TDCM: May 31st - Mátyás Seiber

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960)

Bio

Mátyás György Seiber was born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied piano with his mother. His talent led to his entry into the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and he learned composition from Kodály. He taught jazz at the Hoch Conservatory but left Germany when the Nazis rose to power. He briefly worked for the Soviet Union before permanently emigrating to England and eventually taking British citizenship. 

Music

Jazzolette No. 1

Jazzolette No. 2

Sinfonietta for string orchestra (Playlist)

Besardo Suite No. 2

Fantasia Concertante

Violin Sonata

Concert Piece

Concertino for Clarinet and String Orchestra

TDCM: May 30th - Cyril Scott

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Cyril Scott (1879-1970)

Bio

Cyril Meir Scott was born in Cheshire, England. He was a prodigy and entered the Hoch Conservatory at age 12. His compositions are often compared to Debussy in their free stylings. He was also an occultist and authored several books about metaphysics and alternative medicinal treatments.

Music

Cello Concerto

Neptune

Symphony No. 3

Piano Concerto No. 1

Deuxième Suite for Piano

Symphony No. 4

Symphony No. 1

TDCM: May 26th - Heinrich Schütz

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)

Bio

Schütz was born in Köstritz, Thuringia in Germany. He studied law initially but then was tutored by Giovanni Gabrieli in music. He served in the court of the Elector of Saxony and traveled down to Venice and up to Copenhagen as a much-desired composer. He had a huge impact on German music and was studied by Bach and Brahms.

Music

Schwanengesang

Symphoniae sacrae I

Geistliche Chormusik

TDCM: May 25th - Robert Schumann

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Bio

Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Germany. He began composing as a child but ended up studying law at the University of Leipzig and Heidelberg. A Paganini concert led him to switch his focus to music and he began composing quite successfully. He suffered from depressive bouts throughout his life and died of pneumonia while being treated for psychotic melancholia in an asylum.

Music

Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 2

Symphony No. 1

Piano Works

TDCM: May 24th - William Schuman

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

William Schuman (1910-1992)

Bio

William Howard Schuman was born in Manhattan. He wrote songs for an advertising agency as a young man and then enrolled in the Malkin Conservatory. He took composition lessons from Roy Harris and eventually earned a degree from Teachers College at Columbia University. He won the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for Music, the Edward MacDowell Medal, and the National Medal of Arts. He also served as the President of Juilliard and the President of the Lincoln Center.

Music

Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 6

String Quartet No. 5

Symphony No. 8

Symphony No. 9

New England Triptych

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

TDCM: May 23rd - Gunther Schuller

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Gunther Schuller (1925-2015)

Bio

Gunther Schuller was born in Queens, New York. His father was a violinist in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Gunther was an apt musician as well and played French Horn in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He collaborated with jazz icons such as Miles Davis and John Lewis, was a founding member of the Modern Jazz Society, and identified the Third Stream musical style - a combination of classical and jazz composing techniques. 

Music

Symphony for Brass and Percussion

Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee

Concerto No. 1 for Orchestra

String Quartet

Spectra

TDCM: May 22nd - Franz Schubert

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Bio

Franz Peter Schubert was born just outside of Vienna. His family was musical but he quickly demonstrated prodigious talent and wrote String Quartets for himself, his father, and his brothers to perform. Salieri discovered him and trained him in composition and vocal performance. He was significantly impacted by Beethoven and on the first anniversary of his death gave his only public concert, Schubert himself died a few months later. He composed over 1500 works and was called, among other things, the King of Song.

Music

Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 4

Symphony No. 5

Symphony No. 6

Symphony No. 7 Unfinished

Symphony No. 9 Great C Major

String Quartets

TDCM: May 19th - Franz Schreker

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Franz Schreker (1878-1934)

Bio

Franz Schreker was born in Monaco to Jewish-Bohemian parents. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory and returned to teach there after graduating. He was a notable opera composer, served as director of the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, and was a great success in the Weimar Republic. He was influenced by Strauss and Wagner and was good friends with Schoenberg.

Music

Chamber Symphony

Romantic Suite

Kleine Suite für Orchester

Vier kleine Stücke für großes Orchester

Prelude to a Drama

TDCM: May 18th - Arnold Schoenberg

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Bio

Arnold Schoenberg was born in a ghetto in Vienna. His father was a Hungarian Jew. He had limited training as a child and quickly gained the attention of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Mahler in particular took the young composer under his wing. His ideas gave birth to atonality, the twelve-tone technique, and are the backbone of 20th-century music theory. He had a massive impact on the following generations with a long list of prestigious students including Berg, Cage, Gerhard, and others.

Music

Verklärte Nacht

Pelleas and Melisande

Gurrelieder

Suite im alten Stile

Quintetto per fiati

Chamber Symphony 1

TDCM: May 17th - Othmar Schoeck

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957)

Bio

Othmar Schoeck was born in Brunnen, Switzerland. He studied under Reger at Leipzig and then at the Zürich Conservatory. He worked closely with Federico Busoni and also collaborated with Alban Berg, Les Six, and Arthur Honegger. His style noticeably progressed from late-Romantic to 20th-century tonal sensibilities throughout his career.

Music

String Quartet No. 2

String Quartet No. 1

Concerto for Horn

Violin Sonatas

Violin Concerto

Suite

TDCM: May 16th - Alfred Schnittke

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

Bio

Alfred Garrievich Schnittke was born in Engels in the Volga-German Republic of Russia. He studied music first in Vienna and then at the Moscow Conservatory. After graduating he taught there and composed a huge collection of film scores. He worked in 20th-century styles, some serialism, and what he called polystylism.  

Music

Concerto Grosso No. 1

Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 4

Symphony No. 8

TDCM: May 15th - Florent Schmitt

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Florent Schmitt (1870-1958)

Bio

Schmitt was born in Meurthe-et-Moselle, France. At the Paris Conservatoire, he studied under Massenet, Lavignac, and Fauré. He collaborated with Delius on a number of operas and was a popular composer for much of his career. The end of his life was plagued with controversy due to his Vichy sympathies.

Music

La Tragédie de Salomé

 Symphony 2

Symphonie Concertante

Ombres

TDCM: May 12th - Franz Schmidt

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Franz Schmidt (1874-1939)

Bio

Schmidt was born in Pozsony/Pressburg, on the Hungary side of Austria-Hungary, which is in modern-day Slovakia. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory under Fuchs, Hellmesberger, and Bruckner. He was the lead cellist in the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra and was often chosen for features by the conductor, Gustav Mahler. He was friends with Arnold Schoenberg though their perspectives on music differed greatly. He taught for years at the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts (the Vienna Conservatory) and had a number of significant pupils.

Music

Symphony No. 1 in E major

Symphony No. 2

Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 4

Prelude and Fugue in D minor

TDCM: May 11th - Samuel Scheidt

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)

Bio

Samuel Scheidt was born in Halle, Germany. He studied with the Dutch master Jan Sweelinck before returning to Germany. He managed to survive the Thirty Years' War and held various posts in Brandenburg and Halle. He represented the German aberration from the dominant Italian styles that the Protestant Reformation brought about with the cultural divide between Germany and Italy.

Music

Ludi Musici

Tabulatura Nova III

TDCM: May 10th - Domenico Scarlatti

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

Bio

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples. He was the son of yesterday's composer, Alessandro Scarlatti. His father trained him and as a teenager, he was the organist at the Chapel Royal of Naples. He spent some time in Rome and famously competed against Handel in a keyboard challenge with varying reports of who was better. He spent the latter half of his career on the Iberian peninsula working in Lisbon and ultimately in Madrid where he was buried.

Music

Scarlatti Sonatas

Sonatas for Guitar

42 Scarlatti Sonatas

TDCM: May 9th - Alessandro Scarlatti

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)

Bio

Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti was born in Palermo in the Kingdom of Sicily. He probably studied under Giacomo Carissimi and is considered the founder of the Neapolitan School of Italian composing. He wrote 63 operas and is credited with the culmination of the Italian dramatic tradition.

Music

The Sicilian Vespers

6 Concerti Grossi

Sinfonie di Concerto Grosso

TDCM: May 8th - Erik Satie

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Erik Satie (1866-1925)

Bio

Eric Alfred Leslie Satie was born in Normandy, France. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire but was expelled and did not remember the place fondly in his writings. He joined the military but had an equally uninspiring military career. He was deeply influenced by Debussy, Ravel, and d'Indy in a second academic career at the Schola Cantorum. Satie's relationship with his fellow composers was uneven and dramatic but ultimately his iconoclastic approach endured.

Music

Gymnopedie 1-3

Gnossiennes 1-6

Piano compositions

TDCM: May 3rd - Pablo de Sarasate

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)

Bio

Pablo Martin Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués was born in Navarre, Spain. He studied violin as a child and showed prodigious talent. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and then traveled the world as a concert violinist. He enjoyed a long career as one of the world's foremost violin virtuosos.

Music

Zigeunerweisen

The Dream in F major

Muiñeira in G major

Eight Spanish Dances

Obra Completa

TDCM: May 2nd - Giuseppe Sammartini

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Guiseppe Sammartini (1695-1750)

Bio

Guiseppe Francesco Gaspare Melchiorre Baldassare Sammartini was born in Milan. He was a skilled reed musician, particularly adept at the Oboe. He moved to London and spent most of his career performing in public squares around the city. He composed during the transition from the Baroque to Classical tradition.  

Music

Oboe Concerto in D major

4 Organ Concertos

Flute Sonata in C major

TDCM: May 1st - Aulis Sallinen

 

Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music 

Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935)

Bio

Aulis Heikki Sallinen was born in Salmi, Finland. He studied at the Sibelius Academy and after graduating taught there for a number of years. He was the first person ever named a Professor of Arts for Life by the Finnish government and has devoted much of his life to composing a large catalog of works.

Music

Symphony No. 7

Symphony No. 1

Nocturnal Dances of Don Juan Quixote

Shadows

String Quartet No. 3

Symphony No. 2 Symphonic Dialogue

Cello Concerto