2023 04 29-30 Ragged Music Festival ENG - Website

Biographies
Composers
Since the 19th-century Bach
revival Johann Sebastian
Bach (1685 - 1750) has
been generally regarded
as one of the greatest
composers in the history
of Western music. Like no
other composer before him,
Bach knew how to combine
simplicity and complexity,
emotion and musical
architecture, spiritual
content and thoughtful
form. As a composer, he was
not only groundbreaking
but also extremely prolific,
given that he gave over 250
cantatas to his name. He was
also a gifted harpsichordist
and organist.
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770 - 1827) was taught by
court organist and composer
Christian Gottlob Neefe,
who introduced him to the
ideas of C.Ph.E. Bach and to
the humanistic worldview of
the Freemasons. In Vienna,
he initially became famous
mainly as a piano virtuoso
and improviser. In 1815 his
damaged hearing forced
him to quit as a performing
pianist. Beethoven’s hearing
40
loss did not prevent him
from composing music. The
depth he achieved in his late
compositions are a miracle
of human strength and
concentration.
Johannes Brahms (1833 -
1897) wrote his first
compositions at the age of
eighteen. During a concert
tour with Hungarian violinist
Eduard Reményi, Brahms
met Franz Liszt and Robert
Schumann. Schumann,
greatly impressed and
delighted by the 20-yearold’s
talent, published an
article which led to the first
publication of Brahms’s
works under his own name.
Brahms feeled deeply
for Clara Schumann and
their intensely emotional
platonic relationship lasted
until Clara’s death. In 1862,
Brahms settled in Vienna,
where he gave many
concerts and made concert
tours. After 1881, Brahms
engaged more and more
intensively in composing.
The Czech composer Leoš
Janáček (1854 - 1928)
devoted himself mainly to
folkloristic research and he
earned a living as a music
teacher, and conducted
various amateur choirs
in Brno. In 1881, Janáček
founded and was appointed
director of the organ school,
and held this post until 1919,
when the school became the
Brno Conservatory. He led
the mainstream of folklorist
activity in Moravia and
Silesia, using a repertoire
of folk songs and dances
in orchestral and piano
arrangements. After the
success of his opera Jenůfa,
Janáček became one of his
country’s most important
composers.
Modest Mussorgsky
(1839 - 1881) was the son of
a Russian large landowning
family and was trained
as an army officer, but
the call of music proved
stronger. At soirees by
Alexander Dargomyzhsky,
he met the composers
of the ‘Mighty Handful’
and was initiated into the
secrets of composition by
Mili Balakirev and others.
Mussorgsky championed
genuine Russian music
and often deviated in his
harmonies and melodies
from what was common in
Russia at the time.