My Favorite Classical Music Composers

Here are my favorite classical music composers of all time. I have included a little bit of information about each one.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as theBrandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Bach’s abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime.

His Life

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685. He came from a family of musicians and his father taught him to play the violin and the harpsichord. When Bach was 10, his parents died and he went to live with his older brother, who was a church organist. Bach learned a lot from his brother and also from other musicians who came to visit. When Bach was 18, he became a church organist in Arnstadt. After a few years, he moved to Muhlhausen to become music director for the town’s two main churches.

In 1707, Bach married his first wife, Maria Barbara. They had seven children together, four of whom survived into adulthood. Unfortunately, Maria Barbara died suddenly in 1720. Bach was devastated and spent almost a year in mourning. In 1721, he married Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young singer who worked at the court of Saxe-Weimar. They had 13 children together, six of whom survived into adulthood.

Bach’s music is some of the most beautiful and complex ever written. He is considered one of the greatest composers of all time.

His Music

Johann Sebastian Bach was a prolific composer of the Baroque era, writing both sacred and secular music. He is revered for his complex fugues and Brandenburg Concertos, as well as his influential Well-Tempered Clavier book. His works are still performed today and he is considered one of the greatest classical composers of all time.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era. He composed over 600 works, many of which are acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, with his music heard today in homes, concerts, and movies worldwide.

His Life

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. His father, Leopold, was a well-known composer and violinist and his mother, Anna Maria Pertl, was the daughter of a wealthy landlord from a neighboring village. When Wolfgang was five years old, his father began teaching him the violin. At first he was not enthusiastic about learning to play an instrument and often threw tantrums when it was time for his lesson. But he soon changed his mind and went on to become one of the greatest violinists of his time.

In 1762, at the age of six, Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl were taken by their father on a concert tour of Europe. They performed in Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim, Frankfurt, Paris, London and The Hague. The children were huge hits with audiences everywhere they went and were invited to perform for several European royalty including King George III of England and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.

When Wolfgang was eight years old, he composer his first symphony. He went on to write over 600 pieces of music including operas, concertos, sonatas and symphonies. Some of his most well-known works include The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1787).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart passed away on December 5, 1791 at the age of 35. The cause of death is unknown but it is believed that he may have contracted typhoid fever while working on his final opera The Magic Flute which premiered just two months after his death.

His Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that: “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years”.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, and his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire. His Nine Symphonies are especially renowned.

His Life

Ludwig van Beethoven (/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪt(h)oʊvən/ (listen); German: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːt.ho.fən] (listen); baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist; his works are amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies; 5 piano concertos; 1 violin concerto; 32 piano sonatas; 16 string quartets; his great Mass the Missa solemnis; and one opera, Fidelio. Born in Bonn, then the capital of Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early twenties and settled there permanently, studying with Joseph Haydn and gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. At age 27 (around 1800), he began to lose hearing. In 1811, he gave up conducting and performing altogether after a failed romance with a married woman[7] to devote himself to composition. He continued to compose even while continuing to lose hearing.

The personal life of Ludwig van Beethoven was marked by tragedy from early on: his father used excessively harsh methods of discipline, causing both physical and psychological trauma, when Ludwig was young and impressionable; his grandfather-and godfather- Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven, exposed him excessively to music as a toddler in an attempt to make him into another prodigy like Mozart.[8] As Ludwig’s hearing progressively worsened from about age 26 onwards,[9][10][11] he withdrew further into himself,[12][13] only emerging for very occasional public appearances.[14] Since Beethoven always refused regular lessons from established teachers,[15] his musical education consisted largely of practicing on his own, studying scores that were lent or copied for him,[16][17] and learning from friends, fellow students (such as Franz Clement[18]),and acquaintances such as Anton Fahrbach Sr.,[19][20] Christian Gottlob Neefe,[21]:44 Hoffmann von Fallersleben,[22]:48 Franz Anton Ries,[22]:54 Giacomo Casanova[23], Johann Andreas Schaden[24], Stephan von Breuning[25], Nikolaus Simrock[26], Abbé Maximilien Canisius gxjjxccxdfgjjdhkkdhgjjdhk Justus Christian Loder[27]:184–85–who introduced him to Shakespeare’s writings–and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.[28][29]” Main article: List of works by Ludwig van Beethoven

His Music

Ludwig van Beethoven is a well-known classical music composer who composed some of the most famous pieces of music ever written. He was born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany and died in 1827 in Vienna, Austria. Beethoven is known for his 9 symphonies, 5 piano concerti, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa Solemnis, and 1 opera, Fidelio. Many of his works were composed while he was deaf.