Ludwig van Beethoven
Biographical Info
Born: 1770
Died: 1827
- Austrian Composer
- Student of Haydn
- Beethoven was deaf through most of his career
Major Works
- 1801: The Creatures of Prometheus, staged in Vienna in 1801
- 1805, 1814: Fidelio, only opera Beethoven wrote
- Wrote incidental music for Goethe's Egmont
- Completed 9 symphonies
- Visit the Classical Musician's Dictionary site on Beethoven to hear midi files of some of his work
Frederic Chopin
Biographical Info
Born: 1810
Died: 1849
- Polish and French, emigrated from Warsaw to Paris
- Pianist and composer
- Had liaison with writer George Sand
Major Works
- Piano Concertos
- Minute Waltz
- Chopin created or developed a number of new forms of piano music, vehicles for his own poetic use of the instrument, with its exploration of nuance, its original harmonies and its discreet but often considerable technical demands (Classical Musician's Dictionary)
- Visit the Classical Musician's Dictionary site on Chopin to hear midi files of some of his work
Franz Schubert
Biographical Info
Born: 1797
Died: 1828
- Austrian
- Educated as a chorister of the imperial court chapel and later qualified as a schoolteacher
- Spent most of his life in Vienna, but never held any position in the musical establishment or attracted the kind of patronage that Beethoven had
Major Works
- Wrote promarily operas
- Schubert wrote for mixed voices, male voices and female voices, but by far the most famous of his vocal compositions are the five hundred or so songs, settings of verses ranging from Shakespeare to his friends and contemporaries (Classical Musician's Dictionary)
- Song Cycles: Die schoene Muellerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill), Die Winterreise (The Winter Journey), and Schwanengesang (Swan-Song)
- Der Erlkoenig, the Mignon songs from Goethe and the Songs of Norma from Sir Walter Scott
Carl Maria von Weber
Biographical Info
Born: 1786
Died: 1826
- Cousin of Mozart's wife Constanze
- Made a favourable impression as a pianist and then as a music director, notably in the opera-houses of Prague and Dresden
- Introduced various reforms and was a pioneer of the craft of conducting without the use of violin or keyboard instrument
Major Works
- 1821: Der Freischuetz (The Marksman), the first important Romantic German opera
- 1826: Euryanthe, grand heroic-Romantic opera; Oberon
- Concertos for the piano and clarinet
- Chamber music