-
Period: to
Gustav Mahler
It was Mahler who turned opera boring, disbanding fan clubs and ceasing post-number applause among other things. Freud was Mahler's psychologist. Mahler was planning to go to America in 1907. -
Period: to
Claude Debussy
At the esteemed Paris Conservatory, Debussy would often skip classes. Two different ex-romantic interests would attempt suicide because of him - Gaby DuPont and Lilly Texier. His first name was actually "Achille", from Achilles. -
Period: to
Richard Strauss
Strauss' father was in Richard II's orchestra. Strauss was inspired into counterthought by Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own". Strauss often portrayed women as intelligent main characters. -
Period: to
Jean Sibelius
After being diagnosed with throat cancer in his 40s, he had a successful operation and lived his long life. He would write fan mail to performers of songs he liked but couldn't play himself. Unlike most composers, he actually chose to retire when he was able. -
Period: to
Erik Satie
Satie composed for the occult group "Mystical Order of the Rose and Cross of the Temple and Grail". After he and their leader fell out, Satie founded his own sect of which he was the only member. He carried a hammer with him wherever he went for protection. He only ate white foods. -
Period: to
Arnold Schoenberg
Schoenberg was also a relatively prolific artist. He had triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13 - making his birth/death days ironic. He joined the army at age 42. -
Period: to
Charles Ives
Famously, composing was but a secondary job - he was a successful insurance salesman. As a result of the above, his music didn't receive much attention until the end of his life and after his death. -
Period: to
Maurice Ravel
His father was an inventor most famous for Barnum and Bailey's "Whirlwind of Death". Ravel was a great supporter of jazz. A collision with a tax stopped his career and likely shortened his life, with him dying 5 years later. -
Period: to
Bruno Walter
His conducting fame often hid his composing talent. He was also a child prodigy pianist. -
Period: to
Bela Bartok
Bartok wrote hisn first piece at age 9 and performed it at age 11. Bela's only opera had but only 2 singers. -
Period: to
Igor Stravinsky
Stravinsky was funded and supported to such a degree by Coco Chanel that affair rumors flew about. During the Kennedy years, he became a sort of emissary between the two nations. -
Period: to
Anton Webern
His marriage was, shall we say, interesting; he married his first cousin Wilhelmine Mortl despite the Catholic rule against it, and it wasn't an official marriage until after three kids were born. He tragically died as a result of WW2, after the war's end, when he was accidentally shot and killed by an American soldier. -
Period: to
Edgard Varese
He coined "organized sound" to describe his own sound. -
Period: to
Alban Berg
-
Period: to
Charles Seeger
He is, in fact, the father of Pete Seeger. He is known, among other reasons, for his formulation of dissonant counterpoint. -
Period: to
Louis Durey
His family owned a printing workshop. He wrote anti-fascist songs. -
Period: to
Sergei Prokofiev
He was a chess master, and easily beat future world champion José Raúl Capablanca. He recorded at Abbey Road Studios! -
Period: to
Arthur Honegger
He loved trains a lot. For a long time, he was on the Swiss 20 banknote -
Period: to
Darius Milhaud
-
Period: to
Paul Hindemith
Hindemith tended to use a tonal but non-diatonic system. -
Period: to
Virgil Thomson
It has been debated ovr whether he is truly a modernist or a rather a neoromantic (or even neoclassicist!). He was also famous as a critic. -
Period: to
Henry Cowell
Cowell served four years at San Quentin State Prison. By a stroke of furtune, the ranking murderer also conducted the prison band, and defended him. -
Period: to
George Gershwin
He loved personal fitness, especially boxing. He also loved sports, and had lifetime UCLA passes for writing their fight song. -
Period: to
Francis Poulenc
-
Period: to
Georges Auric
He was intentionally very secretive. -
Period: to
Kurt Weill
Weill wrote his famous "Threepenny Opera" as part of his effort to reform the field for the modern stage. The Nazis banned his music. -
Period: to
Aaron Copland
Originally, he wasn't planning to become a composer. From the 60s onward, with no new ideas for composing, he'd turn to conducting. -
Period: to
Dmitri Shostakovich
His Symphony No. 1 was his graduation piece. His Symphony No. 7 was performed in Leningrad, while it was being besieged and bombarded. -
Period: to
Oliver Messiaen
His incredibly famous "Quartet for the End of Time" was written for the instruments that were available to him in the concentration camp in which he wrote it. He had synesthesia. -
Period: to
Elliott Carter
Carter wrote music every morning until his death. He often used a very slow polyrhythm as a formal device. -
Period: to
Samuel Barber
He won 2 Pulitzers in his career. -
Period: to
John Cage
He studied Zen Buddhism at university. His most famous work is 4'33", which is that long in silence. -
Period: to
Benjamin Britten
After contracting pneumonia when he was three months old, Britten struggled with his health throughout his life. Benjamin Britten started what was to become the famous Aldeburgh Festival in the Jubilee Hall on Crabbe Street. -
Period: to
Milton Babbitt
-
Period: to
Leonard Bernstein
He was an avid civil rights activist across many fronts. He was tracked by McCarthy, but never brought forward. -
Period: to
Gyorgi Ligeti
He developed "micropolyphony". His music was used heavily in Kubrick's films. -
Period: to
Morton Feldman
He poineered "indeterminate music". He was both friends with and inspired by John Cage. -
Period: to
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Stockhausen had a, shall we say, very unique view of art. This most infamously resulted in him calling 9/11 "the greatest work of art". Yes, really. -
Period: to
Terry Riley
His music improvises a series of modal figures with different lengths. He was a major influence on The Velvet Underground (Still alive!) -
Period: to
La Monte Young
His "dream chord" [G-C-C#-D] is still famous today. (Still alive!) -
Period: to
Steve Reich
He is considered the original pioneer of minimalist music. He went to Ghana in 1971 to learn more about African drumming. -
Period: to
Philip Glass
Unlike a lot of his contemporaries, he was a major movie music composer, including in things such as the original Candyman and the Truman Show. (Still alive!) -
Period: to
John Adams
He describes his music as "post-style". He writes operas about American stories. (Still alive!) -
Period: to
The Beatles
Before Ringo Star was their drummer, but after they were the Quarrymen, Pete Best was their drummer. Their psychedelic period was both influenced by and was an influence on modernist music. -
Period: to
Pierre Boulez
He was a leading figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s. When he died, he left no will.