Curated category
Oratorio composers
- Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven could no longer hear the applause his own music had earned. At the premiere on the 7th of May 1824, the contralto Caroline Unger had to…
- Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber walked into Her Majesty's Theatre on the 11th of February 2012 to mark a milestone that no Broadway show had ever reached: the 10,000th…
- Johann Sebastian BachIn May 1747, Johann Sebastian Bach sat at a new and unfamiliar instrument in the court of King Frederick the Great in Potsdam.
- Robert SchumannRobert Schumann was born on the 8th of June 1810 in Zwickau, in the Kingdom of Saxony, into a family of booksellers and translators with no particular…
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on a £15 Framus Zenith acoustic guitar he had traded for a nickel-plated trumpet his father…
- Edward ElgarEdward Elgar told a friend that he had a tune that would "knock 'em - will knock 'em flat." The tune became the trio of his first Pomp and Circumstance March.
- Felix MendelssohnFelix Mendelssohn was born on the 3rd of February 1809 in Hamburg, in the same house where, exactly one year later, the violinist Ferdinand David would be…
- George Frideric HandelZadok the Priest has sounded at every British coronation since 1727, and George Frideric Handel wrote it. The German-born composer who supplied that anthem…
- Charles Villiers StanfordCharles Villiers Stanford was born in Dublin on the 30th of September 1852, into a family where music was not a hobby but a way of life.
- Joseph HaydnJoseph Haydn once described himself as a man with no escape from his own mind. "Usually musical ideas are pursuing me, to the point of torture," he told his…
- Josef MyslivečekJosef Mysliveček entered the world on the 9th of March 1737 in Prague. He was one of twin sons born to a prosperous mill owner who lived on Melantrichova…
- Johann Christian BachJohann Christian Bach was born on the 5th of September 1735 in Leipzig, Germany, the youngest son of one of the most towering figures in Western music.