Celebrating the 207th anniversary of his birth 🇬🇧 Composer of some of the most popular operas put on stage around the world – Rigoletto, Aida, Falstaff, Il trovatore, La traviata – Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was also linked to the political movement which sought the reunification of Italy. Some of his early operas are considered also a contribution to the building of a nationalist feeling. Verdi … Continue reading Giuseppe Verdi 🎼🎹🇮🇹
Marking the 278th anniversary of Antonio Vivaldi’s death on 28/7/1741 🇬🇧Antonio Vivaldi’s music is indissolubly associated in my mind with Venice and its amazing views across the lagoon. Indeed Vivaldi spent most of his life in Venice, although his fame spread across Europe during his lifetime and, in a weird twist of fate, he died in Vienna in poverty in 1741 after he failed to … Continue reading Antonio Vivaldi 🖼🎶🇮🇹
🇬🇧 Born in Salzburg, today Austria, on 27th January of 1756 in a family of musicians Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart showed immediately his incredible capacities as a prodigious child. He started playing the clavier when he was four, thanks to the initiative of his father who was teaching also Wolfgang’s older sister, and started composing his first pieces when he was five. This extraordinary talent was … Continue reading Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 🎶🎹🎵
Celebrating the 180th anniversary of Tchaikovsky’s birth in 1840 🇬🇧 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer – Born on 7/5/1840 and celebrating this year his 180th anniversary, here portrayed by painter Nikolai Kuznetsov in 1893, the year of his death, when the composer was 53. In contrast to other Russian composers his contemporaries, known as the The Five, Tchaikovsky developed his own cosmopolitan style that included some … Continue reading Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 🎼🎹🇷🇺
Marking the 335th anniversary of Johan Sebastian Bach’s birth in 1685 Johan Sebastian Bach is widely considered to be one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music. His works are remarkable for intellectual depth, mastery of technical and expressive means and for artistic beauty. Born in a family of musicians in 1685, in what is now Central Germany, the young Johan Sebastian was … Continue reading JS Bach 🎼🎶🇩🇪
In 1884 a young Claude Debussy won the prestigious composition prize Prix de Rome, which entailed a residence programme at Villa Medici in Rome, where this portrait was painted and is currently exhibited. The stifling environment at the French Academy of Rome was strengthening his resolution to follow his own ways for artistic expression: “I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it … Continue reading Claude Debussy 🎼🎶🏴
Composer of some of the most popular operas put on stage around the world – Tosca, Madame Buttefly, Boheme, Turandot, Manon Lescaut – Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) also had world-wide recognised fame during his life. By the time of Puccini’s death in 1924, he had earned $4 million from his works. Still today, three of his operas (La bohème, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly) are amongst the … Continue reading Puccini’s portrait 🎼🎹🇮🇹
🇬🇧 Portrait by Anton Depauly of Franz Schubert in 1827, currently exhibited at Friends of Music in Vienna. Despite a short life, he died at 30 years of age, Schubert left a remarkable collection of compositions, mainly for piano and voice and chamber music. Child prodigy in learning to play the piano and the violin following lessons by his father and brother, soon he excelled … Continue reading Schubert’s portrait 🎼🎶🎵
