) opera, but the development of opera in the form that lives on today was closely related to classical mythology, a product of the late Renaissance view of music in ancient Greece as an artistic synthesis involving language, movement, and stage scenery. While Jacopo Peri’s Dafne (1598) and Euridice (1600, in collaboration with Giulio Caccini) made a beginning, other northern Italian composers were experimenting with cantata-like forms. The real beginning of opera dates from C. Monteverdi’s Orfeo…

[German Version] (Sep 23, 1926 Hamlet, NC – Jul 17, 1967 Huntington, NY). As a young man, Coltrane was already playing clarinet and saxophone in a band, and he went on to study music with enthusiasm, developing into a top saxophone player in the early free jazz style. After a period working with Miles Davies and Thelonius Monk, among others, in 1960 he formed his internationally famous quartett (LPs: A Love Supreme, Blue Train; Successful hit: “My Favorite Things”). Coltrane kept faith with his Protestant origins all his life, although many of his music…

[German Version] (Sep 4, 1824, Ansfelden, Upper Austria – Oct 11, 1896, Vienna), composer. After a short spell as an assistant teacher Brucker worked in St. Florian, Linz and Vienna as an organist and conductor, from 1868 in Vienna as Professor at the Conservatorium and from 1875/76 also as lecturer at the University of Vienna; in 1878 he became organist at the court chapel. Bruckner was the most consistently Catholicism-loyal of the great 19th-century composers. His vocal works are in the main sacred music; his nine symphonies also develop a mystical and archaic effect with ¶ their progre…

[German Version] (Jun 6, 1857, Broadheath near Worcester – Feb 23, 1934, Worcester). The first English composer of international significance since H. Purcell. His father's musical activities brought him into contact with music at a young age, though his musical training remained largely autodidactic. Coming from the Catholic countryside, he tended to be an outsider whose chamber music and choral works at first met with moderate success. His breakthrough came in 1899 with the Enigma Variations for Orchestra. The religious oratorios The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Kingd…

[German Version] (May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, in the central Urals – Nov 6, 1893, St. Petersburg), the most important 19th-century Russian composer and the first to enjoy world renown during his own lifetime. The artist’s uninterrupted popularity contrasts markedly with the composer’s personal life – depressive, homosexual, bohemian, and tendentially anthropophobic. As a child, Tchaikovsky’s musical talent was not encouraged consistently; at the age of ten, he had to go to St. Petersburg to prepare for…

[German Version] (Isaak, Henricus; c. 1450, Netherlands [?] – Mar 26, 1517, Florence), was a musician and diplomat who worked in many places: in Italy from c. 1480 for one of the Medici; in the German-speaking realm from c. 1497 until 1514 as court composer for Emperor Maximilian I. As an important master of the Dutch school, he composed many masses, motets, etc. in polyphonic style, but in his instrumental works and courtly tenor songs he also approched the melodious style of the Renaissance (cf.…

[German Version] (May 12, 1845, Pamiers, France – Nov 4, 1924, Paris), leading French composer of his day, whose students were later to leave a profound impact on 20th-century French music. At a very young age he entered the Ecole Niedermeyer to study church music (1854–1864). He received piano classes from Camille Saint-Saens and studied the music of R. Wagner. In 1866 he was appointed organist in Rennes, working at various Parisian churches from 1870. Fauré was given a composition class at the C…

[German Version] (Edward Kennedy; Apr 29, 1899, Washington – May 24, 1974, New York), jazz pianist and composer. At first playing popular music as an autodidact, Ellington came to New York in 1923, took up Swing, and was soon able, because of successul managers, to participate in radio broadcasts, film productions and album recordings. Because of his personality, he was successfu…

[German Version] (Oct 9, 1835, Paris – Dec 16, 1921, Algiers), French composer. Quickly recognized as a child prodigy, Saint-Saëns spent some 80 years in the public eye, and was organist of the Made­leine in Paris from 1858 to 1877. From 1878 on, he led an unsettled itinerant life, continuing to travel even in old age. He remained true to his classicizing style with hints of Impressionism, so that as musical fashions ¶ changed, phases of admiration and condemnation alternated (the latter esp. incisive in the journalistic controversy surrounding R. Wagner). Saint-Saën…

[German Version] (May 27, 1875, San Francisco – Sep 14, 1927, Nice) brought about a revolution in interpretive dance by moving it away from its classical pattern to a personal one informed by natural intuition. Her search to combine her subjective talent with the archaically elemental art of Greece resulted in a type of dance that was, in principle, bare-footed. She made appearan…

[German Version] (Sep 15, 1912, Los Angeles – Aug 12, 1992, New York). As a composer, performance artist, and designer of, among other things, prints (situated on the borderline between musical score and figurative art), John Cage was one of the major driving forces behind the artistic avant-garde of the 20th century. While studying under Arnold Schönberg and Henry Cowell, it had already become apparent that he was not concerned with academically correct musical …

[German Version] (Jan 11, 1902, Louviers – Jun 16, 1986, Louveciennes). After studies with Louis Vierne, Eugene Gigout, Charles Tournemire and Paul Dukas, Duruflé became organist of St. Etienne-du-Mont in Paris in 1930. In 1943 he became professor at the Conservatoire. He was an international success with organ recitals, including improvisation. Although he published very little,…

[German Version] (Nov 3, 1903, St. Louis, MO – Apr 10, 1975, New Haven, CT) was an American photographer who first studied literature and then went to photography in 1928. Influenced by Eugène Atget, he developed about 1930 the descriptive style dealing with American houses of the 19th century. During the Great Depression he worked from 1935 to 1938 for the Resettlement Administr…

[German Version] (Jan 29, 1862, Bradford – Jun 10, 1934, Grez-sur-Loiny), an English composer of German parentage who lived mostly in France. Stays in America and studies in Leipzig were formative. Delius is well received today especially in the Anglo-Saxon region, although he had many premieres in pre-war Germany. The most successful of his operas is Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (1900/01; ET: A Village Romeo and Juliet) based on G. Keller. His philosophical affinities are evident in oratorios such as “Eine Messe des Lebens” ¶ (1904/05, based on F. Nie…

[German Version] (Feb 13, 1860, Windischgrätz [Solvenj Gradec] – Feb 22, 1903, Vienna), second only to F. Schubert as a composer of art songs. The chaotic saga of Wolf ’s early years and training chimes with the image of eccentric artistic energy that alienated many of his benefactors. His mood swings foreshadowed the insanity that incapacitated him in 1897. Wolf made his artistic breakthrough in 1888/1889, when he received ¶ public acclaim for settings of texts by E. Mörike, J. v. Eichendorff, and J.W. v. Goethe. He set both secular and sacred texts, “serving his…

[German Version] (Sep 8, 1841, Nelahozeves [Mühlhausen an der Moldau] – May 1, 1904, Prague). Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana count as the most important Czech composers of the 19th century; Dvořák contributed many chamber, symphonic, and choral works to the concert repertoire. But it was only after the end of an apprenticeship as a butcher that was he able, in 1854, to get further sc…