Personalities
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Paul Hindemith *XI 16 1895 — The Life You Give
Paul Hindemith, born November 16, 1895, in Hanau, near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the one of the principal German composers of the first half of the 20th century and a leading musical theorist. He sought to revitalize tonality—the traditional harmonic system that was being challenged by many other composers—and also pioneered in the writing…
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Aaron Copland *XI 14 1900 — The Life You Give
Aaron Copland, born November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A., is the composer who achieved a distinctive musical characterization of American themes in an expressive modern style. Copland, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, was born in New York City and attended public schools there. An older sister taught him to play the piano, and…
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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…
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Auguste Rodin *XI 12 1840 — The Life You Give
Auguste Rodin, born November 12, 1840, in Paris, France, is the sculptor of sumptuous bronze and marble figures, considered by some critics to be the greatest portraitist in the history of sculpture. His The Gates of Hell, commissioned in 1880 for the future Museum of the Decorative Arts in Paris, remained unfinished at his death…
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky *XI 11 1821 — The Life You Give
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, born Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, Dostoyevsky also spelled Dostoevsky, on November 11 [October 30, Old Style], 1821, Moscow, Russia, is the novelist and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on 20th-century fiction. Dostoyevsky is usually regarded…
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Auguste Rodin, in words
“In front of the model, I work with the same desire to copy the truth as if I were making a portrait; I do not correct nature, I incorporate myself into her; she leads me. I can work only from a model. The sight of the human form fortifies and nourishes me.” “The artist is…
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Friedrich von Schiller *XI 10 1759 — The Life You Give
Friedrich Schiller, born Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, Nov. 10, 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg [Germany], is a leading dramatist, poet, and literary theorist, best remembered for such dramas as Die Räuber (1781; The Robbers), the Wallenstein trilogy (1800–01), Maria Stuart (1801), and Wilhelm Tell (1804). Friedrich Schiller was the second child of Lieut. Johann Kaspar Schiller…
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Greg Lake *XI 10 1947 — The Life You Give
As a singer and instrumentalist, Greg Lake had his greatest success and influence in the progressive rock outfit Emerson, Lake & Palmer and, before that, as a founding member of the original King Crimson. He was also reasonably popular as a solo artist working in more of a hard rock idiom. As a boy, growing…
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Thomas Quasthoff *XI 9 1959 — The Life You Give
Thomas Quasthoff, born November 9, 1959, in Hildesheim, Germany, is the singer whose powerful bass-baritone voice placed him among the preeminent classical vocalists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Quasthoff was born with severe disabilities, the result of his mother’s having taken the drug thalidomide during her early pregnancy as a treatment for…
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Marie Curie *XI 7 1867 — The Life You Give
Marie Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire, is the physicist, famous for her work on radioactivity and twice a winner of the Nobel Prize. With Henri Becquerel and her husband, Pierre Curie, she was awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics. She was the sole…
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Albert Camus *XI 7 1913 — The Life You Give
Albert Camus, born November 7, 1913, in Mondovi, Algeria, is the novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist causes. He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. Less than a year…
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Joan Sutherland *XI 7 1926 — The Life You Give
Joan Sutherland, in full Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, born November 7, 1926, in Sydney, Australia, is the operatic soprano who was considered the leading coloratura of the 20th century. The daughter of a gifted singer, she studied piano and voice with her mother until 1946, when she won a vocal competition and began studying voice…
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Adolphe Sax *XI 6 1814 — The Life You Give
Adolphe Sax, born Antoine-Joseph Sax, November 6, 1814, in Dinant, Belgium, is the maker of musical instruments and inventor of the saxophone. Sax was the son of Charles Joseph Sax (1791–1865), a maker of wind and brass instruments, as well as of pianos, harps, and guitars. Adolphe studied the flute and clarinet at the Brussels…
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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,…
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Vincenzo Bellini *XI 3 1801 — The Life You Give
Vincenzo Bellini, born November 3, 1801, in Catania, Sicily [Italy], is the died operatic composer with a gift for creating vocal melody at once pure in style and sensuous in expression. His influence is reflected not only in later operatic compositions, including the early works of Richard Wagner, but also in the instrumental music of…
Sila Blume 