A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts.
Overture is a music instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which were independent, self-existing, instrumental, programmatic works that foreshadowed genres such as the symphonic poem. These were "at first undoubtedly intended to be played at the head of a programme".
Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic 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.
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the art songs "Erlkönig", "Gretchen am Spinnrade", and "Ave Maria"; the Trout Quintet; the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (Unfinished); the Symphony No. 9 in C major (Great); the String Quartet No. 14 in D minor ; the String Quintet in C major; the Impromptus for solo piano; the last three piano sonatas; the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands; the opera Fierrabras; the incidental music to the play Rosamunde; and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise and Schwanengesang.
Clara Josephine Schumann was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital by lessening the importance of purely virtuosic works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto, chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, the mature Violin Concerto, the String Octet, and the melody used in the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.
Karl Goldmark was a Hungarian-born Viennese composer.
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.
Manfred: A dramatic poem is a closet drama written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Gothic fiction.
Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and author of essays and music reviews. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was undertaking international concert tours by age eleven and who later married her father's pupil Robert Schumann, in defiance of her father's extreme objections. As Clara Schumann, she became one of the most famous pianists of her time. Another of Wieck's daughters, Marie Wieck, also had a career in music, although not nearly so illustrious as Clara's. Other pupils included Hans von Bülow.
Sir Julius Benedict was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.
Paradise and the Peri, in German Das Paradies und die Peri, is a secular oratorio for soloists, choir, and orchestra by Robert Schumann. Completed in 1843, the work was published as Schumann's Op. 50.
The Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120, composed by Robert Schumann, was first completed in 1841. Schumann heavily revised the symphony in 1851, and it was this version that reached publication.
A ballade refers to a one-movement instrumental piece with lyrical and dramatic narrative qualities reminiscent of such a song setting, especially a piano ballade.
Edith Mary Swepstone was an English composer and music teacher. She was born in Stepney, London, the daughter of a London solicitor. She studied music at the Guildhall School and later worked as a lecturer at the City of London School. She died in Tonbridge, Kent.
Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" for piano and orchestra, Op. 2, was written in 1827, when he was aged 17. "Là ci darem la mano" is a duet sung by Don Giovanni and Zerlina in act 1 of Mozart's 1787 opera Don Giovanni. In a manuscript of this composition, dedicated to his schoolfriend Tytus Woyciechowski, the latter replied on the title page in written form „J’accepte avec plaisir“. Chopin's work inspired Robert Schumann's famous exclamation: "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius." The work is often recorded and played in concert. A typical performance lasts from 17 to 19 minutes. One autograph of the version for solo piano is held by the Austrian National Library.
The Julius Caesar overture, Op. 128, is a concert overture written in 1851 by Robert Schumann, inspired by Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar and influenced by the Egmont and Coriolan overtures of Ludwig van Beethoven.
The Piano Sonata No. 1 in F♯ minor, Op. 11, was composed by Robert Schumann from 1833 to 1835. He published it anonymously as "Pianoforte Sonata, dedicated to Clara by Florestan and Eusebius".
Myrthen (Myrtles), Op. 25, is a song cycle composed in the spring of 1840 by Robert Schumann. Its 26 Lieder were written as a wedding gift for his fiancée, Clara Wieck, and presented to her on the eve of their wedding which took place on 12 September that year. The cycle was published that same month, with a dedication to Clara, in four books by Kistner in Leipzig where the couple lived.
