Page 337 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

DIRECTORY 335

piano teacher. She and Robert married in Rome, but back in Paris, his early
in 1840, defying her father’s opposition. ALEKSANDR BORODIN successes did not continue, and his
Despite having eight children, Schumann 1833–1887 opera Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl
maintained an active musical career of Fishers; 1863) was disappointingly
performing and teaching. Her works, all The illegitimate son of a Georgian received. A one-act piece, Djamileh
of which date from before her husband’s nobleman and an army doctor’s wife, (1872), was more successful and led to
early death in 1856, include collections Aleksandr Borodin trained as a scientist. a commission to write an opera based
of Lieder, chamber music, an early In 1864, he became professor of on a novel by Prosper Mérimée. The
piano concerto, and what is generally chemistry at the Imperial Medical and result, Carmen, opened in March 1875,
regarded as her finest work, the Piano Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. drawing unenthusiastic reviews until
Trio in G minor, Op. 17 (1846). As an enthusiastic amateur musician, Bizet’s sudden death of an undiagnosed
he was also a member of a group of heart condition in June, when the critics
young composers, called “The Five,” abruptly reversed their verdicts. Carmen
CÉSAR FRANCK determined to fashion a truly Russian became a landmark of French opera—
1822–1890 tradition of classical music. He wrote tautly dramatic with a strongly realist
two symphonies, two string quartets, focus on ordinary working people.
In his teens, the Belgian-born César and a tone poem, In Central Asia (1880).
Franck was already studying at the His greatest work, the opera Prince Igor,
Paris Conservatory and performing as a based on a medieval Russian epic, was NIKOLAY RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
concert pianist. In his late 20s, however, unfinished when Borodin died of a heart 1844–1908
following the poor reception of an attack. It was completed by Nikolay
oratorio he had composed, he abandoned Rimsky-Korsakov, another of the Five, A naval officer who turned to music,
his career as a composer and performer with his pupil Aleksandr Glazunov. Rimsky-Korsakov had the most lasting
and started to earn his living as an impact of the Russian composers
organist and teacher. Only in his 50s known as “The Five.” In 1871, he was
did Franck resume a more public profile, MILY BALAKIREV appointed professor of composition
after accepting the post of organ 1836–1910 and orchestration at the St. Petersburg
professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Conservatory. Unlike his fellows in
He became an influential composition Demanding, often tyrannical, Mily “The Five,” he had a high regard for
teacher and started writing again. His Alekseyevich Balakirev was the driving the academic disciplines of composition,
works include a symphony, organ pieces, force behind “The Five”—a group of which he passed on to his pupils.
and a series of chamber works, notably ardently nationalist young Russian After the deaths of Mussorgsky and
the Piano Quintet in F minor (1879), composers who came together in Borodin, he edited and completed their
Violin Sonata in A major (1886), and St. Petersburg in the 1860s. He was works. His own talent for colorful
String Quartet in D major (1889). also a founding member of the Free orchestration is seen in pieces such
School of Music, which was set up as as Capriccio espagñol (1887) and
a less academic alternative to the Scheherazade (1888), as well as his
ANTON BRUCKNER St. Petersburg Conservatory. He suffered operas, notably Sadko (1897) and The
1824–1896 a nervous breakdown in the 1870s and Golden Cockerel (1909).
withdrew from the musical world for five
The Austrian Anton Bruckner was a years, working as a railway clerk. When
bold, if unlikely, musical innovator, best he returned, he had lost much of his RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO
known for his nine symphonies and his former spirit. His works include a piano 1857–1919
religious works. Bruckner worked piece, Islamey (1869), and a symphonic
as a teacher until 1855, when he was poem, Russia (1887), but his major The Neapolitan opera composer Ruggero
made chief organist at Linz Cathedral. achievement was to have brought Leoncavallo is remembered for one great
In Linz, following years of intensive together “The Five,” who collectively work, Pagliacci (“The players”), which
study of composition, he wrote his first transformed Russian classical music. was first staged at La Scala in Milan
major works: three Mass settings and a in 1892. The son of a police official,
symphony. In 1868, he took up a teaching Leoncavallo had written other operas
post at the Conservatory in Vienna, GEORGES BIZET with no success. For Pagliacci, he turned
where he lived for the rest of his life. 1838–1875 to a new Italian school of opera known
An admirer of Wagner, he expanded the as verismo (literally, “truth-ism” or
scope of the late Romantic symphony The French composer Georges Bizet “realism”), characterized by sensational
with complex harmonies, dissonances, wrote a symphony when he was 17, and plots drawn from everyday life. His short,
and the rich weaving together of the his first opera was performed the next two-act work—supposedly inspired by
different instrumental parts. year. He then spent three years studying a case his father was involved in—tells

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