Franz was like Mozart in that he was somewhat of a child prodigy. He showed remarkable talent with the piano as well as in sight reading music. Franz had a turning point in his career when at nineteen he came across the great violinist Paganini. Paganini would bedazzle audiences with his abilities on the violin. Franz vowed then, and there to be the pianist version of Paganini.
Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1770 to Johann van Beethoven and Magdalena Keverich van Beethoven. He was baptized on December 17, 1770. When Beethoven was young, he started taking music lessons from his father, who was a musician in the court of Bonn. Beethoven was exceptionally good even as a child. In 1787 he visited Vienna where he performed and met many famous musicians including Mozart.
Bach came from a family of musicians who brought him into the whole scene; his father was a director and had several uncles who were musicians (Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2000.) The great composer enhanced the sound of the time and was the pinnacle of his time; his great gift for future generations would be his use of harmonics and
Vivaldi is an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas. His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. Vivaldi was progressive musically.
Vivaldi was a master of the violin and is widely known as the composer of concertos which is a form of music with a small orchestra and solo lead instrument. He was a prolific composer and is well known for composing over 500 concertos, 46 Operas, 73 sonatas, chamber music, and sacred music. Vivaldi was the first composer to use ritornello form regularly in fast movements, and his use of it became a model for later composers. Vivaldi repeatedly looked for contrasting harmonies, creating new melodies and themes. His main goal was to create a musical piece that was meant to be appreciated by a large population opposed to only a certain group of people.
Haydn was able to begin immediately his pursuit of a career as a freelance musician. During this arduous time, Haydn worked at many different jobs: as a music teacher, as a street serenader, and eventually, in 1752, as valet–accompanist for the Italian composer Nicola Propora, from whom he later said he learned "the true fundamentals of composition" Franz Joseph Haydn is the composer who, more than any other, epitomizes the aims and achievements of the Classical era. Perhaps his most important achievement was that he developed and evolved in countless subtle ways the most influential structural principle in the history of music: his perfection of the set of expectations known as sonata form made an epochal impact. In hundreds of instrumental sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies, Haydn both broke new ground and provided durable models; indeed, he was among the creators of these fundamental genres of classical music. His influence upon later composers is immeasurable; Haydn's most illustrious pupil, Beethoven, was the direct beneficiary of the elder master's musical imagination, and Haydn's shadow lurks within (and sometimes looms over) the music of composers like Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
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.
Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach was one of the most influential musicians of the Enlightenment. Trained by his father, J. S. Bach, he served on the Court of Frederick the Great, became musical director of five churches in Hamburg, and composed numerous oratorios, songs, symphonies, concertos and chamber music. It is in the second movement of the fourth of his Sechs Clavier-Sonaten fur Kenner und Liehaber (Six Clavier Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs) where the main characteristics of the empfindsam style are present. The empfindsam style, or sentimental style, is most closely associated with C. P. E. Bach. It is characterized by surprising turns of harmony, chromaticism, nervous rhythms, and free, speech like melody.
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD (1750-1825) THE CLASSICAL PERIOD OF MUSIC 1) TIME OF GREAT MUSICAL EXPERIMENTATION AND DISCOVERY 2) CENTERS AROUND ACHIEVEMENTS OF VIENNESE SCHOOL A) HAYDN B) MOZART C) BEETHOVEN 3) THREE CHALLENGING PROBLEMS A) EXPLORE MAJOR-MINOR SYSTEM TO ITS FULLEST B) TO PERFECT A LARGE FORM OF ABSOLUTE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC (THE SONATA CYCLE) C) TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN ITS (SONATA CYCLE) VARIOUS TYPES 1) SONATA 2) CONCERTO SYMPHONY 3) ELEMENTS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 1) ELEGANT AND LYRICAL MELODIES A) ELEGANT AND LYRICAL MELODIES B) CLEAR-CUT CADENCES 2) THE HARMONIES THAT SUSTAINED THESE MELODIES A) FIRMLY ROOTED IN THE KEY RHYTHM 3) A) MUSIC WAS IN EITHER 2, 3, 4, OR 6/8 B) STAYED IN RHYTHMIC STYLE IT BEGAN WITH 4) FORM A) UNFOLDED
It became widely believed that Salieri was in fact in awe of Mozart’s musical performances. One performance in particular that he [Salieri] enjoyed was The Magic Flute. Oddly enough, two weeks after he attended this performance, Mozart was dead. Although Salieri seemed to have a newfound adoration for Mozart, it was widely known that he and Mozart had been rivals for a decade or so. The second source for the poisoning theory was a biography of Franz Xaver Niemetschek, first published in Prague in 1798.