Aharpsichord is a keyboard instrument that makes its sound by plucking a set of strings. In a harpsichord, depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn lifts one or more jacks, each a thin strip of wood holding a smallplectrum made fromquill orplastic; each plectrum plucks a single string. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear them. Harpsichord often include more than one choir of strings. Various devices are used to select which choir will sound when playing; these can include simple levers, or in more elaborate instruments the deployment of more than one keyboard.

The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smallervirginals,muselar, andspinet. The harpsichord was widely used inRenaissance andBaroque music, both for purposes of accompaniment and as a solo instrument. During the Baroque era, the harpsichord was a standard part of thecontinuo group. During the late 18th century, with the spread of thepiano, the harpsichord gradually disappeared from the musical scene (except in opera, where it continued to be used to accompany recitative). In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used inhistorically informed performance of older music, in new compositions, and in certain styles of popular music. (Full article...)

Boléro is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composerMaurice Ravel. It is one of Ravel's most famous compositions. It was also one of his last completed works before illness diminished his ability to write music. (Full article...)

La traviata (Italian:[latraviˈaːta,-aˈvjaː-];The Fallen Woman) is anopera in three acts byGiuseppe Verdi set to an Italianlibretto byFrancesco Maria Piave. It is based onLa Dame aux camélias (1852), aplay byAlexandre Dumasfils, which he adapted from his own 1848 novel. The opera was originally titledVioletta, after the main character. It was first performed on 6 March 1853 atLa Fenice opera house in Venice.

Piave and Verdi wanted to follow Dumas in giving the opera a contemporary setting, but the authorities at La Fenice insisted that it be set in the past, "c. 1700". It was not until the 1880s that the composer's and librettist's original wishes were carried out and "realistic" productions were staged.La traviata has become immensely popular and is among the most frequently performed of all operas. (Full article...)

Achoral symphony is amusical composition fororchestra,choir, and sometimessolo vocalists that, in its internal workings and overall musical architecture, adheres broadly tosymphonicmusical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined byHector Berlioz when he described hisRoméo et Juliette as such in his five-paragraph introduction to that work. The direct antecedent for the choral symphony isLudwig van Beethoven'sNinth Symphony. Beethoven's Ninth incorporates part of the odeAn die Freude ("Ode to Joy"), a poem byFriedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer's use of the human voice on the same level as instruments in a symphony.

A few 19th-century composers, notablyFelix Mendelssohn andFranz Liszt, followed Beethoven in producing choral symphonic works. Notable works in the genre were produced in the 20th century byGustav Mahler,Igor Stravinsky,Ralph Vaughan Williams,Benjamin Britten andDmitri Shostakovich, among others. The final years of the 20th century and the opening of the 21st century have seen several new works in this genre, among them compositions byMikis Theodorakis,Peter Maxwell Davies,Tan Dun,Philip Glass,Hans Werner Henze,Krzysztof Penderecki,William Bolcom andRobert Strassburg. (Full article...)

Jean-Baptiste Lully bornGiovanni Battista Lulli (28 or 29 November [O.S. 18 or 19 November] 1632 – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-French composer, dancer and instrumentalist, who is considered a master of the FrenchBaroque music style. Best known for his operas, he spent most of his life working in the court ofLouis XIV and became a Frenchsubject in 1661. He was a close friend of the playwrightMolière, with whom he collaborated on numerouscomédie-ballets, includingL'Amour médecin,George Dandin ou le Mari confondu,Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,Psyché and his best known work,Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. (Full article...)

TheRoyal Academy of Music (RAM) inWestminster, London, England, is one of the oldestmusic schools in the United Kingdom, founded in 1822 byJohn Fane andNicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received itsroyal charter in 1830 fromKing George IV with the support of the firstDuke of Wellington.

The academy providesundergraduate andpostgraduate training across instrumental performance, composition,jazz, musical theatre andopera, and recruits musicians from around the world, with a student community representing more than 50 nationalities. It is committed to lifelong learning, from Junior Academy, which trains musicians up to the age of 18, through Open Academy community music projects, to performances and educational events for all ages. (Full article...)

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 – 2 February 1594) was an Italian composer of lateRenaissance music. The central representative of theRoman School, withOrlande de Lassus andTomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe. Palestrina was one of the few Renaissance composers never entirely forgotten, but it was the so-called "Palestrinian style" of counterpoint—especially as codified byJohann Joseph Fux—rather than his individual compositions that exerted the greatest influence.

Born in the town ofPalestrina in thePapal States, Palestrina moved to Rome as a child and underwent musical studies there. In 1551,Pope Julius III appointed himmaestro di cappella of theCappella Giulia atSt. Peter's Basilica. He left the post four years later, unable to continue as a layman under the papacy ofPaul IV, and held similar positions atSt. John Lateran andSanta Maria Maggiore in the following decade. Palestrina returned to the Cappella Giulia in 1571 and remained at St Peter's until his death in 1594. (Full article...)

Robert Schumann (/ˈʃuːmɑːn/;German:[ˈʁoːbɐ̯tˈʃuːman]; 8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the earlyRomantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano,chamber groups, orchestra, choir and the opera. His works typify the spirit of the Romantic era in German music.

Schumann was born inZwickau, Saxony, to an affluent middle-class family with no musical connections, and was initially unsure whether to pursue a career as a lawyer or to make a living as a pianist-composer. He studied law at the universities ofLeipzig andHeidelberg but his main interests were music andRomantic literature. From 1829 he was a student of the piano teacherFriedrich Wieck, but his hopes for a career as a virtuoso pianist were frustrated by a worsening problem with his right hand, and he concentrated on composition. His early works were mainly piano pieces, including the large-scaleCarnaval,Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David),Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces),Kreisleriana andKinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) (1834–1838). He was a co-founder of theNeue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Musical Journal) in 1834 and edited it for ten years. In his writing for the journal and in his music he distinguished between two contrasting aspects of his personality, dubbing thesealter egos "Florestan" for his impetuous self and "Eusebius" for his gentle poetic side. (Full article...)

Theviolin, sometimes referred to as afiddle, is a woodenchordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in theviolin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including theviolino piccolo and thepochette, but these are virtually unused. Most violins have a hollow wooden body, and commonly have fourstrings (sometimesfive), usually tuned inperfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and are most commonly played by drawing abow across the strings. The violin can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno).

Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in theWestern classical tradition, both in ensembles (fromchamber music toorchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties offolk music, includingcountry music,bluegrass music, and injazz.Electric violins with solid bodies andpiezoelectric pickups are used in some forms ofrock music andjazz fusion, with the pickups plugged intoinstrument amplifiers and speakers to produce sound. The violin has come to be incorporated in many non-Western music cultures, includingIndian music andIranian music. The namefiddle is often used regardless of the type of music played on it. (Full article...)

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily forhis operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent ofItalian opera afterVerdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the lateBaroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera, it later developed in the realisticverismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

His most renowned works areLa bohème (1896),Tosca (1900),Madama Butterfly (1904), and the unfinishedTurandot (posthumously completed byFranco Alfano), all of which are among the mostfrequently performed and recorded in the entirety of the operatic repertoire. (Full article...)

Breitkopf & Härtel (German pronunciation:[ˈbraɪtkɔpfʔʊntˈhɛrtəl]) is a Germanmusic publishing house. Founded in 1719 inLeipzig byBernhard Christoph Breitkopf, it is the world's oldest music publisher. (Full article...)

TheSymphony No. 9 inD minor,Op. 125, is achoral symphony, the final complete symphony byLudwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed inVienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as amasterpiece ofWestern classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. One of the best-known works incommon practice music, it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.

The Ninth was the first example of a major composer scoring vocal parts in a symphony. The final (4th) movement of the symphony, commonly known as theOde to Joy, features four vocal soloists and achorus in theparallel key ofD major. The text was adapted from the "An die Freude (Ode to Joy)", a poem written byFriedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with additional text written by Beethoven. In the 20th century, an instrumental arrangement of the chorus was adopted by theCouncil of Europe, and later theEuropean Union, as theAnthem of Europe. (Full article...)

Erik William Chisholm (4 January 1904 – 8 June 1965) was a Scottishcomposer, pianist, organist and conductor sometimes known as "Scotland's forgotten composer". According to his biographer, Chisholm "was the first composer to absorb Celtic idioms into his music in form as well as content, his achievement paralleling that ofBartók in its depth of understanding and its daring", which led some to give him the nickname "MacBartók". As composer, performer and impresario, he played an important role in the musical life of Glasgow between the two World Wars and was a founder of the Celtic Ballet and, together withMargaret Morris, created the first full-length Scottish ballet,The Forsaken Mermaid. After World War II he was Professor and Head of theSouth African College of Music at theUniversity of Cape Town for 19 years until his death. Chisholm founded the South African College of Musicopera company inCape Town and was a vital force in bringing new operas to Scotland, England and South Africa. By the time of his death in 1965, he had composed over a hundred works. (Full article...)

In mid- to late-19th-century Russia,Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and a group ofcomposers known asThe Five had differing opinions as to whetherRussian classical music should be composed following Western or native practices. Tchaikovsky wanted to write professional compositions of such quality that they would stand up to Western scrutiny and thus transcend national barriers, yet remain distinctively Russian in melody, rhythm and other compositional characteristics. The Five, made up of composersMily Balakirev,Alexander Borodin,César Cui,Modest Mussorgsky, andNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, sought to produce a specifically Russian kind ofart music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European-style conservatory training. While Tchaikovsky himself used folk songs in some of his works, for the most part he tried to follow Western practices of composition, especially in terms of tonality and tonal progression. Also, unlike Tchaikovsky, none of The Five were academically trained in composition; in fact, their leader, Balakirev, considered academicism a threat to musical imagination. Along with criticVladimir Stasov, who supported The Five, Balakirev attacked relentlessly both theSaint Petersburg Conservatory, from which Tchaikovsky had graduated, and its founderAnton Rubinstein, orally and in print.

As Tchaikovsky had become Rubinstein's best-known student, he was initially considered by association as a natural target for attack, especially as fodder for Cui's printed critical reviews. This attitude changed slightly when Rubinstein left the Saint Petersburg musical scene in 1867. In 1869 Tchaikovsky entered into a working relationship with Balakirev; the result was Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overtureRomeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced. When Tchaikovsky wrote a positive review of Rimsky-Korsakov'sFantasy on Serbian Themes he was welcomed into the circle, despite concerns about the academic nature of his musical background. The finale of hisSecond Symphony, nicknamed theLittle Russian, was also received enthusiastically by the group on its first performance in 1872. (Full article...)

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (French:[pjɛʁlwiʒozεfbulɛz]; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-warcontemporary classical music.

Born inMontbrison, in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at theConservatoire de Paris withOlivier Messiaen, and privately withAndrée Vaurabourg andRené Leibowitz. He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. He was a leading figure inavant-garde music, playing an important role in the development ofintegral serialism in the 1950s,controlled chance music in the 1960s and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s onwards. His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small, but it included pieces considered landmarks of twentieth-century music, such asLe Marteau sans maître,Pli selon pli andRépons. His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant,polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist. (Full article...)

Jack Wall is an Americanvideo game music composer. He has worked on video game music for over 20 games including theMyst franchise,Splinter Cell,Jade Empire,Mass Effect, andCall of Duty. Wall earned a degree incivil engineering fromDrexel University inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, and, after a brief stint working in civil engineering, transitioned into music production. He worked with musicians such asJohn Cale,David Byrne, andPatti Smith, and, after performing increasingly complex production and sound engineering tasks, moved into music composition in 1995.

Wall's first video game composition was the soundtrack toVigilance. Primarily composing in an orchestral style, by 2001 he composed the soundtrack toMyst III: Exile, which was the title he says put him on the map as a video game composer. In 2002, Wall became one of around 20 co-founders of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) as well as senior director. In 2005, Wall, along with G.A.N.G. founder and fellow composerTommy Tallarico, produced theVideo Games Live concert series, having served as theconductor for the international concert tour. His soundtracks forMyst III: Exile,Myst IV: Revelation,Rise of the Kasai,Jade Empire,Mass Effect, andMass Effect 2 were nominated for and won multiple awards. (Full article...)

Imogen Clare HolstCBE (née von Holst; 12 April 1907 – 9 March 1984) was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher,musicologist and festival administrator. The only child of the composerGustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work atDartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of theAldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material and several books on the life and works of her father.

From a young age Holst showed precocious talent in composing and performance. After attendingEothen School andSt Paul's Girls' School, she entered theRoyal College of Music, where she developed her skills as a conductor and won several prizes for composing. Unable to follow her initial ambitions to be a pianist or a dancer for health reasons, Holst spent most of the 1930s teaching, and as a full-time organiser for theEnglish Folk Dance and Song Society. These duties reduced her compositional activities, although she made many arrangements of folksongs. After serving as an organiser for theCouncil for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts at the start of the Second World War, in 1942 she began working at Dartington. In her nine years there she established Dartington as a major centre of music education and activity. (Full article...)

Edward Gibbons (bapt. 21 March 1568 – in or before July 1650) was an Englishchoirmaster and composer of the lateRenaissance and earlyBaroque periods. Born inCambridge, Gibbons's youth is completely unknown, but he later received degrees from theUniversities of Cambridge andOxford. From 1591/92 to 1598 he worked atKing's College, Cambridge, as alay clerk and choirmaster. During his tenure he married Jane, with whom he had six children. Gibbons's whereabouts the next few years remain uncertain; he may have lived inActon,Bristol orExeter, but by 1607 he was the choirmaster of theExeter Cathedral, where the choristers includedMatthew Locke. By 1609 Gibbons received a specialdispensation to become a priestvicar, becoming the head of the college of priest-vicars andsuccentor. Jane died in 1628, and Edward married Mary Bluet; the family was evicted from their home during theEnglish Civil War, but moved to their estate inDunsford.

A few compositions of Gibbons survive: anorganprelude, twoverse anthems, two works forviolconsorts, and somesacred music. Of these, commentators have mainly praised the verse anthems,How hath ye City sate solitary andWhat Strikes the Clocke?Musicologist John Harley called the former particularly moving, and it was likely written for the 1603 Londonplague outburst to which Gibbons's brotherEllis may have succumbed to. Edward is the elder brother of the better-knownOrlando; after the early deaths of Orlando and his wife, Edward cared for their son,Christopher, who also became a noted composer. (Full article...)

Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫,Uematsu Nobuo; born March 21, 1959) is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to theFinal Fantasy video game series bySquare Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriterElton John as one of his biggest influences in pursuing a musical career.

Uematsu joinedSquare in 1986, where he first metFinal Fantasy creatorHironobu Sakaguchi. The two later worked together on many games at the company, most notably in theFinal Fantasy series. After nearly two decades with Square, Uematsu left in 2004 to create his own production company and music label,Dog Ear Records. He has since composed music as afreelancer for other games, including ones developed by Square Enix and Sakaguchi's studioMistwalker. (Full article...)

Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (UK:/ˈmɛsiæ̃/,US:/mɛˈsjæ̃,meɪˈsjæ̃,mɛˈsjɒ̃/;French:[ɔlivjeøʒɛnpʁɔspɛʁʃaʁlmɛsjɑ̃]; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, andornithologist. One of the major composers of the20th century, he was also an outstanding teacher of composition and musical analysis.


Messiaen entered theConservatoire de Paris at age 11 and studied withPaul Dukas,Maurice Emmanuel,Charles-Marie Widor andMarcel Dupré, among others. He was appointed organist at theÉglise de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, in 1931, a post he held for 61 years, until his death. He taught at theSchola Cantorum de Paris during the 1930s. After thefall of France in 1940, Messiaen was interned for nine months in the German prisoner of war campStalag VIII-A, where he composed hisQuatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) for the four instruments available in the prison—piano, violin, cello and clarinet. The piece was first performed by Messiaen and fellow prisoners for an audience of inmates and prison guards. Soon after his release in 1941, Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1966, he was appointed professor of composition there, and he held both positions until retiring in 1978. Hismany distinguished pupils includedIannis Xenakis,Mikis Theodorakis,George Benjamin,Alexander Goehr,Pierre Boulez,Jacques Hétu,Tristan Murail,Karlheinz Stockhausen,György Kurtág, andYvonne Loriod, who became his second wife. (Full article...)

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet,OM, GCVO (/ˈɛlɡɑːr/ ^ⓘ; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including theEnigma Variations, thePomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos forviolin andcello, and twosymphonies. He also composed choral works, includingThe Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointedMaster of the King's Musick in 1924.

Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, hisRoman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society ofVictorian andEdwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He nevertheless married the daughter of a seniorBritish Army officer. She inspired him both musically and socially, but he struggled to achieve success until his forties, when after a series of moderately successful works hisEnigma Variations (1899) became immediately popular in Britain and overseas. He followed the Variations with a choral work,The Dream of Gerontius (1900), based on a Roman Catholic text that caused some disquiet in theAnglican establishment in Britain, but it became, and has remained, a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. His later full-length religious choral works were well received but have not entered the regular repertory. (Full article...)

Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez (c. 1450–1455 – 27 August 1521) was a singer and composer ofRenaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of theRenaissance, he was a central figure of theFranco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of predecessors likeJohannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style ofpolyphony that emphasized the relationship between text and music. Josquin preferredmotifs tomelisma, andhis compositions are mainly vocal works likemasses,motets, and secularchansons.

Josquin's biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship. By 1477 he was in the choir ofRené of Anjou. In the 1480s, Josquin traveled to Italy with the CardinalAscanio Sforza. Many of his works were printed and published byOttaviano Petrucci in the early 16th century. From 1504 until the end of his life, he lived inCondé, where he produced some of his most admired works, including the massesMissa de Beata Virgine, andMissa Pange lingua. (Full article...)

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (/ˈvɑːɡnər/VAHG-nər;German:[ˈvɪlˌhɛlmˈʁɪçaʁtˈvaːɡnɐ]^ⓘ; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor, best known for hisoperas, although his mature works are often referred to asmusic dramas. Unlike most composers, Wagner wrote both thelibretti and the music for all of his stage works. He first achieved recognition with works in the Romantic tradition ofCarl Maria von Weber andGiacomo Meyerbeer, but revolutionised the genre through his concept of theGesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), which sought to unite poetic, musical, visual, and dramatic elements. In this approach, the drama unfolds as a continuously sung narrative, with the music evolving organically from the text rather than alternating betweenarias andrecitatives. Wagner outlined these ideas in aseries of essays published between 1849 and 1852, most fully realising them in the first half of his four-opera cycleDer Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of theNibelung).

Wagner's compositions, particularly in his later period, have complextextures, richharmonies andorchestration, and elaborateleitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extremechromaticism and quickly shiftingtonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music; hisTristan und Isolde is regarded as an important precursor tomodernist music. Later in life, he softened his ideological stance against traditional operatic forms (e.g., arias, ensembles andchoruses), reintroducing them into his last few stage works, includingDie Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) andParsifal. (Full article...)

Georges Bizet (né Alexandre César Léopold Bizet; 25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer of theRomantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work,Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire.

During a brilliant student career at theConservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigiousPrix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were abandoned. Neither of his two operas that reached the stage in this time—Les pêcheurs de perles andLa jolie fille de Perth—were immediately successful. (Full article...)

TheMozart family grand tour was a journey throughwestern Europe, undertaken byLeopold Mozart, his wifeAnna Maria, and their childrenMaria Anna (Nannerl) andWolfgang Theophilus (Wolferl) from 1763 to 1766. At the start of the tour the children were aged eleven and seven respectively. Their extraordinary skills had been demonstrated during a visit to Vienna in 1762, when they had played before the EmpressMaria Theresa at theImperial Court. Sensing the social and pecuniary opportunities that might accrue from a prolonged trip embracing the capitals and main cultural centres of Europe, Leopold obtained an extended leave of absence from his post as deputyKapellmeister to thePrince-Archbishopric of Salzburg. Throughout the subsequent tour, the children'sWunderkind status was confirmed as their precocious performances consistently amazed and gratified their audiences.

The first stage of the tour's itinerary took the family, via
Munich andFrankfurt, to Brussels and then on to Paris where they stayed for five months. They then departed for London, where during a stay of more than a year Wolfgang made the acquaintance of some of the leading musicians of the day, heard much music, and composed his firstsymphonies. The family then moved on to the Netherlands, where the schedule of performances was interrupted by the illnesses of both children, although Wolfgang continued to compose prolifically. The homeward phase incorporated a second stop in Paris and a trip through Switzerland, before the family's return toSalzburg in November 1766. (Full article...)

Guto Pryderi Puw (born 1971) is a Welsh composer, university lecturer andconductor. He is considered to be one of the most prominent Welsh composers of his generation and a key figure in current Welsh music. Puw's music has been broadcast onBBC Radio 3 and been featured on television programmes for theBBC andS4C. He has twice been awarded the Composer's Medal at theNational Eisteddfod.

Puw's works include pieces for unusual combinations of instruments, such as atuba quartet or a trio consisting ofharp, cello anddouble-bass, as well as more traditional forces such as solobaritone and piano,choir or orchestra. He was associated with theBBC National Orchestra of Wales as its Resident Composer, the first holder of this title, from 2006 to 2010. Puw's own Welsh identity is a recurrent theme in his music: some of his pieces set Welsh-language poetry to music and one of his pieces,Reservoirs, is written about the flooding of Welsh valleys to provide water for England. (Full article...)

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the lateClassical and earlyRomantic eras. He gained fame forhis 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, somechamber music andpiano pieces and somesacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

Born inPesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school inBologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan,Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operasL'italiana in Algeri,Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English asThe Barber of Seville) andLa Cenerentola, which brought to a peak theopera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such asWolfgang Amadeus Mozart,Domenico Cimarosa andGiovanni Paisiello. He also composedopera seria works such asTancredi,Otello andSemiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by theOpéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate thecoronation of Charles X,Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his firstopera in French,Le comte Ory), revisions of two of hisItalian operas,Le siège de Corinthe andMoïse, and in 1829 his last opera,Guillaume Tell. (Full article...)

TheTeatro alla Scala (orLa Scala, as it is known), inMilan,Italy, is one of the world's most famousopera houses. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778, under the nameNuovo Regio Ducal Teatro alla Scala withSalieri'sEuropa riconosciuta.

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TheRoyal Albert Hall is a concert hall, seating a maximum of 5,272, on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. Constructed beginning in 1867, the hall was inaugurated on 29 March 1871. Since 1941 it has heldThe Proms, an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events.

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Billy Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an Americanjazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best remembered for his long-time collaboration with bandleader and composerDuke Ellington that lasted nearly three decades. Though classical music was Strayhorn's first love, his ambition to become a classical composer went unrealized because of the harsh reality of a black man trying to make his way in the world of classical music, which at that time was almost completely white. He was introduced to the music of pianists likeArt Tatum andTeddy Wilson at age 19, and the artistic influence of these musicians guided him into the realm of jazz, where he remained for the rest of his life. This photograph of Strayhorn was taken byWilliam P. Gottlieb in the 1940s.

Abust of the Germancomposer andpianistLudwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), made from hisdeath mask. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between theClassical andRomantic eras inWestern classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time. Born inBonn, of theElectorate of Cologne and a part of theHoly Roman Empire of the German Nation in present-dayGermany, he moved toVienna in his early twenties and settled there, studying withJoseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as avirtuoso pianist. Hishearing began todeteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose,conduct, and perform, even after becomingcompletely deaf.

The anatomy of a Périnetpiston valve, this one taken from aB♭trumpet. When depressed, the valve diverts the air stream through additional tubing, thus lengthening the instrument and lowering theharmonic series on which the instrument is vibrating (i.e., it lowers thepitch). Trumpets generally use three valves, with some variations, such as apiccolo trumpet, having four. When used singly or in combination, the valves make the instrument fullychromatic, or capable of playing all twelve pitches ofclassical music. Trumpets may also userotary valves instead.

Stradivarius is one of the violins, violas, cellos and other string instruments built by members of the ItalianStradivari family, particularlyAntonio Stradivari.

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Ballet is a formalized form ofdance with its origins in the French court, further developed inFrance andRussia as aconcert dance form.

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Sheet music for thePolonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, a solopiano piece written byFrédéric Chopin in 1842. This work is one of Chopin's most admired compositions and has long been a favorite of the classical piano repertoire. The piece, which is very difficult, requires exceptional pianistic skills and greatvirtuosity to be interpreted. A typical performance of thepolonaise lasts seven minutes.

Johann Christian Bach (5 September 1735 – 1 January 1782) was a composer of the Classical era, the eighteenth child ofJohann Sebastian Bach, and the youngest of his eleven sons. Bach was taught by his father and then, after the latter's death, by his half-brotherC. P. E. Bach. Bach moved to Italy in 1754, and then to London in 1762, where he became known as the "London Bach". Bach's compositions include eleven operas, as well as chamber music, orchestral music and compositions for keyboard music. In 1764 Bach metWolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was eight at the time, and spent five months teaching him composition. He had considerable influence on Mozart, and was later described by scholars as his "only, true teacher".

This portrait of Bach was painted in 1776 byThomas Gainsborough, as part of a collection started by Bach's former teacherPadre Martini. It now hangs in theNational Portrait Gallery, London.

Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of theRomantic era, best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death, he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, fromopéra comique to grand depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies and lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the leading opera composer in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time of his death, he was regarded as old-fashioned; his works, however, began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, and many have since been staged and recorded. This photograph of Massenet was taken by French photographerEugène Pirou in 1875.