Page 336 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

334 DIRECTORY

piano concertos, which were an The latter was his most important operas in total. His serious works include
important influence on the young legacy. His pupils included Beethoven, Lucrezia Borgia (1833) and Linda di
Mozart, who met Bach in London. Schubert, and Liszt. Chamounix (1842). His comic works
include L’elisir d’amore (The elixir of
CARL DITTERS VON JAN LADISLAV DUSSEK love; 1832) and Don Pasquale (1843).
DITTERSDORF 1760–1812 A major influence on Verdi, Donizetti
is credited with introducing northern
1739–1799 European Romanticism into Italian opera.
As the Classical movement gave
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf was a boy way to Romanticism, the pianist and
prodigy as a violinist in Vienna, but as composer Jan Ladislav Dussek was VINCENZO BELLINI
an adult he made his name with light- a major musical figure. Born in Caslav 1801–1835
hearted operas. His most productive (in the modern Czech Republic), he
years followed his appointment as court traveled widely in Europe before The Sicilian-born Vincenzo Bellini wrote
composer to Philipp Gotthard von settling in London in 1789. Bankruptcy 10 operas, of which the masterpieces are
Schaffgotsch, Prince-Bishop of Breslau, after the failure of his music publishing La sonnambula (1831), Norma (1831), and
whose castle was an important cultural business forced him to leave London I Puritani (1835). In 1827, Il pirata— the
and intellectual hub. Dittersdorf’s in 1799, and he ended his days in the first of six collaborations with the
greatest operatic success, Doktor und household of the French statesman librettist Felice Romani—won him
Apotheker (1786), helped to define the Prince of Talleyrand. Dussek is best international acclaim at La Scala in
Singspiel genre (mingling songs and remembered for his piano sonatas, Milan. Encouraged by Rossini, he moved
choruses with spoken dialogue), which inspired Beethoven. to Paris where I Puritani was premiered.
which his friend Mozart would take With a gift for vocal melody, Bellini
to new heights in Die Zauberflöte was the master of the Italian bel canto
(The Magic Flute) in 1791. GIACOMO MEYERBEER (“beautiful singing”) style, expressed,
1791–1864 for example, in the famous song “Casta
diva” (“Chaste goddess”) from Norma.
LUIGI BOCCHERINI Born into a wealthy Jewish banking
1743–1805 family in Berlin, Giacomo Meyerbeer
won acclaim as a pianist while in his MIKHAIL GLINKA
Born in Lucca in central Italy, Luigi early 20s, but his real ambitions lay in 1804–1857
Boccherini had studied and worked in composition. After a period of study
both Rome and Vienna by the age of 20. in Venice, where he came under the sway Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka came from
He became composer to the Spanish of Rossini’s music, he had some success a wealthy Russian landowning family
king’s music-loving brother, Don Luis de with the opera Romilda e Costanza and abandoned a civil service career to
Borbón, in Madrid, then later was court (1817), but his breakthrough work was study music in Italy and Berlin. Back in
composer to King Frederick William II of Robert le diable, based on a libretto by Russia, his first opera, A Life for the Tsar
Prussia. A cellist by training, Boccherini the French playwright Eugène Scribe. (or Ivan Susanin, 1836), based on the
wrote symphonies and concertos (mostly First performed at the Paris Opéra in story of a 17th-century Russian hero,
for cello) but is best remembered for 1831, it was a massive hit. Alongside was well received in St. Petersburg. In
more than 300 chamber works, string Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots (1836) and this and later works, Glinka drew upon
quintets in particular. Le Prophète (1849), it helped to define the folk songs to create music that was
emerging genre of grand opera, appealing authentically Russian. In 1845, Hector
to the audience’s love of spectacle. His Berlioz conducted a concert in Paris
ANTONIO SALIERI influence was noticeable in the operas with excerpts from Glinka’s works; this
1750–1825 of Verdi and even Wagner. was the first time Russian music had
been played in the West.
The Venetian-born Antonio Salieri went
to Vienna at the age of 16 and remained GAETANO DONIZETTI
there for the rest of his life, as court 1797–1848 CLARA WIECK SCHUMANN
composer to the Habsburg emperor and 1819–1896
later imperial Kapellmeister. He made Gaetano Donizetti, born in Bergamo, is
his name as a composer of operas—of regarded as the most important Italian A child prodigy, Clara Wieck won
which the best regarded is Tarare (1787), opera composer between Rossini and Europe-wide fame while still in her
written for a Parisian theatre—but in Verdi. Starting with Enrico di Borgogna, teens. Around that time, she fell in love
1804, he abandoned opera and began first performed in Venice in 1818, his with Robert Schumann, one of the pupils
writing sacred music and teaching. output was prolific, with 65 completed of her father, who was a well-known

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