Gerald Finzi

Classical Music / Great Composers Dateline:  July 14


Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956), was a British composer. He is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. His large-scale compositions include the cantata Dies natalis for solo voice and string orchestra, and his concertos for cello and clarinet.

Gerald Finzi was born in London. He became one of the most characteristically "English" composers of his generation. Finzi was educated privately. His father, a successful shipbroker, died a fortnight short of his son's eighth birthday.

During the first World War the family settled in Harrogate, and Finzi began to study music at Christ Church, High Harrogate, under Ernest Farrar, a former pupil of Irish composer Charles V. Stanford. Finzi found him a sympathetic teacher, and Farrar's death at the Western Front deeply affected him. It was also during these formative years that he suffered the loss of all three of his brothers. These adversities contributed to his bleak outlook on life.


Suggested listening:

Finzi's Romance in E-b Major, Op. 11. Youtube, uploaded by imusiki. Accessed July 14, 2017. 


Despite being an agnostic of Jewish descent, several of Fenzi's choral works incorporate Christian texts. His music is elegiac in tone.  Below is Finzi's Magnificat. 

Carl Orff

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: July 10


Carl Orff  (b. July 10, 1895, Munich - d. March 29, 1982, Munich), German composer, is best remembered for his popular cantata Carmina Burana. He was also known for his influential teaching method.

Early Life

German composer and teacher Carl Orff was born in Munich on July 10, 1895. Although his father was a soldier, his family was musical. As a boy he studied piano, organ and cello. His first works were all vocal and published when he was 16 years old. Formal Academic Training He enrolled at the local Munich Academy of Music and graduated in 1914, aged 19. Three years later, however, he was called by the German army to fight in the First World War.

Stravinsky and Gounod

Classical Music Composers Datebook: June 17

Charles Gounod and Igor Stravinsky were both born same day.

Charles Gounod (17 June 1818 - 18 October 1893), born in Paris, was a French composer, organist and conductor.  His operas - best known is Faust -  combine graceful melody and elegant harmonization.  Gounod's Meditation on Bach's Prelude became successful and most popular with his "Gounod's Ave Maria" we often refer to as "Bach/Gounod Ave Maria."  The piece was published 1853 under the name "Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach". The original composition by Bach dates 1722. French romantic composer Charles Gounod layered his melody on a slightly changed version of the Prelude No.1 in C Major, from Bach's 'Prelude No. 1 in C Major, BWV 846', Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. P

I'm familiar with few other "Ave Maria" creations and I have to admit that my two all-time favourites are "Ave Maria" by Franz Schubert and the one below by Bach/Gounod. Below, a then 14 year-old girl Elena sang Gounod/Bach's "Ave Maria."  Elena sang 

Federico Mompou

Composer Datebook: April 16

Federico Mompou, Spanish Composer

Federico  Mompou (16 April 1893 – 30 June 1987), was born in Barcelona, Spain. He was a Spanish Catalan composer. He was also a known pianist in his time.

Best known for songs and solo piano music, his Scènes d'enfants (1915–1918) inspired the French critic Émile Vuillermoz to proclaim Mompou as the successor to Claude Debussy.

Jean Sibelius

Classical Music: Composer's Datebook: December 8

Finland's greatest 19th century nationalist composer, whose musical inspirations were derived from native legends. Famous for symphonic poem 'Finlandia' and orchestral works.

”Nature is coming to life: that life which I so love, now and forever, whose essence shall infuse everything that I compose."  ~  Jean Sibelius

Johan Julius Christian "Jean" Sibelius (Dec 8, 1865 – Sept 20, 1957) was a classical music Finnish composer, one of the most notable composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. Considered the most distinguished Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius was comfortably brought up in a musical environment by his mother and grandmother.

A son of an army doctor, he was born into a Swedish-speaking family in Haemeenlinna in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. Although known as "Janne" to his family, during his student years he began using the French form of his name, "Jean", from a stack of visiting cards used by his seafaring uncle.

His family sent him to a Finnish language school, and he attended The Haemeelinna normal-lycee from 1876 to 1885. Romantic Nationalism was to become a crucial element in Sibelius's artistic output and his politics. The heart of Sibelius's ouvre is his seven symphonies. He used each one to develop a single musical idea and to further develop his own personal compositional style, very much like Beethoven. His works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and recorded.

Below, Sibelius: 2. Sinfonie ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Susanna Mälkki. Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43. Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Youtube, Accessed August 17, 2020.

Edward Elgar

Classical Music / Composers Datebook: June 2

English composer famous for "Pomp and Circumstance"

English Romantic composer and church organist, Edward Elgar (b. June 2, 1857 - d. February 23, 1934), is born in Broadheath.  He succeeded his father as church organist in Worcester's St. George's Roman Catholic church. Famous for his Enigma Variations and the magnificent "Pomp and Circumstance", Elgar is often considered as the greatest English-born composer since Henry Purcell, two centuries ago.

The introduction of the microphone in 1925 made far more accurate sound reproduction possible, and Elgar made new recordings of most of his major orchestral works and excerpts from his well-known "The Dream of Gerontius".

Anton Webern

Classical Music / Composer Datebook: December 3

Austrian composer Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was born in Vienna. . He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique. His innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm and dynamics were formative in the musical style later known as serialism.

Webern was born as Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern. He never used his middle names, dropping the von in 1918. He attended Vienna University from 1902 where he studied musicology with Guido Adler, writing his thesis on the Choralis Constantinus of Heinrich Isaac. This interest in early music greatly influenced his compositional technique in later years.

Eugene Ysaye

Composer Datebook:  July 16

Belgian Composer Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe was born on July 16, 1858. He was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. Regarded as "The King of the Violin" and considered one of most important composers of Belgium and greatest virtuosos of his day, he toured as a solo violinist and conductor throughout Europe and the United States. Although he never studied composition formally, he mastered writing in a Romantic style.

In 1886, he formed the Ysaye Quartet and few year later, premiered Debussys's quartet. 

Among his celebrity relatives were his brother, pianist and composer Théo Ysaÿe (1865–1918), and his great-grandson Marc Ysaÿe, drummer of rock band Machiavel.