Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. Beethoven's career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression.
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", "Ave Maria"; the Trout Quintet, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the "Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, the String Quartet No. 14 Death and the Maiden, a String Quintet, the two sets of Impromptus for solo piano, the three last 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.
Antonín Dvořák composed his Symphony No. 6 in D major, Op. 60, B. 112, in 1880. It was premiered on 25 March 1881. It was originally published as Symphony No. 1 and is dedicated to Hans Richter, who was the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. With a performance time of approximately 40 minutes, the four-movement piece was one of the first of Dvořák’s large symphonic works to draw international attention. In it, he manages to capture some of the Czech national style within a standard Germanic classical-romantic form.
The Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36, is a symphony in four movements written by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1801 and 1802. The work is dedicated to Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky.
AntonJoseph Reicha (Rejcha) was a Czech-born, Bavarian-educated, later naturalized French composer and music theorist. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, he is now best remembered for his substantial early contributions to the wind quintet literature and his role as teacher of pupils including Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and César Franck. He was also an accomplished theorist, and wrote several treatises on various aspects of composition. Some of his theoretical work dealt with experimental methods of composition, which he applied in a variety of works such as fugues and études for piano and string quartet.
Ferdinand Ries was a German composer. Ries was a friend, pupil and secretary of Ludwig van Beethoven. He composed eight symphonies, a violin concerto, nine piano concertos, three operas, and numerous other works, including 26 string quartets. In 1838 he published a collection of reminiscences of his teacher Beethoven, co-written with Beethoven's friend, Franz Wegeler. Ries' symphonies, some chamber works—most of them with piano—his violin concerto and his piano concertos have been recorded, exhibiting a style which, given his connection to Beethoven, lies between the Classical and early Romantic styles.
Ferdinand (von) Hiller was a German composer, conductor, pianist, writer and music director.
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19, by Ludwig van Beethoven was composed primarily between 1787 and 1789, although it did not attain the form in which it was published until 1795. Beethoven did write a second finale for it in 1798 for performance in Prague, but that is not the finale that was published. It was used by the composer as a vehicle for his own performances as a young virtuoso, initially intended with the Bonn Hofkapelle. It was published in December 1801 as Op. 19, later than the publication in March that year of his later composition the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major as Op. 15, and thus became designated as his second piano concerto.
During the course of his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) established relationships with many of his musical contemporaries. Beethoven was notoriously temperamental, eccentric and difficult to get along with; the history of his many relationships is replete with arguments, misunderstandings, and reconciliations. Beethoven had well-known quarrels with his one-time teachers, Joseph Haydn and Antonio Salieri, with the piano virtuoso and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the German composer Carl Maria von Weber and the Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini. Conversely, he regarded Franz Schubert positively, praising the latter's compositions.
The Symphony No. 3 in E♭ major, Op. 10, B. 34, is a classical composition by Antonín Dvořák.
Kaspar Anton Karl van Beethoven was a brother of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
Richard Franz Stöhr was an Austrian composer, music author and teacher.
Conrad Graf was an Austrian-German piano maker. His pianos were used by Beethoven, Chopin, and Robert and Clara Schumann, among others.
From March 1816 to August 1817, Franz Schubert composed four violin sonatas. All four were published after the composer's death: the first three, D 384, 385 and 408, as Sonatinas in 1836, and the last one, D 574, as Duo in 1851. Schubert composed two more pieces for violin and piano, in October 1826 and December 1827 respectively: a Rondo, D 895, which was published during the composer's lifetime (Op. 70), and a Fantasy, D 934, which was premiered in January 1828, less than a year before the composer's death.
The Piano Concerto No. 6 in C major, Op. 123, by Ferdinand Ries was composed around 1806. Composed in a proto-Romantic style, similar to the concertos of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, it also shows evidence of the influence of Beethoven's C minor Piano Concerto, Op. 37 which Ries had performed at his public debut in 1804.
The Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Cello in B-flat major, Op. 28, was composed by Ferdinand Ries in either Bonn in 1809 or Aachen in 1810 during the period he left Vienna to avoid being drafted into the Austrian army. It was published in 1811 by Simrock with a dedication to a Mademoiselle Clairette Ludwigs.
Ferdinand Ries composed his Clarinet Sonata in G minor, Op. 29, in Bonn in 1809 according to his thematic catalog, but it was not published until 1812 by Simrock without a dedication. Its composition history is unclear but it may have been written with a particular clarinetist in mind. The work has sometimes been transcribed for violin.
The Piano Concerto No. 5 in D major, Op. 120 "Concerto Pastorale", by Ferdinand Ries was composed between 1813 and 1816 and published in 1823 by the firm of Sauer & Leidesdorf with a dedication to Prince Oscar of Sweden.
The Piano Concerto No. 4 in C minor, Op. 115 by Ferdinand Ries was composed in Bonn in 1809 but was not published until 1823 when it was released by both H.A. Probst of Leipzig and Birchall & Cº of London with a dedication to Ignaz Moscheles.
