Bach was trained to be a musician from the time he was a young child. At fifteen he left his brother's home and moved to another town, where he played the violin and organ to support himself in school. When he was eighteen, he became the organist for a church not far outside of his hometown. He left this church at twenty-three and married his cousin Barbara. In 1708, Bach became a court organist in Weimar.
New York City Ballet George Balanchine was born in 1904 and was raised in St. Petersburg. As the son of a composer, Balanchine’s piano study began at the age of five. After graduating from the Imperial Ballet School in 1921, Balanchine enrolled at the state’s Conservatory of Music where he studied piano and musical theory. Balanchine’s musical background gave him an advantage over other choreographers because he more fully understood the music he was dancing to (“Biography”). The first time George Balanchine danced was as a cupid in the Maryinsky Theatre Ballet Company Production of The Sleeping Beauty, his favorite ballet (“George Balanchine”).
His father, Mathais, was a wheelwright who played the harp, and his mother Maria, was a cook for count Karl Anton Harrach. It was a family custom to call their children by their second name. Thus Joseph Haydn was his name. Joseph Haydn was a choirboy in St. Stephen’s Cathedral by the age of nine. He later was kicked at the age of seventeen out of the choir because he’s amazing voice had matured and he could no longer sing the higher notes.
In 1801 Beethoven started loosing his hearing. They are not sure of the cause of his deafness but it has been said to be from syphilis, lead poisoning, or typhus. His hearing problem troubled him his whole life and greatly affected his music. At one time in his life he became severely depressed and in 1802 he left Vienna and moved to Heiligenstadt where he continued composing. In 1811 Beethoven performed his own Piano Concerto No.
Armstrong had a difficult childhood. William Armstrong, his father, was a factory worker who abandoned the family soon after the boy's birth. Armstrong was brought up by his mother, Mary (Albert) Armstrong, and his maternal grandmother. He showed an early interest in music, and a junk dealer for whom he worked as a grade-school student helped him buy a cornet, which he taught himself to play. He dropped out of school at 11 to join an informal group, but on December 31, 1912, he fired a gun during a New Year's Eve celebration, for which he was sent to reform school.
3. First musical instruction was received by his mother who was an amateur pianist. 4. He was the son of a mining engineer who later became the Ministry of Agriculture’s Department of Mining. 5.
A year after her mother started giving her formal piano lessons. After a year of piano lessons she began giving public recitals playing the works of Handel, Beethoven, Chopin, and also played some of her own work. She made her professional debut in Bosten in 1883, playing Chopin’s Rondo in E-flat and Moscheles’s G minor Concerto. Shortly after that she appeared as a soloist with Boston Symphony Orchestra. Beach ended up marrying a surgeon 24 years older that her.
Not long after her death Sergei’s parents divorced and Lubov took custody of the three remaining children. In 1885 Rachmaninoff failed miserably in all of his classes at school and his mother moved him to a school in Moscow. This is where he began to really show his true musical abilities. He studied piano under Nikolai Zverev who pushed him to be the great piano player he knew he could be. He also took lessons from Alexander Ziloti, who was a former piano student of Franz Liszt.
Erik Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany. His parent’s had separated from each other before he was born and his mother wedded a Jewish doctor. They raised Erik under the last name of Homburger, which belonged to his Jewish stepfather. (Martin) His peers beheld him as Jewish, but his Jewish temple did not accept him because of his appearance. Consequently, during his youth, Erikson had many struggles with identity.
He was also the first composer to have received a life peerage. The Simple Symphony was written for a string orchestra or string quartet and is dedicated to his childhood viola teacher, Audrey Alston. The Simple Symphony was composed when Britten was 23 and was first performed by an amateur orchestra conducted by Britten himself in 1934 at Stuart Hall, Norwich. The themes in this symphony are a collection of themes that Britten had composed all during his youth. The Simple Symphony begins with the Boisterous Bourrée, starting with a bold heavily accented theme that is passed around in a fugue-like manner and makes way for a calmer theme and hints of pizzicato that help lead into the second movement.