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Beethoven died in 1827. His autopsy revealed a shrunken liver due to cirrhosis.

      Just like Beethoven’s birth, his last words are also a bit of a mystery. It is often thought his last words were, in Latin, “applaud friends, the comedy is ended” but his parting gift to the world was far less cerebral. After a publisher bought Beethoven twelve bottles of wine as a gift, the dying composer’s final words were: “Pity, pity, too late!”

      Johannes Brahms

      Johannes Brahms (1833—1897)

      1. Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany.

      2. The young Brahms was forced to play the piano in dance halls to contribute to the family’s income as they were so poor.

      3. Robert Schumann was so impressed with Brahms’ talent when they met he wrote an essay entitled “Neue Bahnen” (New Paths) which gave Brahms a lot of publicity.

      4. Brahms met a Hungarian refugee and violinist by the name of Eduard Remenyi in 1850, and was introduced to a whole range of folk and gypsy music which massively influenced his composing style.

      5. Although Brahms began composing his First symphony in 1854, it was not premiered until November 1876, 22 years later. The whole piece underwent severe edits until he was completely happy with it.

      6. When Schumann died in 1856, Brahms immediately went to Düsseldorf to be with Schumann’s wife, Clara. It is unclear exactly what kind of relationship the two had, but they later destroyed a large amount of their letters they had written to each other, possibly suggesting they had something to hide.

      7. When his mother died in 1865, Brahms was overcome with grief. It is speculated this led him to compose his German Requiem, one of the most celebrated works from his career.

      8. Perhaps due to their musical opposition towards one another, Wagner and Brahms were not exactly best friends when they met in Vienna in 1864, after Brahms moved there to direct the Vienna Singakademie. Wagner later attacked Brahms in the press.

      9. When he was 57, Brahms announced he was finished with composing. However, he was clearly unable to stop his creativity, as he produced some incredible late-period works, especially for the clarinet, like his Clarinet Sonatas, Trio and Quintet.

      10. Brahms died of either pancreatic or liver cancer (the evidence is unclear) on April 3, 1897.

      Georges Bizet

      Georges Bizet (1838—1875)

      1. Georges Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838. His father was a singing teacher and his mother was an accomplished pianist who gave Georges his first lessons. The Paris Conservatoire was so impressed by the boy’s abilities it waived its age rule and offered him a place at age nine.

      2. A brilliant student, Bizet won many prizes for his outstanding piano playing. The composer Gounod became a lasting influence on his musical style. Shortly after his 17th birthday, Bizet wrote his own symphony, a close resemblance to Gounod’s – note for note in some passages.

      3. As a young man, Bizet became a regular guest at Offenbach’s parties, where among other musicians he met Rossini, who Bizet described as “the greatest of them all, because like Mozart, he has all the virtues.”

      4. Bizet’s early keyboard and orchestral compositions were largely ignored and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing other people’s music.

      5. In May 1861, at a dinner party at which Liszt was present, Bizet astonished everyone by sight reading one of the maestro’s most difficult piano pieces. Liszt said, “I thought there were only two men able to surmount the difficulties… there are three, and… the youngest is perhaps the boldest and most brilliant.”

      6. In June 1869, Bizet married Geneviève Halévy, the nervously unstable daughter of the composer Fromental Halévy. Her family initially opposed the relationship, considering him an unsuitable catch: “penniless, left-wing, anti-religious and Bohemian.” The marriage was intermittently happy and produced a son, Jacques.

      7. Bizet started many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which he abandoned. Neither of the two operas which reached the stage – Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth – were immediately successful. Les pêcheurs de perles later won more popularity for its beautiful duet.

      8. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870—71, during which Bizet served in the National Guard, he had a hit with an orchestral suite derived from his incidental music of Alphonse Daudet’s play L’Arlésienne. The music was dismissed by critics as too complex for popular taste, but the suite received an enthusiastic reception.

      9. The production of Bizet’s final opera, Carmen, was delayed because of fears its themes of betrayal and murder would be too offensive. In the audience at the opera’s premiere were Massenet and Saint-Saëns, who both loved it. Gounod accused Bizet of plagiarism and much of the press was negative. Bizet was convinced the opera was a failure.

      10. Bizet, who was a heavy smoker, died of a heart attack aged 36, three months after the première of Carmen, unaware his opera would become a spectacular and enduring success.

      Anton Bruckner

      Anton Bruckner (1824—1896)

      1. Bruckner was born in Ansfelden (then a village, now a suburb of Linz) on September 4, 1824. His father was the local church organist and his mother a singer in the choir. However, he did not begin his formal music training until he was eleven, when he spent the next five years as a choirboy at the monastery of St. Florian.

      2. Starting out his professional life as a music teacher, Bruckner made a few attempts at small-scale composition, although it was not until 1848 when he felt inspired to produce his first notable work, the Requiem in D minor.

      3. Having been appointed organist at St. Florian, most of Bruckner’s energies remained on teaching and the organ, an instrument upon which he had become widely recognized as one of Europe’s greatest.

      4. On attending a performance of Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser, the 38-year-old Bruckner felt driven to make composition his main vocation.

      5. Inspired by Wagner’s example, he set to work on an Overture in G minor and the Symphony in F minor, which were followed over the next three years by Symphonies Nos. 0 and 1, and his first indisputable masterpiece, the Mass in D minor of 1864.

      6. The sheer strain caused by the hours of constant study, in addition to his professional responsibilities, resulted in an acute nervous collapse early in 1867.

      7. Recovered, he took a teaching post in Vienna in 1867 at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. In 1875, Bruckner became the first lecturer in harmony and counterpoint at the University of Vienna.

      8. In his diaries, Bruckner kept lists of the girls he fancied (most in their late teens). He had a mania for counting the bricks and windows of buildings, and for counting the numbers of bars in his gargantuan orchestral scores, making sure their proportions were statistically correct.

      9. Bruckner’s final years were largely devoted to the composition of the Ninth Symphony, which remained tantalisingly incomplete at the time of his death.

      10.

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