TDCM: July 29th - François-Joseph Gossec

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

François-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)

Bio

Gossec was born in Vergnies then a French enclave in the Austrian Netherlands, now a part of Froidchapelle, Belgium. He was tutored by Rameau in Paris and began composing for the Prince de Condé's orchestra. He met and befriended Mozart, Le Duc, Gaviniès, Méhul, and Cherubini. A friend and ally of Napoleon, he was forced into retirement after Waterloo.

Music

Te Deum a Grand Orchestra

Suite du Triomphe de la République

Symphonie à 17 parties in F-major

Symphonie concertante for violin and cello in D major

Messe des Morts

Missa Pro Defunctis

TDCM: July 28th - Karl Goldmark

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Karl Goldmark (1830-1915)

Bio

Goldmark was born in Keszthely, Hungary, and studied violin at Sopron. He was sent to the Vienna Conservatory to continue his studies with Böhm and Preyer. He struggled to make ends meet playing violin for theater companies, teaching composition - briefly tutoring Jean Sibelius, and writing about music. Goldmark developed friendships with Brahms and Strauss and was musically influenced by Wagner but Goldmark's Jewish heritage and Wagner's antisemitism kept them distant.

Music

Rustic Wedding Symphony

Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor

Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major "Ländliche Hochzeit"

String Quartet in B-flat major

Sappho Overture

Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major

Die Königin von Saba, Orchestral Selections

TDCM: July 27th - Alexander Goehr

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Alexander Goehr ( b.1932 )

Bio

Alexander Goehr was born in Berlin. His father Walter was a student of Arnold Schoenberg and a successful conductor. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and with Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, and John Ogdon formed the New Music Manchester Group. He has held several teaching posts and is currently an Emeritus Professor of Music at Cambridge.

Music

Piano Concerto

Romanza for Cello and Orchestra

Piano Sonata

String Quartet No. 3

Uninterrupted Movement

Duex Etudes for Orchestra

TDCM: July 26th - Benjamin Godard

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)

Bio

Godard studied at the Conservatoire of Paris in his birth town. He was a proficient violinist and composed several Symphonies, Operas, and concertante in the Romantic form.

Music

Symphonie Orientale

Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major

Symphonie Gothique in A minor

Etude Enfantines

Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor

Piano Works

TDCM: July 25th - Christoph Gluck

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Christoph Gluck (1714-1787)

Bio

Gluck was born in the Upper Palatinate of modern-day Germany. His father served under Eugene of Savoy in the War of Spanish Succession. Gluck attended the University of Prague and then surfaced in the court at Vienna as a multi-talented musician and composer. His most famous pupil was Antonio Salieri.

Music

Flute Concerto in G major

Alessandro

Trio Sonatas

Don Juan

Symphony No. 8 in G major

Sinfonia in D

TDCM: July 22nd - Mikhail Glinka

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)

Bio

Glinka was born in Smolensk into a family with strong ties to the Tsars. He received lessons in piano from John Field and Charles Mayer as a teenager and began composing. He traveled to Europe and met Mendelssohn and Berlioz and then returned to Russia intent on creating a distinct Russian classical music. He is now considered the father of the Russian classical tradition and had a notable impact on The Five. The Glinka Prize was created in 1884 and early winners included Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Cui.

Music

Symphony on Two Russian Themes in D Minor

Orchestral Opera Suites

String Quartet in F major

Prince Kholmsky

Trio pathétique

Ruslan and Lyudmila, Overture and Dances

Piano Music

TDCM: July 21st - Reinhold Glière

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Reinhold Glière (1875-1956)

Bio

Glière was born in Kyiv, the son of a Saxon emigrant who married a Polish woman from Warsaw. He studied at the Kyiv school of music and the Moscow Conservatory before taking a teaching post at the Gnesin School of Music. He taught Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and Knipper, and was friends with Serge Koussevitzky. He moved around, teaching for the Moscow Conservatory, and the Kyiv Conservatory, and working for the People's Commissariat for Education in Azerbaijan and Siberia. His strict formalism in composing made him a star among the Soviet elite and he was awarded the title Artist of the People by four different Soviet states. 

Music

Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major

Symphony No. 2

The Bronze Horseman

Symphony No. 3 in B-minor "Ilya Muroments"

Khrizis

TDCM: July 20th - Alexander Glazunov

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)

Bio

Glazunov was born in Saint Petersburg. He was discovered by Balakirev as a teenager and brought to Rimsky-Korsakov who tutored him. Glazunov was respected by The Five and also was acquainted with Borodin, Stasov, and Liszt. He survived the political upheaval of WWI and the Russian Civil War and became the director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory until 1917 when he left Russia on pretensions of ill health and remained in good standing with the Soviets till his death.

Music

From the Middle Ages

Suite Caractéristique 

Symphony No. 4 in F-sharp minor

Symphony No. 2 in F-sharp minor

Symphony No. 3 in D major

Les Ruses d'amour

Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major

Symphony No. 6 in C minor

Symphony No. 7 in F major

TDCM: July 19th - Philip Glass

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Philip Glass ( b. 1937 )

Bio

Philip Glass was born in Baltimore. He studied at the Peabody Institute and at the University of Chicago. He also attended Juilliard and briefly went to Paris to learn under Nadia Boulanger. He was drawn to other modern composers such as Cage, Feldman, and Boulez in Paris. He then traveled to India and encountered Ravi Shankar and the 14th Dalai Lama. Glass is one of the most influential 20th-century composers and the preeminent example of contemporary minimalism. 

Music

Glassworks

Passages

Metamorphosis

The complete Etudes, Book 1

Violin Concerto No. 1

Symphony No. 4 "Heroes"

Symphony No. 1 "Low"

TDCM: July 18th - Mauro Giuliani

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829)

Bio

Giuliani was born in Bisceglie and studied in Barletta. He moved to Vienna and became acquainted with the musicians there including Rossini and Beethoven. He was a virtuoso guitarist and redefined classical guitar in his composing and performing career.

Music

Guitar Concerto No. 1 in A major

Guitar Concerto No. 3 in F major

Guitar Chamber Music

Guitar Concertos

Music for Flute and Guitar

TDCM: July 15th - Umberto Giordano

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Umberto Giordano (1867-1948)

Bio

Giordano was born in Foggia and studied at the Conservatoire of Naples. He is considered one of the originators of the verismo genre of Opera. He was friends with Mascagni and the two of them are symbolic of the verismo movement.

Music

Fedora

Mala vita

Siberia

TDCM: July 14th - Alberto Ginastera

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)

Bio

Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and studied at the Williams Conservatory. He traveled to the United States and studied with Copland. He arranges his compositions into three eras of "Objective Nationalism," "Subjective Nationalism," and "Neo-Expressionism" and is considered one of the most important 20th-century composers from the Americas.

Music

Estancia

Piano Concerto No. 1

Panambí

12 American Preludes

Harp Concerto

Pampeana No. 3

Violin Concerto

Complete Piano Works

TDCM: July 13th - Don Gillis

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Don Gillis (1912-1978)

Bio

Gillis was born in Missouri and he studied at Texas Christian University. He worked in radio eventually rising to the post of producer for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He taught in several institutions in the United States and settled finally at the University of South Carolina where he founded the Institute for Media Arts. 

Music

Symphony No.5½ "A Symphony for Fun"

Symphony No. 5 "In Memoriam"

Symphony No. 4 "The Pioneers"

Symphony No. 7 "Saga of the Prairie School"

Symphony No. 3 "A Symphony for Free Men"

Symphony No. 2 "A Symphony of Faith"

Portrait of a Frontier Town

Symphony No. 9 "Star-Spangled Symphony"

Symphony X "Big D"

TDCM: July 12th - Eric Gilder

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Eric Gilder (1911-2000)

Bio

Gilder studied at the Royal College of Music under Ireland, Lambert, Sargent, and Vaughan Williams. He was an educator and a musicologist and he founded the Eric Gilder School of Music. He had some prominent pupils including Richard Wright, David Essex, Ebo Taylor, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He also wrote the dictionary these selections are in.

Music

No recordings of his music have survived on YouTube or elsewhere on the internet.

TDCM: July 11th - Orlando Gibbons

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

Bio

Gibbons was born in Oxford to a musical family. His brother was the Master of the Choristers of Chapel Royal and he began his career as the organist there at the age of 21. He studied at King's College, Cambridge, and Oxford eventually earning a Doctorate. He was close to James I's court and enjoyed significant royal patronage. He is considered one of the last masters of the English Virginalist School.

Music

Keyboard Works

Choral and Organ Works

Keyboard Music

TDCM: July 8th - Carlo Gesualdo de Venosa

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Carlo Gesualdo de Venosa (1566-1613)

Bio

Gesualdo was raised by his uncle, the Archbishop of Naples. He became the Prince of Venosa in 1591 and began composing madrigals and other progressive music forms for the time. He established an estate where musicians came to perform his music. Much of his notoriety is related to his rather grisly personal life.

Music

Tenebrae Responsoria

Renaissance Madrigals

Música Sacra

TDCM: July 7th - George Gershwin

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

George Gershwin (1898-1937)

Bio

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. He rose to prominence recording stage tunes for the Aeolian Company and eventually began composing for Broadway. By the 20s his compositions were marked by his jazz-classical fusion and he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. He reached out to Ravel as well but was famously turned down by the master who said, "Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?" Tragically, his life was cut short by a brain tumor and he passed at only 38 years of age.  

Music

Rhapsody in Blue

An American in Paris

Piano Concerto in F major

Second Rhapsody

Cuban Overture

Catfish Row

Three Preludes

TDCM: July 6th - Sir Edward German

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Sir Edward German (1862-1936)

Bio

German Edward Jones was born in Whitchurch and rose to prominence while studying at the Royal Academy of Music. He was the natural successor to Arthur Sullivan and his lasting legacy is primarily on the stage. He was knighted in 1928, received the Royal Philharmonic Society gold medal in 1934, and was an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. 

Music

Symphony No. 2 in A minor "Norwich"

Welsh Rhapsody

The Seasons

Three Dances from Henry VIII

Gypsy Suite

Nell Gwyn

TDCM: July 5th - Roberto Gerhard

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Roberto Gerhard (1896-1970)

Bio

Robert Gerhard i Ottenwaelder was born in Valls, Spain. He studied with Enrique Granados and Felip Pedrell who also taught de Falla and Albéniz. He also studied with Schoenberg and employed some twelve-tone techniques in his later compositions.

Music

Symphony No. 3 "Collages"

Symphony "Homenaje a Pedrell"

Symphony No. 4 "New York"

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

Dances from Don Quixote

The Plague

Symphony No. 1

TDCM: July 1st - Francesco Geminiani

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Francesco Geminiani (c1680-1762)

Bio

Geminiani was born in Lucca and studied under Scarlatti, Lonati, and Corelli. He led the Opera Orchestra in Naples before moving to England and playing violin in the court of George I along with keyboardist George Handel. His legacy is primarily in his violin performance and pedagogy theories though he was a successful composer as well. 

Music

Cello Sonatas

Concerti Grossi after Corelli

Violin Sonatas