The summer of 1782 was a busy time for Mozart. He had left Salzburg and was now living in Vienna. He was moving house in preparation for his forthcoming marriage to Constance Weber and had other important work deadlines to meet. He received a request from his father on 20th July to write a new … Read more
Symphony no 41 is the last in a set of three that were all composed in the summer of 1788. It is the last symphony he ever composed and is also the longest. It may have been that all three were originally intended to be performed as one work as no 39 has an introduction … Read more
Haydn is known as the “Father of the Symphony” (of which he wrote 106) and the “Father of the String Quartet” (of which he is thought to have written around 70). He was a friend of Mozart and briefly a teacher of Beethoven. Haydn lived most of his life in Austria but in 1790, at … Read more
Many scientists no doubt enjoy music as a pastime but it must be rare for a professional musician’s scientific hobby to crowd out his music-making completely. But this was the case with William Herschel, after his celebrated discovery of Uranus in 1781. The identification of the first planet since ancient times changed Herschel’s life entirely. … Read more
I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro II. Andante sostenuto III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV. Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio Brahms’ 1st symphony occupies an enigmatic place in the symphonic canon. When premiered in November 1876, it was hailed as “Beethoven’s 10th” by conductor Hans von Bulow. But … Read more
Schubert was the son of a schoolmaster and received his musical education over four years, whilst a chorister at the Imperial Court Chapel. He had to leave when his voice broke and completed some teaching courses before taking a post at his father’s school. He had no interest in his job, but spent much of … Read more
Wilhelm Richard Wagner’s talents spanned composing, theatre directing and conducting, but he’s primarily known today for his magnificent operas. His compositions are renowned for their complex texture, rich harmonies and orchestration and the elaborate use of “leitmotifs” – musical phrases associated with characters, places, ideas or elements of the plot. Few of us in the … Read more
The man Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden, near Linz, in upper Austria in 1824. The ancestors of Bruckner’s family were farmers and craftsmen, their history having been traced back to the 16th century. Bruckner’s father died in 1837, when Bruckner was 13 years old. The teacher’s position and house were given to a successor, … Read more
Saint-Saëns’ Symphony no.3 in C Minor was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society of London and was first performed there on 19th May 1886 with the composer conducting. The work was dedicated to the memory of Saint-Saëns’ friend Franz Liszt who died that year. It is popularly known as the ‘Organ Symphony’ even though it … Read more
“Here we find, besides the most masterly compositional technique, life in every fibre; colouring down to the finest gradation; meaning everywhere; sharp expression in detail; and in the whole a suffusing Romanticism such as other works of Franz Schubert have already made known to us.”Robert Schumann, 1840 Ten years after Franz Schubert’s death at the … Read more
