Piano
-
The Life You Give: Ludwig van Beethoven *1770
Ludwig van Beethoven, born on December 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany, was a composer, and the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. Widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludwig van Beethoven dominates a period of musical history as no one else before or since. Rooted…
-
Benjamin Britten *XI 22 1913 — The Life You Give
Benjamin Britten, born Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten Of Aldeburgh, November 22, 1913, in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, is the composer of the mid-20th century, whose operas were considered the finest English operas since those of Henry Purcell in the 17th century. He was also an outstanding pianist and conductor. Britten composed as a child and…
-
Meredith Monk *XI 20 1942 — The Life You Give
Meredith Monk, born Meredith Jane Monk, November 20, 1942, New York City, New York, U.S.A., is the performance artist, a pioneer in the avant-garde, whose work skillfully integrated diverse performance disciplines and media. Monk studied piano and eurythmics from an early age. She earned a B.A. in 1964 from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York.…
-
Fanny Mendelssohn *XI 14 1805 — The Life You Give
Fanny Mendelssohn, born Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy, married name Fanny Hensel), on November 14, 1805, Hamburg [Germany], is the pianist and composer, the eldest sister and confidante of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. Fanny is said to have been as talented musically as her brother, and the two children were given the same music teachers. Felix…
-
György Cziffra *XI 5 1921 — The Life You Give
György Cziffra was one of the most celebrated and individual piano virtuosos of the postwar decades in Europe, especially noted for his powers of improvisation and as a Liszt pianist. He was born in a shantytown called Angels Court on the outskirts of Budapest to a family of gypsy musicians. The family was desperately poor,…
-
Keith Emerson *XI 2 1944 — The Life You Give
Throughout his career with the Nice, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and as a solo artist, Keith Emerson proved himself perhaps the greatest, most technically accomplished keyboardist in rock history. For all his reputation as an innovator and master of classically influenced rock, Emerson began his career playing R&B; the Nice got their first big break…
-
Conlon Nancarrow *X 27 1912 — The Life You Give
Conlon Nancarrow was an iconoclastic American composer who wrote in an utterly new way using new instrumental resources. While isolated from the main currents of music, he was virtually ignored by the public and his colleagues until the 1970s. In the 1980s composer György Ligeti said Nancarrow was writing “the best music by any living…
-
Sofia Gubaidulina *X 24 1931 — The Life You Give
Sofia Gubaidulina, born October 24, 1931, Chistopol, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic [now Tatarstan, Russia]), is the composer whose works fuse Russian and Central Asian regional styles with the Western classical tradition. During her youth, Gubaidulina studied music in the city of Kazan, the capital of her home republic. She had lessons at the Kazan…
-
Charles Ives *X 20 1874 — The Life You Give
Charles Ives, born Charles Edward Ives, October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut, U.S.A., is the significant composer known for a number of innovations that anticipated most of the later musical developments of the 20th century. Ives received his earliest musical instruction from his father, who was a bandleader, music teacher, and acoustician who experimented with…
-
Emil Gilels *X 19 1916 — The Life You Give
Emil Gilels, born Emil Grigoryevich Gilels, Oct. 6 [Oct. 19, New Style], 1916, in Odessa, Ukraine, is the concert pianist admired for his superb technique, tonal control, and disciplined approach. Gilels began piano studies at age 6 and gave his first public concert in 1929 at age 13. In 1933 he gained top honours in…
-
Thelonious Monk *X 10 1917 — The Life You Give
Thelonious Monk, born Thelonious Sphere Monk, Oct. 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, N.C., U.S.A., is the pianist and composer who was among the first creators of modern jazz. As the pianist in the band at Minton’s Playhouse, a nightclub in New York City, in the early 1940s, Monk had great influence on the other musicians…
-
Camille Saint-Saëns *XI 9 1835 — The Life You Give
Camille Saint-Saëns, in full Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns, (born October 9, 1835, Paris, France—died December 16, 1921, Algiers [Algeria]), composer chiefly remembered for his symphonic poems—the first of that genre to be written by a Frenchman—and for his opera Samson et Dalila. Saint-Saëns was notable for his pioneering efforts on behalf of French music, and he was…
-
Edwin Fischer *X 6 1886 — The Life You Give
Edwin Fischer was a Swiss pianist, conductor, and educator during the first half of the 20th century. He was known for his expressive interpretations of the piano music of J.S. Bach and Mozart. Fischer was born in 1886 in Basle, Switzerland, and he started playing the piano when he was four years old. Both of…
-
Dmitri Shostakovich *IX 25 1906 — The Life You Give
Dmitri Shostakovich, born Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, on September 12 [September 25, New Style], 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia, is the composer renowned particularly for his 15 symphonies, numerous chamber works, and concerti, many of them written under the pressures of government-imposed standards of Soviet art. Shostakovich was the son of an engineer. He entered the…
-
Glenn Gould *IX 25 1932 — The Life You Give
Glenn Gould, born Glenn Herbert Gold, September 25, 1932, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the pianist known for his contrapuntal clarity and brilliant, if often unorthodox, performances. Gould studied piano from the age of 3, began composing at 5, and entered the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto at 10, earning its associate degree in…
Sila Blume 