After Debussy died, Maurice Ravel became known as France’s greatest living composer. The careers of the two men overlapped and, at a superficial level, their music is often considered quite similar. Some critics at the time, in fact, accused Ravel of copying Debussy’s style – even plagiarizing his music. Ravel vehemently denied these charges. Writers [...]

Modest Mussorgsky was one of the “Mighty Five” Russian composers. The other four were Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Caesar Cui, Alexander Borodin and Mily Balakirev. This was a group of Russian nationalist composers who eschewed western (German, French, Italian) musical forms and styles. Mussorgsky was thought by musicologists and musical historians to be the greatest of the [...]

When one thinks of composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the names Mozart and Beethoven are likely to come to mind. A little more thought brings Franz Joseph Haydn into the picture. Haydn was not a child prodigy, but he was a true musical genius. Recognition came later, and it is said [...]

Igor Stravinsky is said to be the greatest composer of the early twentieth century. He also is thought to have had the greatest influence on musical development during this time. Why is it then that his music has never gained the level of acceptance and popularity as that of the great composers of the nineteenth [...]

Johann Sebastian Bach Is the best known of the composers from the Baroque period (1600-1750). Among these are Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel and Albinoni. And he was greatest of them all, so great that he is consider first among the three greats: Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. To many, his music is considered the foundation on which [...]

From Zwickau, Germany, the mother of Robert Schumann sent him off to Leipzig to matriculate into law school. He was not interested and did not make much of an effort toward becoming a lawyer. To his mother’s great disappointment, but to the everlasting benefit of the music world, Robert Schumann was interested only in music. [...]

Franz Liszt ranks number thirteen on Phil G. Goulding’s list of the fifty greatest composers. In his day, Hungarian Liszt was better known for his virtuoso playing than as a composer. He started serious composing relatively late in his career, but his public performing began quite early. He is considered by many to have been [...]

Sergei Prokofiev was born in 1891 in a rural community in Ukraine called Sontsovka. Because they could not afford to operate their own farm, his parents agreed to manage the farm of a friend for their livelihood. Prokofiev was an only child upon whom the parents, especially his mother, doted. He was spoiled. But he [...]