Frederic Chopin

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Johannes Brahms
May 7, 1833 April 3 1897
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Johannes Brahms- Life

• Musical family
• - great musical education
• In his youth, led a double life
• - During the day studied piano composition
• - At night played dance music in cafes
• Became great friend of the Schumanns

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Johannes Brahms- Music

• Romantic expression in classical forms!
• Nicknamed the Autumn composer
• Had an understanding of the great German
  lineage
• - lived in Beethovens shadow
• - feared living up to peoples expectations

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Johannes Brahms- Music

• 2 Serenades
• 4 Symphonies
• - The first is an obvious homage to Beethoven
• - The final three break away from classical
  roots
• Over 200 songs
• Concerti, Choral, Chamber works, but no Operas
  (big on absolute music)

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

• May 7, 1840 November 6, 1893

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky- Life

• Russian
• Complex relationship with his
• family, esp. women
• Age 10- Boarding school
• Age 14- Death of mother
• Establishment of sexuality

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky- Life

• Employment at Moscow Conservatory
• Romantic relationships with students
• Marriage to a woman
• Brief and traumatic
• Attempt at concealing his sexuality
• Attempted suicide 2 weeks after wedding

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky- Life

• 1877-1890- Received patronage from Nadezdha von
  Meck
• Money allowed him to concentrate on music leave
  the Moscow Conservatory
• Emotional relationship through letters
• 1890 communication cut off abruptly
• 1893 Death, possibly suicide
• - nine days after conducting the premiere of
  Symphony 6

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Instrumental Works

• Over-the-top romantic ideals and ideas
• Wrote mostly for orchestra (ballets, symphonies,
  concerti, overtures, etc.)
• Piano Concerto No. 1
• Symphony No. 4, 5, 6
• Deeply personal
• Vehicles of expression
• Possibly programmatic

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Symphony No. 4

• Dedicated to Meck
• Fate motive throughout
• The fatal power which prevents one from
  attaining the goal of happiness. There is nothing
  to be done but to submit to it and lament in
  vain

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Symphony No. 5

• Motive throughout from Glinkas Life of the Czar
  Opera- Turn not to sorrow
• Funeral treatment of motive in first movement
• Transformation to optimism in final movement

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Symphony No. 6 Pathetique

• Admitted to program
• Pathetique translates in Russian to
  passionate or emotional
• Predicts death

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Symphony No. 6

• Just as I was starting on my trip, the idea for
  a new symphony came to me, this time a program
  symphony, but with a program that shall remain
  unknown to all. Let them try to figure it outthe
  work will be called simply "A Program Symphony
  (No. 6)." The program for it is subjective
  through and through, and during my trip, as I
  composed it in my mind, I often actually wept.
  When I returned and set to work on my sketches my
  work went so rapidly that the entire first
  movement was finished in less than four days and
  the shape of the remaining movements was quite
  clear in my mind. There will be much that is
  novel in the form. The finale, for example, will
  not be a great allegro, but an extensive adagio.
  -Feb. 22, 1893
• I am confident in considering it the best and,
  above all, the "most genuinely sincere" of all my
  works. I love it as I have never loved any of my
  other musical offspring. August 18, 1893

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Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

• Thought of as the most superior composer, but
  was revised by fellow composers to the point of
  changing his music
• Best compositions are songs and the opera Boris
  Godunov but biggest hits are
• -Pictures at an Exhibition
• -Night on Bald Mountain

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Pictures at an Exhibition

• Originally written for piano, later orchestrated
  by Ravel
• Based on the memorial exhibition of friend Viktor
  Hartmann,
• The Promenade serves as introduction (walking
  into the museum) and then as walking music in
  between paintings
• Underlining theme that the paintings tell the
  story of Hatmanns life
• Last two movements Baba Yaga Great Gate of Kiev

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