Born in 1782 in the Republic of Genoa, Nicola Paganini began playing the mandolin at the age of 5 before turning to the violin two years later. A virtuoso and precocious violinist, but also a great composer of the romantic era, he truly turned the codes of the instrument upside down by developing new techniques, from trills to swaying. Legend has it that his talent came in part from the “unconventional” extensibility of his hands and fingers.

His two violins, Il Cannone by Guarneri del Gesu and Vuillaume by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, are now exhibited at the Town Hall of Genoa. His main compositions are: 24 Caprices for a Solo Violin, 1802-181; Violin Concertos , 1817-1830; Mose-Fantasia, 1818-1819.

Samvel Yervinyan, the Armenian violinist prodigy

Born in 1966 in Yerevan, Armenia, Samvel Yervinyan showed great aptitude for the violin from the age of 7. Today an international star, he travels the world to deliver superb musical performances.

Although he is a perfect master of the Adagio, Bach’s Fugue in G minor, and Mozart’s Concerto No. 5, he also tried his hand at composition with his album “Ambassadors of the hidden Moon” (2012).

Yehudi Menuhin, one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century

Considered the most outstanding American violinist, Yehudi Menuhin was born in 1916 in New York. It was in the United States – and in particular in the mythical New York room of Carnegie Hall – that he refined all his art until he became a true maestro of the violin. A committed musician, he played more than 500 concerts in support of the Allies during the Second World War.

His commitment was also rewarded with the title of President of the International Music Council of UNESCO. Until his age prevented him, he made many international tours before becoming conductor of various orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London from 1981.

Itzhak Perlman, one of the best violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries

United States, Europe, China, India. Itzhak Perlman, a violin maestro, born in 1946 in Tel Aviv, Israel, traveled the world to share his art and talent. Forced to play seated due to illness, he made his debut in 1963 at Carnegie Hall in New York after studying at the renowned Juilliard School – where he still teaches today.

Even though classical music remains his favorite genre, he regularly tries his hand at jazz and klezmer, an instrumental musical tradition of Ashkenazi Jews.

Isaac Stern, illustrious 20th century violinist

Born in the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1920, Isaac Stern moved to San Francisco at the age of one. On the West Coast of the United States, he learned to play the violin and quickly became one of the greatest masters of his time.

As an illustrious 20th-century violinist, he gave superb versions of chamber music by Bach, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven. In 1961, he founded a trio with Eugene Istomin, pianist, and Leonard Rose, cellist, with which he performed for more than 20 years.

Fritz Kreisler, a violin child prodigy

Admitted at the age of 7 to the Vienna Conservatory, the young Austrian Fritz Kreisler is undeniably a precocious violinist, and the youngest student to have ever joined the renowned establishment. Always ahead, he began his first tour of the United States at 14, accompanied by pianist Moriz Rosenthal.

His style is characterized by an economy of bowing movements as well as a particularly intense vibrato. Also a composer, he wrote many fairly short pieces sometimes called “salon pieces”. His key works are: Liebesfreud, Liebesleid, Schön Rosemarin , in the collection Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen (date unknown).

David Oistrakh, a virtuoso violinist

Born in 1908 in Odessa, formerly in the Russian Empire, David Oïstrakh is one of the most renowned violinists and violists of the 20th century. Through his virtuosity, his technical mastery, and his interpretations of Bach’s Chaconne, Tartini‘s Devil’s Trill Sonata, and Prokofiev’s First Concerto, he left a lasting mark on the world of the violin.

If he gave his first concert in 1923 in Odesa and his first tour in what is now Ukraine in 1925, he had to wait for his prize at the Eugène Ysaÿe Competition in 1937 to launch his international career.

Jascha Heifetz, austerity and perfection on the violin

A violinist who was little expressive and even austere, Jascha Heifetz was all the more perfectionist and demanding. Born in 1901 in Russia, he held his first violin in hand at the age of 3, before studying at the age of 5 at the Royal Academy of Music in Vilnius and then at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. During the Russian Revolution in 1917, his family went into exile in the United States, from which he obtained nationality.

After his debut at Carnegie Hall, he went on international tours before devoting himself fully to teaching and chamber music, which he has always loved. He notably played in a trio, nicknamed the Million Dollar Trio, alongside the famous pianist Arthur Rubinstein and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

List of world-famous trumpeters

Mordents curated the list of the most famous trumpet players in the world (please don’t be mad if your favorite isn’t on the list – it was very hard for us to pick the best ones). Enjoy and we are now working on the best female trumpeters list. Stay tuned!

Miles Davis

Miles Davis is remembered as one of the greatest trumpet players in history, as well as one of the most notable musicians in general.

During his half-century career, Davis has made an incredible impact on different forms of jazz, such as bebop, avant-garde jazz, hard pop, and jazz in fusion with rock.

Harmon mute, a piece of metal that gave his trumpet a softer, more intimate sound, was the characteristic of Davis’ music. It went perfectly well with his short-not, lyrical music. 

Davis recorded over 50 studio albums and worked with many musical legends, like Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie,  John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker.

He played with other greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Billy Eckstine, Max Roach, and John Coltrane and recorded more than 50 studio albums.

Harry James

An amazing big band conductor and one of the greatest trumpet masters of all time, Harry started playing the trumpet when he was only ten years old. His father showed him the world of music through the renowned Arban method for brass players. 

Although he was in a dance band with Pollack and Goodman in 1931, he started his own big band eight years later in Philadelphia. Another great star joined – the legendary Frank Sinatra. This orchestra was the first one in which Frank Sinatra sang.

Aside from his exceptional musical legacy, he took part in several movies, and his music was also featured in a few of them, such as Hannah and her sisters by Woody Allen. 

Dizzy Gillespie

One of the brightest stars in jazz history is a charming trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, without whom jazz itself would not be as rich and sophisticated. Apart from playing the trumpet, he sang and composed as well. 

Some of the works he composed, which later became crucial in the jazz world, were Anthropology, Salt Peanuts, and A Night in Tunisia. He was very fond of Afro-Cuban music and dived into different musical forms like calypso, bossa nova, and Afro-Cuban jazz. This road led him to collaborations with Chano Pozo and Stevie Wonder. 

He played with many other jazz legends throughout his prosperous career, including Charles Parker and Coleman Hawkins. 

Maynard Ferguson

Ferguson was one of the most inventive and prolific musicians in jazz history. This trumpet payer recorded over 60 studio albums and collaborated with one of the most prominent musicians of his time, including Dizzy Gillespie. 

Born and raised in Canada, he started displaying his genius at a very young age. As a 13-year-old boy, he started performing as a solo player at concerts. During this time, he already started his own band.

He is also known for creating the music for the movie Rocky, among his other outstanding achievements. 

Arturo Sandoval

Cuban Arturo Sandoval is one of the most renowned trumpet players in history. He played several instruments since the age of 13, before finally sticking to the trumpet. His love for this instrument resulted in forming the Irakere group which consisted of two saxophone and piano legends, Paquito D’Riviera and Chucho Valdés.

Arturo Sandoval is another jazz player who is connected to Dizzy Gillespie. In fact, he thought of him as a spiritual father primarily because of his interest and contributions to Afro-Cuban music, which opened the door for Sandoval’s global success. 

Maurice Andre

Maurice was born in France in 1993 and played one of the key roles in making the trumpet an essential solo instrument in academic music.

The problem was that the trumpet was never the main instrument and was instead always accompanying marching bands. He gave importance to the trumpet while studying at the Paris Conservatory and as a solo trumpeter in ensembles such as the French Radio-Television Philharmonic Orchestra.

He became so skilled that great conductors like von Krajan and Karl Richter requested him to play as a solo trumpeter in their concert. Moreover, he stands out as one of the best trumpet teachers of the last century. 

Louis Armstrong

Born and raised in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong is one of the most prominent figures of jazz. It’s safe to say that his entire life was jazz itself, and it would be unimaginable not to mention this great musician while discussing jazz. His life was not easy, and it was more often than not filled with poverty, racial discrimination, and pain. He was known as a man who helped others without expecting anything in return but was also dependent on the kindness of strangers on more than one occasion. 

As a young man, he spent some time in several reformatories for committing minor crimes until he was accepted to be a part of one of the most influential orchestras in the city in 1918.

After living in Chicago, he decided to move to New York in 1924, which is considered the start of his fame as a trumpeter. He traveled the world playing the trumpet, giving it true recognition in the world of jazz. He is also known for making a vocal style called scatting famous.

Herb Alpert

With 8 Grammies, 14 platinum records, 15 gold records, 28 albums on the Billboard chart, 5 number 1 songs, Herb Alpert is considered as one of the most critically acclaimed and awarded musicians of all time. 

Moreover, he is also remembered for founding the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass band, as well as the record label A&M Records.

His love for the trumpet started early, at the young age of eight, and later on, he played in dance bands. Although he had a very consistent and active career, his fame truly started in 1964 with the Tijuana Brass band. 

Chet Baker

The cool guy, singer, and trumpet player of the west coast, Chet Baker was one of the vital jazz figures in the ‘50s in the USA. 

One of the most excellent musicians of the 20th century, Baker had an ideal voice for jazz. One of his biggest inspirations was Miles Davis, which can be heard in his music.

However, his life was far from easy. He had a drug problem and was in and out of rehab on several occasions. Ultimately, his drug habit was the reason for his death. He died in Amsterdam in 1988 when he tripped and fell from a terrace. He was under the influence of cocaine and heroin.

Clifford Brown

Clifford’s career didn’t last long as his life was cut short by a horrible car accident at the young age of 25. Still, he is more than deserving to appear on this list. He left an incredible mark as a jazz trumpeter in bebop and hardbop and was known as a master of improvisation. He was one of the best when it came to high-level jam sessions. 

Clifford made music with legendary Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Art Blakey, and Benny Golson, who composed “I Remember Clifford,” honoring young Brown.

He was a great inspiration for musicians like Wynton Marsalis, Louis Smith, and Freddie Hubbard. 

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis is one of the most legendary jazz trumpet players and composers in the last 25 years.

Neoclassicism is written all over his works. His style includes jazz, swing, and even modern bebop. He is also known for his impeccable technique. 

Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Freddie Hubbard were some of his idols. He collaborated with Gillespie and Art Blakey, among others. 

Rafael Mendez

Rafael Méndez was one of the greatest virtuosos ever to play the trumpet. Born in Jiquilpan, Mexico, he had a fruitful and renowned solo career between 1950 and 1975, during which time he had up to 125 performances in one year.

His style was a fascinating mix of several different influences: classical music, popular music, jazz, Mexican music, and mariachi. In fact, one of his most famous recordings is of Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo, a virtuoso work in which he plays for over 4 minutes non-stop.

His tone was vibrant, fast, and clean.

James Morrison

Even though James Morrison was multi-talented and played several different instruments, including saxophone and piano, his greatest passion was the trumpet.

He got the first prize in various jazz competitions and composed for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. 

This jazz legend is a founder of James Morrison Academy of Music, a jazz school in Australia that offers a degree in jazz performance. 

Friedrich Nietzsche is primarily noted for his philosophical work, but as André Schaeffner said: “In the whole history of philosophy it would be impossible to find another philosopher who frequented musicians to such an extent”. Besides being friends with musicians, such as Wagner and von Bülow, Nietzsche frequently contemplated music. He alludes to music in many of his literary works. A lesser-known fact is that he was an aspiring composer himself.  In an overview of his work, thoughts, and contemporary reviews, we’ll attempt to find an answer as to why he never became as famed a composer as he was a philosopher. 

Nietzsche began composing when he was nine, but, as he wrote, those were “efforts of an excited child to transfer chords and sequences of tones to paper and to sing Biblical texts with a fanciful piano accompaniment”. Comparing this wunderkindism to Mozart, for example, one wouldn’t exactly label Nietzsche a ‘’child prodigy’’. But as a young man, he continued pursuing his musical path, and some years later he founded a musical society named Germania with Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav Krug. Besides exchanging ideas and compositions, they aimed to keep in touch with up-to-date musical courses, so they subscribed to Die Zeitschrift für Musik, the only Wagner-friendly music magazine at the time. After an introduction to Wagner’s works, the gentlemen bought von Bülow’s piano transcription of Tristan und Isolde and spent entire days playing it. That marked the beginning of Nietzsche’s admiration of Wagner and his music (admiration being an understatement, but that’s an entirely different story). Nietzsche, albeit not as talented, was a prolific composer – the sheer number of works he composed by the tender age of nineteen was not to be overlooked – The Book of Contemplations from 1863, testifies of his commitment to composing, containing numerous songs, a piece for violin and piano, the Allegro and Adagio of a sonata to be played as a duet. That was the year Nietzsche decided what path he wanted to pursue in life, and he announced to his mother that he had decided to become a composer because the “thought of going to a university bored him”. The following year he moved to Bonn, the center of Schumannism. Feeling inspired, he wrote “eight charming musical settings” (as he himself described) of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso and Sándor Petőfi, directly influenced by Schumann’s style. When he sent them to his family, they replied with the score of Manfred. This piece was probably an inspiration for his later piano Manfred-Meditation (1872), which turned out not to be meditative for the composer at all. Namely, Nietzsche sent the score to his friend, von Bülow, who replied with strident criticism: “Your Manfred-Meditation is the most extreme case of fantastic extravagance, the most unedifying and anti-musical instance of notes placed on music paper that I have come across in a long time. Several times I had to ask myself: is the whole thing a joke?”. Also, in all politeness and with “no offense intended”, he called it “a crime in the moral world”. Well, friends can be cruel sometimes. After three months of silence, disenchanted Nietzsche decided to apologize for his alleged ‘’musical crime”. However, such harsh words didn’t deter him from composing, although he took breaks from it ever so often. 

Nietzsche never managed to overcome his perpetual boredom, and he enrolled at the University in Leipzig in 1865.  Whilst pursuing a University degree, he abandoned his music career, but having in mind he wasn’t a terribly successful composer, that was probably the best move. His professor, philologist F. W. Ritschl, considered him a gifted young man, but he wanted his talents focused on his field of study, so Nietzsche gave the music the go-by, and focused on semantics. Despite this dissociation, music was still a big part of his life: “In comparison to music all communication through words is shameless. The word diminishes and makes stupid; the word depersonalizes. The word makes what is uncommon common”. He drew analogies with music in his literary works as well, comparing his The Genealogy of Morals to a sonata and Thus Spoke Zarathustra to a symphony – more precisely he equaled its first book to the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Quite a daring comparison, don’t you agree?  

His musical ‘’rest’’ lasted for a few years and then… well, he fell in love. Even though he was not a relationship guy (although he was in love with Cosima Wagner, another ‘Nietzsche–Wagner’ thing), Nietzsche proposed to psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé (twice) in 1882, but he got friend-zoned, hard. When his (over)protective sister Elisabeth heard about his infatuation with her, she did her best to keep him away from that “immoral woman”. This affair, though, blossomed into his first piece after the pause – the Hymn to Life for chorus and orchestra that was supported by the second stanza of Lou Salomé’s poem Lebensgebet. However, Nietzsche’s contemporaries were not impressed by the flower. Namely, Bayreuth conductor, Felix Mottl, offered to perform the piece, but the audience was less than delighted. The score, for which Nietzsche hoped to be remembered and which he regarded as a testament of sorts, was sent to Brahms. His reply was incredulously polite: “Johannes Brahms begs to present his sincerest thanks to you for what you have sent him, as also for the honor he esteems it to be, and the great stimulus he derived from it. With his most respectful compliments”. Nietzsche was profoundly flattered and wrote that “nobody else has acknowledged receipt of the Hymn, except Brahms”. Nietzsche probably never questioned his conspicuously favorable feedback, but Brahms’ actual opinion of his work, as Max Kalbeck reports, wasn’t as embellished: “I’ve done it! I’ve extricated myself beautifully from this Nietzsche business. I simply sent him my visiting card and thanked him politely for the stimulus he had given me. The amusing thing is that I quietly avoided mentioning the music at all!” 

Nietzsche’s another attempt at music (equally unsuccessful), was Hymn to Friendship. This piece represents a synthesis of all his musical influences, making it a peculiar mosaic of plagiarism: thematic material was taken from the Hymn to Life, harmonies that allude to Brahms and Wagner, echoes of Chopin and Schumann, and plenty of fill-ins in the form of keyboard ramblings – a quirk of his that marked his entire musical career (after the mental breakdown in 1889, as a patient at Jena Clinic, he still improvised at the piano). This work represents a paradigm of non-originality, influences poignantly obvious in its comprehensive output. His admiration for certain composers, however, was usually intense, but short-lived. According to Josef Viktor Widmann, Nietzsche’s views and opinions were rather inconsistent. After the accident in 1889, it could’ve been attributed to Nietzsche’s mental illness, but before that, it was… well, Nietzsche. A rare case of everlasting love that “represents a continuity of musical taste only temporarily interrupted by successive infatuations for Schumann, Wagner and Brahms” was with Bizet’s music. At first, Nietzsche didn’t know anything about the author of “the best opera at present existing”, so when he found out that Bizet had been dead for some time, he was crushed. After seeing Carmen for the first time, he wrote to his sister enthusiastically: “So strong, so impassioned, so graceful, so Southern!” and he claimed that “I was very ill, but I am well again, thanks to Carmen”. Despite his enthusiasm, Bizet’s influence isn’t evident in his music. 

Nietzsche was demonstrably devoted to music, he was a listener, lover, and composer. But was he truly gifted or merely a wannabe? Well, in his own words:

“When for any length of time I am allowed to think of what I choose, I seek words for a melody I possess, and a melody for words I possess, but the two together will not harmonize, despite the fact that they both come from one soul. But that is my fate”.

He probably was aware of the mediocrity of his works, as he once said:

“You see I am really, as Wagner said, an unsuccessful musician, just as he is an unsuccessful philologist”.

Was it due to the lack of talent, commitment, originality, or the inability to understand the essence of the compositional process? Likely a combination of all the above-mentioned factors that ultimately resulted in him failing as a musician. However, since music is an expression of one’s inner yearnings and emotions, we should do nothing but salute Nietzsche’s attempt to compose his soul out. 

We considered their levels of creativity, techniques, skills, and contributions to keep this instrument alive in the minds of the public.

The 10 best flutists in the world

Matt M0lloy

Matt Molloy has had a long and successful career, and it started when he was very young. Molloy was born in Ireland into a community that was home to some of the most gifted flutists in history. When he was nineteen years old, he won the All-Ireland Flute Championship, making him one of the most talented Irish flutists in history.

He founded Planxty, the Irish folk band known for making Irish folk music popular. Malloy has worked with some of the best musicians, including the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

Trivia: Aside from being a talented flute player, Maloy also dabbled in acting for a while throughout his career. He can be seen in Irish movies: “An Eviction Notice” , “Celtic Tides” and “An Irish Evening: Live and the Grand Opera House”. He also owns a pub in Westport on Bridge Street that offers live Irish music.

Julius Baker

Baker started playing flute as a very young boy. In fact, he was only nine when his Russian immigrant father started helping him in getting to know the instrument. He studied with August Caputo and Robert Morris before attending the Eastman School of Music under the wing of Leonardo de Lorenzo.

After finishing school, he went to the position of principal flute in the New York Philharmonic.

Baker was one of the musicians who helped to found the Bach Aria Group. He had an outstanding teaching career at Julliard, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Carnegie Mellon. Baker was also the author of several flute albums, and his music was considered by many to be the most beautiful they had ever heard.

Trivia: Julius Baker participated in the composition of important films such as “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Lovesick.” He also loved electronics and considered himself a radio amateur, and he also enjoyed building audio equipment and recording solo recordings of himself early in his career.

Robert Dick

Robert Dick was a noted composer, teacher, flutist, and author. He came up with “glissando headjoint”, which is a custom-style flute head that gives flutes the ability to mimic the sounds of a vibrating bar similar to an electric guitar.

Robert decided to play flute in fourth grade and studied with many great musicians, such as Julius Baker. He decided to move to Buffalo after graduation and joined Creative Associates. This turned out to be a great decision, as he became a top-tier songwriter. He mostly enjoyed classical music, contemporary jazz, jazz, and “free improvisation”, which explains the glissando headjoint melodies.

Over the years, he continued to improve himself as a solo artist and a songwriter. He usually divides his time between New York and Kassel, Germany, performing his own music and spending time with his family.

Trivia: He won the National Flute Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. His achievements were recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Composer Fellowship, and a Koussevitzky Foundation commission. He has produced over twenty albums and has appeared on many other guest recordings.

Emmanuel Pahud

Emmanuel Pahud is a French-Swiss flutist. He is best known for his classical and baroque style flute. He does not come from a family of musicians and he found his love for flute while living in Italy. Pahud studied the flute from the age of four until he was twenty-two with prominent musicians such as Carlos Bruneel and Aurele Nicolet.

He is known as the youngest ever flutist to join the Berlin Philharmonic. A self-proclaimed musical chameleon, he often boasted that he does not represent a particular style: rather, he chooses to adapt to whatever style is given to him. Today, together with Mathieu Dufour, he shares the Principal Flute position at the Berlin Philharmonic.

His versatility, commitment, and talent have made him one of the rare few young modern flutists on this list.

Trivia: The first flute Pahud played was a silver Yamaha. He spent much of his childhood traveling around the world, exploring the magical dimensions of flute, and the music itself, helping him become one of the greatest.

Bobbi Humphrey

Bobbi Humphrey, whose birth name is Barbara Ann, is a well-known American jazz singer and flutist. She is most known for playing soul-jazz, jazz-fusion, and funk. Following her graduation from high school, she studied at Texas Southern University and at the Southern Methodist.

She recorded with many notable artists throughout her music career, which helped her grow her audience and reputation. One of her most notable albums was Blacks and Blues.

Still, Humphrey’s Blue Note albums did not bring her much financial success. In 1977 she switched to the business side of the music industry. She founded Bobbi Humphrey Music Company and even signed a deal with Warner Bros.

Trivia: She was the first female flutist signed by Blue Note. During Bobbi’s student years, Dizzy Gilepse advised her to move to New York and pursue a musical career there. Ultimately, that’s what she did and the rest is history.

Marcel Moyse

Marcel Moyse was a well-known French flutist. He moved to Pairs to live with his uncle, Joseph Moyse, where he learned what it was like to be a professional musician.

Joseph Moyse bought Marcel a flute and signed him up for daily sessions of extensive practice. Marcel met Adolphe Hennebains and became his student, who launched his career.

After a year of training, Marcel obtained the achievement of interpreting a piece by Phillipe Gaubert at the Paris Conservatory. By 1936, Moyse had a very successful career. He traveled the world and performed in major cities, including appearances in London.

Trivia: He was one of the only flutists in history to qualify for a first prize after a year of training at the Conservatory. He was also the founder of the Marlboro Music School, where he used to teach.

Jeanne Baxtresser

Jeanne Baxtresser is an American flutist and teacher. Her mother was one of the best concert pianists, so she grew up surrounded by music. She was ten years old when she started playing flute and immediately liked it.

She studied with Emil Opava of the Minnesota Orchestra. She also studied with Gary Sigurdson at the Interlochen National Music Camp and Academy.

At age fourteen, she made her first appearance with the Minnesota Orchestra. Later on, she went to Julliard, where she studied with Julius Baker and many other prominent flutists. She became the New York Philharmonic’s first female principal flute and appeared in over fifty solos.

Trivia: Before playing the flute, Jeanne tried playing the piano, but she noted that it was a complete disaster, so she decided on another instrument. One of her most important recognitions was the Nation Flute Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She also received the distinguished position of “University Professor” at Carnegie Mellon.

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Rampal was a French flutist known for bringing the flute back to the spotlights. His father was a flute teacher, but his family initially wanted him to be a doctor, so they sent him to medical school.

He began studying flute at the Paris Conservatory and won the competition for it. He began his career after the war at the Vichy Opera and became the first flute at the Paris Opera. Rampal not only founded the French wind quintet but also edited and taught baroque music.

His influence is strongest in his authentic approach to 18th-century music through his mastery of tonal nuances and articulate pitch. When it comes to raw skill, Rampal is one of the best pipers out there, no doubt about it.

Trivia: He published an autobiography titled ”Music, My Love”, in 1989. Top musicians such as Andre Jolivet and Francis Poulenc worked together with him. Sheryl Cohen even founded a Rampal school dedicated to this flutist.

Georges Barrere

Georges Barrere was the son of a cabinetmaker and the daughter of a farmer. He did not come from a family of musicians. He started taking music lessons after following the Ecole Drouet band through the city streets playing his whistle. The band encouraged him and pressured Georges to take music lessons in Paris.

He was initially rejected by the Paris Conservatory, but after studying with Henry Atlas for some time, he was accepted at age fourteen.

 When he was seventeen years old, Georges started playing in the Folies Bergere orchestra. Once he finished his studies, Barerre created the Modern Society of Wind Instruments and started teaching promising young musicians.

Trivia: He founded the Barrere Ensemble in 1910 and expanded it into the Barrere Little Symphony in 1914. This made the flute better known as an important solo instrument.

James Galway

James Galway is an Irish flute player known for his ability to blend classical, folk, and other musical traditions.

He started playing the flute at a young age and got most of his training from his father and grandfather playing with local bands. He won all three solos at the Irish National Flute Championships at age ten. He studied with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Gaston Crunelle at the Paris Conservatory, along with private training from Marcel Moyse.

Galway has an outstanding technique, range, and depth as a solo artist. He is also the chairman of the Flutewise charity, which is a foundation that supports young flute players around the world.

Trivia: Galway has received many awards for his contributions to music. He was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2001. He won the Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

We can’t miss these ones!

It’s extremely hard to pick just the top 10 when there are so many other flutists who deserve recognition for their creativity and contribution. In case you had other musicians in mind as your top 10, here are 4 more so no one gets left out.

Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson is known as a rock music flutist and vocalist for Jethro Tull. Anderson does not come from a family of musicians, so after completing regular school, he opted for studying fine arts before trying his luck in a musical career.

Ian Anderson is best known as the man who introduced the flute to the world of rock music. Anderson also plays ethnic flutes and instrumental snippets along with acoustic sounds.

In recent years, Anderson has parted ways with the band and is focusing more on a solo career as he appears in orchestras, acoustic shows, and other string quartets.

Trivia: Anderson has never taken a driving test and does not own a car. His hobby is biking and he owns a few bikes. He is very passionate about protecting feral cats that have been rescued from captivity.

Greg Patillo

Greg Pattillo is known for his beatboxing flute music. In all honesty, the sound isn’t easy to replicate, which means Pattillo pretty much runs the field on him.

Most of his musical career has been focused on acting as a freelance flutist and soloist. He had a chance to compose flute music for movies such as LEGO Ninjago, with a handful of his songs featured on the official soundtrack.

Trivia: Pattillo appeared in an episode of iCarly on Nickelodeon as Sam Puckett’s cousin. He also has recordings on iCarly.com. Pattillo also appeared in Lily Allen and Friends on BBC Three.

Jasmine Choi

Jasmine Choi is originally from Korea and is a chamber musician, orchestral musician, and solo flutist. She is famous for blending rich tones, charisma, technicality, and perfect musicianship. She was awarded the title of Associate Principal Flute of the Cincinnati Symphony at the age of 22 and she is the first Korean performer to hold a major orchestral position in the United States.

Choi was nominated as one of America’s Rising Artists many times throughout her career. She started her musical career playing the violin and piano, but she switched to the flute at age nine. She started her solo career at the age of fourteen in Korea and is a national sensation.

Choi came to the United States at the age of sixteen and studied with Baker and Khaner.  Choi was the last student Baker taught before he died. Later, she moved to Austria, though her most memorable moment in the spotlight was arguably her placement with the Cincinnati Symphony.

Trivia: As a music student, Choi won the senior division of the Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition conducted by the Philadelphia Orchestra. She was listed as one of Symphony magazine’s emerging flutists in 2006.

Herbie Mann

Not only did Mann popularize flute as a jazz instrument, but he also enriched American jazz with influences from different cultures. Before committing to the flute, he used to play clarinet and saxophone. He began to focus on the flute in the 1950s and became one of the first musicians to introduce the flute to the world of jazz.

In the 1960s, Mann began incorporating Brazilian music into his jazz works by recording music with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Sergio Mendes. Later, he also began incorporating African, Middle Eastern, and Japanese elements into his jazz music.

He loved teaching and helping young musicians, and one of them was Chick Corea who turned out to be one of the finest keyboard players globally. In one of his last albums, he worked together with saxophonist Phil Woods.

Trivia: He had a smash hit single titled “Hijack” that was a number one song in the 70s.  He was a founder of Embryo Records. Initially, he was not everyone’s cup of tea, and many refused to acknowledge him as an artist until he began to gain popularity.

This article could go on for weeks, so we’ll wrap up here, hoping everyone worth mentioning was included. If not – sorry, we’ll make it up with more great content. Having in mind personal taste and other criteria, all of the top 10 could rotate or at least rearrange their order.

Born in 1833 in Hamburg, Brahms was a freedom-loving man.  A devoted and faithful friend, he was a man who lived with passion and a motto – Frei aber froh (Free but happy). From his beginnings in taverns surrounded by drunken sailors and prostitutes to concert halls around the world, here are some interesting facts to know about the composer of Hungarian Dances.

Family

Johann Jakob (Brahms’s father) was born into a family of carpenters and merchants. He decided not to follow the family tradition, so he became a musician. He was an apprentice of Theodor Muller for 3 years and at the age of 19, he went to Hamburg to work as a musician. He played various instruments, with great skill on double bass and horn. He became a cornet player in the city guard and later became a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra as a double bass player.

At the age of 24, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen, a seamstress who would later work as a maid. She was from Hamburg and they met when Jakob rented a room from Henrika’s parents. Their first years as a married couple were troublesome but they managed to get ahead. In 1864 they separated, and Brahms’s mother died a year later. His father remarried in 1866 with the composer’s blessing.

They had 3 children: Elise (1831), Johannes (1833), and Friedrich (1835).

Personality

Reményi, who hired Brahms in 1853 as a piano accompanist, described the young Brahms with following words:

“He was a great reader, especially of German poetry, and he knew most of it by heart. He was reserved in communication with strangers, inclined to be moody and reticent, but when he was with me he was cheerful and talkative”

It is known that he used to carry candies which he would distribute among the children. For adults, however, he kept his most gruff and sarcastic character. His student Gustav Jenner wrote:

“Brahms has, not without reason, acquired a reputation as a grump, though few can also be as lovable as he is”

According to the Viennese press, he liked to visit his favorite tavern “Red Hedgehog” daily. His friends described him as loyal and generous. Despite the fact the sales of his works in 1860 brought him a lot of money, he preferred a modest lifestyle.

He donated much of his money to relatives and anonymously helped support several young musicians.

A Big No to Opera

Brahms was a successful composer who continued classical music tradition after Beethoven. His works were greatly admired.

4 symphonies, 2 piano concertos, 1 Violin Concerto, Double concerto for violin and cello, German requiem, numerous works for chamber music, Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Paganini Variations, Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn. Numerous works for piano – ballads, rhapsodies, caprices, and intermezzos. Around 200 lieders, preludes, chorals, popular songs. Even organ works.

But, Brahms never wrote an opera. He once said:

“I’d rather have a toothache than compose an opera”

“Beethoven’s Tenth”

He began to compose his first symphony at the age of 21 and it was not premiered until 22 years later. The work was subjected to constant and severe corrections by the composer until he was completely satisfied. It premiered on November 4, 1876, under the direction of Otto Dessoff. It was published a year later after some revisions.

Conductor and pianist Hans von Bulov called Brahms’s Symphony “Beethoven’s Tenth”

A perfectionist

While Brahms was not a very prolific author, he was indeed a very demanding perfectionist, touching up his compositions continuously throughout his life. A clear example is his German Requiem which took him about 12 years to complete.

German Requiem was his longest composition with 7 movements (between 70-80 minutes long). It was written for soprano, baritone, choir, and orchestra. It is considered one of the most representative sacred works of the romantic period and the one that gave him fame and recognition. It was composed between 1856-1868. Although some movements were performed earlier, it was not released in its entirety (final version) until 1869 with a further revision by Brahms and the addition of another movement.

The reason that led Brahms to compose the Requiem is widely discussed among historians. It is believed that it could have been inspired by the death of his mentor, Robert Schumann, and over time, to the memory of his mother who died in 1865. Before the premiere, Brahms mentioned that he could have called it Human Requiem because it was created for all mankind.

Retirement

In 1890, when he was 57 years old, he announced his retirement as a composer. However, he didn’t stick to this decision, as he produced many important works later on, especially for clarinet, thanks to his friendship with the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld.

Missing work

In 2012 a piano work by J. Brahms was discovered under the title “Albumblatt” (Album Sheet). It is a 2-minute piece composed in 1853 when he was 20 years old.

It was officially released on January 21, 2012, premiering worldwide on one of the BBC stations. The work was accidentally discovered by the British director and musicologist Christopher Hogwood in the collection of manuscripts at the University of Princeton (United States)

The score signed by Brahms appeared in a book that belonged to the musical director of Göttingen (Germany) and also included messages from Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Schumann among others.

Bookworm

He was an avid reader who was fascinated by legends and popular stories. Books always had a special relevance in his life. Proof of this can be found in the numerous letters in which he spoke about reading and his extensive library with works by Gothe, Sophocles, Shakespeare.

“Books are my greatest passion. I have read everything that fell into my hands without any guide since my childhood, going from the worst to the best. As a boy, I devoured innumerable chivalric novels until “Los Bandidos” fell into my hands. I did not know that it had been written by a great literary figure, Friedrich von Schiller. And so I progressed.” (Letter to his friend Hedwig von Holstein. December 1853)

First love

At the age of 14, his first love was Leischen Giesemann, to whom he dedicated a cycle of songs based on a book they read together. It is unknown what happened between the two, although they maintained contact and friendship.

Greatest Love

Clara Schumann, if not the love of his life, then probably be the most precious and beloved person. Clara was a brilliant concert pianist, a great promoter of the work of her husband Robert Schumann. Historians believe that Brahms was deeply in love with her but it is not clear if the feeling was mutual. The truth is that they maintained a close friendship for life. She once wrote about Brahms:

“He was a friend in the fullest sense of the word. I can truly say that I have never loved a friend as I have loved him. It is the most beautiful mutual understanding of two souls” (Clara Schumann)

Almost at the altar

Although Brahms remained single without a known reason, in the summer of 1858 he met a 23-year-old singer named Agathe von Siebold. They exchanged engagement rings, but after a year they broke off their relationship.  Some sources say that Clara did not approve of this union.

Unapologetic

Among his quotes, we highlight a rather uncompromising one that reflects his sense of humor:

“If there is anyone whom I have not insulted, please forgive me”

Brahms in Love

After Clara and his failed marriage attempt with Agathe von Siebold, his love life continues.

In Vienna, he falls in love with two singers: Bertha Porubsky and Marie Louise Dustmann. There was also Ottilie Hauer – all of them proposed to him but Brahms did not decide on any of them. Another romance was with his student, Baroness Elisabeth von Stockhausen, followed by love for Clara Schumann’s daughter, Julie Schumann, who was physically very similar to her mother and to whom he dedicated his variations Op. 23. 

After suffering a deep depression when Julie Schumann married another man, Brahms grew a beard, his physical appearance deteriorated and he became more introverted and grumpy.

Summer vacation

Between 1865 and 1874 he spent his summer months in a house in the district of Lichtental 8 in Baden-Baden (Germany), which he discovered thanks to Clara Schumann. Today it is a biographical museum dedicated to the composer. Among other works, it was here where he worked on his Symphony No. 1 and 2, piano quintet, and the German Requiem.

Baden-Baden organizes the “Brahms Days” festival every two years with a series of performances and events that fill the concert halls with the composer’s works.

Snooze

At the end of 1852, an exiled Hungarian violinist named Reményi passed through Hamburg, entertaining evenings and concerts for the city’s elite. In January 1853, a fashionable musical event was announced and Reményi was forced to find a new piano accompanist since his usual companion was absent due to illness.

Recommended by the manager of the city’s music establishment, he hired Brahms, whom he considered a musical genius after seeing him perform in the rehearsals. In the spring of 1853, they left Hamburg for Weimar, and during the trip, Reményi visited Joseph Joachim with whom he had studied at the Vienna Conservatory. This was the beginning of a great friendship between Brahms and the conductor, composer, and violinist, Joseph Joachim.

According to the Hungarian violinist Reményi, once in Weimar, he decided to visit Liszt. Liszt enthusiastically welcomed them to his home after the trip and took an interest in Brahms’s compositions by inviting him to sit at the piano. Next, they attended a theory and practice lesson given by Liszt. While playing for his students, Brahms fell asleep. He claimed to be overwhelmed by exhaustion.

Wagner was not a fan of Brahms

These two met in 1864 in Vienna. Due to their opposing musical ideas, hostility was real between them, although it subsided over the years. On the other hand, Brahms always admired Wagner’s music, traveling to Munich to attend performances of “The Gold of the Rhine”, “The Valkyrie” and “Tristan and Isolde”.

His death

He died of cancer on April 3, 1897. The funeral procession was organized by the Friends of Music Society. Brahms had no special wishes regarding the music to be played at his funeral, but he seems to have mentioned to a friend that he wanted to be buried near Beethoven.

When you say Rachmaninoff – the first thing that comes to mind is the piano. After all, he spent most of his life playing it, becoming one of the key figures in classical music, not only in Russia but worldwide.
Between ingenuity, passion, lyricism, and composition, we reveal ten interesting facts about Rachmaninoff that you may not have known.

 Composer, pianist, or both?

Although the apparent answer to this question would seem to be “both”, this is a really complex issue. As a student at the Moscow Conservatory, his mentor discouraged him from pursuing a career as a composer, which only made him do one thing – find another mentor. This was not an easy road, as he spent a lot of time and energy navigating between his two passions, being a composer and a pianist at the same time. On the one hand, he was earning a living as a pianist, but on the other, it left him with less time for being the composer he wanted to be.

Taught by a legend

The person who instantly spotted Rachmaninoff’s talent at the Moscow Conservatory was none other than Tchaikovsky. Recognized and famous even during his lifetime, Piotr Illitch Tchaikovsky’s support for this young musician was of crucial importance. Sadly, the mentorship was cut short by his sudden and mysterious death a year after Rachmaninoff graduated. Elegiac Trio No. 2 was dedicated to Tchaikovsky. 

He loved to read, but not everyone loved him

Like many great composers before him, Rachmaninoff was an avid reader with a preference for the Russian classics. In 1892 he adapted Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies into an opera as his graduation work which impressed conservatory judges. However, not everyone was impressed. When he finally got a chance to meet Tolstoy, one of the greatest writers of all time, things didn’t go as he planned.

Tolstoy simply said:

“I hate your music”.

The disaster of the First Symphony

Rachmaninoff was insecure and too hard on himself. He didn’t really know how to cope with failure and his First Symphony was exactly that. He took it so personally that it pushed him into a three-year-long depression. Maybe one could say he was a bit too dramatic as well. One of the reasons for this terrible performance was under-rehearsal and most probable drunk conductor Alexander Glazunov. He was so drunk that the musicians struggled following him, resulting in a complete fiasco. 

The despair and the recovery

After the First Symphony disaster, the composer found himself utterly devastated and depressed at the age of 24. He seemed to have completely given up and lost all hope, doubting everything he accomplished, even including his life calling. His only touch with music during that period was the occasional directing of the Savva Mamontov Opera troupe. During this dark time, a mysterious doctor Nicolas Dahl appeared. He was a hypnotist who assured Rachmaninoff that this method will help him fully recuperate. During 1900, Rachmaninoff was seeing him daily and the recovery soon followed – the famous RACH 2 was composed in 1901, and Rachmaninoff was automatically brought back to life!

A pianist, a composer, and a conductor

Rachmaninoff was well known as a pianist and a composer, but he was also a conductor. His contemporaries had the chance to witness and praise his role as a musical leader. One such example took place when he accepted the offer as a musical director of the Bolshoi in which he put his heart and soul. Composer Medtner wrote in an article in 1933:

“I will never forget the interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony by Rachmaninoff. We were able to hear it as if for the first time”

The operas

Although known for it, the piano isn’t the only instrument Rachmaninoff composed for. He completed four lyrical works and got a gold medal for composition for his first opera Aleko. Still, we don’t get to see these works very often nowadays. The librettos are deemed too flat and unfit for singing. His opera Francesca da Rimini didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to because he never managed to find a common ground with the librettist Modest Tchaikovsky who was the famous composer’s brother. 

Sometimes too romantic?

Rachmaninoff was often criticized for being too sentimental. Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Debussy were considered the “great musicians” at the time and, to critics, Rachmaninoff’s romanticism came off as somewhat unsophisticated. His works were seen as too “easy” and his Piano Concerto No. 2 was even called “dripping music” even though it was loved by the audience. 

A new chapter 

After the revolution in 1917, Rachmaninoff and his family moved to the United States. Offered a new opportunity, he commits to becoming a full-time pianist which allowed him to support his family. While performing across the United States and Europe, hardly even composing anymore, the single word is being associated with him – a virtuoso. 

  
The war and the death

Rachmaninoff couldn’t shake the presence of death. During the war, he lost a lot of loved ones including his cousin Vera in 1909 with whom he had a relationship before marrying his wife. He never fully let go of it and it influenced his life and work greatly. 

He died in 1943 from lung cancer and was buried in the State of New York, thousands of miles apart from his homeland Russia. 

Beethoven was born on the 16th of December 1770 in Bonn, Germany and although this date is most commonly referred to as his birthday, it is not completely clear on what day he was born exactly. What we know for sure is that he was baptized on the 17th of December, so this is the closest we’ll probably get to the truth. Until the day he died at the age of 56, Beethoven battled with his social status and the fact he lost his hearing as a very young man. It is puzzling to this day that he continued and composed some of his best works without being able to hear a single thing. 

Many believe that he despised humankind and was a grouch, but even though sensitive and moody, he was a humanist and a romantic who wore his heart on his sleeve. Peek into ten little facts about the creator of Ninth Symphony and see if your impression of him was right or wrong. 

The next best thing

The moment his father noticed Beethoven’s gift, he had only one thing in sight: to make him a virtuoso that the world will forever remember. The mediocre musician and an alcoholic, he made Beethoven drop out of school so he could pursue becoming a perfect violinist and a pianist. In order to make him seem more special and talented, he even lied about his age, claiming he was two years younger. 

Sometimes love is not enough

Beethoven never married, but he definitely had a habit of easily falling in love. His social status and unstable character made it hard to get married at that time. One such example was Joséphine von Brunsvik who was an inspiration for his opera Fidelio or the Triumph of the Marital Love. Sadly, her family would not allow her daughter to marry a commoner composer.
Although we know of several women who Beethoven truly loved, historians are still confused about who was the inspiration for his infamously passionate and fervid “Immortal Beloved”. The letters were found after his death by his assistant and it is unclear if the letters were ever sent. The identity of the woman these three letters were written for is still unknown.

Beethoven was not an angry misanthrope

More often than not, we imagine Beethoven as a grumpy, ingenious artist who was not keen on socialization and who hated humankind. While some of his best works demonstrate incredible rage and angst, he was a kind, funny and compassionate man. In fact, Beethoven thought of himself as someone who was put on earth to deliver a mission. He made music for the noblemen as he did for charity events, leaving his legacy for generations to come: to those who would doubt his music he once shortly said “they will enjoy it later”.

Buzzing ears

The first signs of Beethoven’s hearing problems started as buzzing and ringing in his ears. Gradually, the condition was getting worse with time and the composer ended up completely deaf. He suffered greatly because of it. However, he wasn’t concerned that his loss of hearing would affect his ability to make music as much as he feared it would damage his reputation and bring him more enemies. He lived for his music and, according to many, it was the most important thing in his life. For this reason, he was determined to hide his condition from as many people as he could, leaving him seemingly uninterested in social interaction. While he seemed reserved and cold to others, poor Beethoven was just trying to hide the fact he completely lost his hearing.

Criticizing Goethe

Despite the fact that Beethoven admired Goethe, he was appalled by his overly respectful attitude towards the imperial family and the nobility of that period. Historians found a letter in which Beethoven wrote to their mutual friend Bettina Brentano that Goethe “likes the air of the court too much” which does not “suit a poet”. He was not shy when it came to displaying disapproval of his fellow countrymen, but Goethe never really addressed any of these statements. 

Not the most handsome, but captivating

Bettina Brentano described Beethoven as a small, brown man who carried the marks of smallpox and had dark long hair. She said his clothes were torn and he looked completely tattered. However, she also said that she was mesmerized by the composer and that no one was indifferent to him. He was like a scary wizard, but no one could look away.

The master of improvisation

Beethoven’s rebellious nature drove his teachers crazy. Haydn saw his talent but considered him too undisciplined. While teaching him composition,  Albrechtsberger even said to the class that he was “an exalted music free-thinker” and that they shouldn’t be associated with him as he “learned nothing and will never do anything worthy”. Soon after, Beethoven became unbeatable at the improvisation duels which were very popular at the salons in Vienna at the time. He never really thought much of the critics and clearly, history has proven him right.

Tenth Symphony? 

The completion of his 10th Symphony was stopped due to his deteriorating health and ultimately his death at the age of 56. All that’s left of that composition are a few sketches. This masterpiece was interrupted and lost forever.
Interestingly, centuries later, Artificial Intelligence has “completed” this symphony, giving us a glimpse at what it might have sounded like. Still, this is only an attempt at copying the mind and the ability of one of the most famous composers and can never be seen as something valuable enough, or a valid epilogue of the symphony. 

Down to earth

Troubled by the horrible aches and tinnitus from the age of 26, Beethoven went almost completely deaf in his mid-forties. Dedicated to composing, he came up with the most unusual way to battle his loss of hearing. Since he was not able to really hear the music, he would sit on the ground next to the piano, feeling the vibrations it made.

The revolutionary spirit

Ludwig van Beethoven never tried to hide his progressive ideas and revolutionary spirit. He got rid of the traditional wig, as well as trousers and silk stockings. He mixed with “problematic” groups whose ideas partly inspired the French Revolution. It is suggested that perhaps he might have been a freemason. His ideas and beliefs truly belong to the rebellious spirit. Hundreds of years after his departure, his works still transfigure, refresh and transform those who are exposed to his eternal genius.

From sheer joy and delight to despair and weakness: peek into the exciting life and work of  Frédéric Chopin in these eight little stories.

This shy musical genius was more than meets the eye. The father of Fantasie Impromptu and 27 Etudes quietly created masterpieces that live today, both in concert halls and in the hearts of classical music lovers. A single name – Chopin – and the whole romantic 19th century seems to come back to life.

He was temperamental, often anguished, poetic, and inspired. Leaving Poland, he spent most of his life in exile, where he built his life and reputation, but his journey was far from comfortable. His torment was both physical and emotional and his life was cut short by tuberculosis at the young age of 39. However, Chopin was a lot more than this short description. He had a nuanced personality and his time on this earth was filled with many successes and disappointments, incredible joy, and dark moments. Mordents Magazine even covered how Chopin would behave as a member of a boyband or if he could ever win The International Chopin Competition.

A child prodigy with an intact childhood

Chopin’s father worked as a bookkeeper and this helped him introduce young Chopin to cultured Warsaw society, while his mother acquainted him with music at a young age. By age 6, Chopin was playing the piano and composing tunes. Witnessing his talent, his family soon engaged a private piano tutor whom he quickly surpassed both in technique and imagination. Yet, he had a quiet and peaceful childhood, socializing with classmates and spending his vacations in the countryside.

His extraordinary musical talents were noticed from an early age: at the age of 8, Frédéric was already performing in the beautiful salons of Warsaw, at the age of 15, he composed his Rondo in C minor and received the title of “First pianist of the city” of Warsaw. A child prodigy, indeed, but never forced to perform in public. 

A fortunate exile? 

On November 2, 1830, Frédéric Chopin left his native Poland for Vienna, with one and only one idea in mind: music. On November 29 of the same year, an uprising broke out in Warsaw: the Polish people rose up against Russian domination. When Chopin first heard of it, his initial idea was to return to Warsaw. But the way back was strewn with pitfalls, and his health was too fragile. Deciding to stay, Chopin sunk into melancholy: 

“Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!”

When he discovered Paris in 1831, he hailed: “the most beautiful of worlds!” and no longer wanted to return to Poland. Chopin took up residence in the French capital, where he found love and success. Many years later, in 1848, he would write:

“I have become as attached [to the French] as if they were my own people.”

Paganini’s heir 

In the 19th century, a violinist Niccolò Paganini was the dream of all the theaters and concert halls. With him, everything on stage became extraordinary, a demonstration of excellence. His speed of execution, his sense of improvisation, and his incredible effects dazzled the public. 

And the influence of Paganini on the musicians of the 19th century is remarkable: Chopin, but also Liszt, Schumann, Brahms… Many of them took their cue from the violinist-composer. Concerning Chopin, he attended a Paganini concert for the first time in 1829, in Warsaw. Amazed by the virtuosity of the violinist, he launched himself – among other works – into the composition of his famous (and formidable) Etudes …

Hide this audience 

While his friend Franz Liszt was having one concert after another, Chopin was leading a quiet existence in Paris. The scene? Delirious spectators? Very little for him: not only did he suffer from terrible stage fright, but he also preferred a smooth and subtle style of playing. To Liszt, his confidant, and friend, he wrote the following:

“I am not fit to give concerts, I am intimidated by the public ” 

During his (short) career, Chopin performed a few times in public in Warsaw, Vienna, and then Paris, but the pianist was definitely more at ease in the warmth and intimacy of the salons. “Chopin as a performer and as a composer is an artist apart”, wrote Berlioz in 1833.

“He does not have a point of resemblance to any other musician of my acquaintance.”

Socialite Chopin

Some even believe that Chopin’s early fame was made possible by the famous ‘salons’. In these intimate places, princes, barons, and other aristocrats liked to receive artists. Introduced at a reception of the Rothschild family at the age of 22, Chopin soon became the darling of these selective evenings. 

Thanks to the private lessons he gave to women and children from good families, Chopin also led an elegant lifestyle: he had a carriage, took care of his appearance as much as the decoration of his home. His apartment in the Cité Bergère was so well furnished that his friends even called it “Olympus”, in reference to the home of Greek gods.

Everything everything everything… for the piano!

Almost all of the works composed by Frédéric Chopin were for the piano. Why this preference? On the one hand, it was because Chopin asserted his musical independence and that other classical or lyrical genres interested him very little (as a composer). “He violated his genius each time he tried to impose rules, classifications, an order that was not his”, commented Franz Liszt. 

Since his first years of study at the Warsaw Conservatory, Chopin only had the piano in mind, and he dedicated his whole life to exploring all the possibilities of this instrument. However, these possibilities were more and more numerous, because the 19th century was also the time of the industrial revolution, of new methods of manufacturing, and it was during the romantic period that the piano took its ‘modern’ form.

George Sand: yes, but she was not the only one

The romantic relationship that united Frédéric Chopin and George Sand between 1838 and 1847 was one of the most famous in the history of music. He was a musician, she was a writer. He was a romantic, inspired individual, while she was known for her provocative spirit,  masculine outfits, and the cigarettes she ‘dared’ to smoke in public. 

But only a few months before meeting George Sand, Chopin had become engaged to Maria Wodzińska, a childhood friend he met during a trip to Dresden. An engagement that could not be more platonic and romantic, was sadly disapproved of by the girl’s parents. From this failed marriage, Chopin kept a handful of letters and a waltz, his famous Valse in A flat major n°1 opus 69, called Farewell. 

Majorca’s Nightmare 

Frédéric Chopin suffered from poor health for a long time. His lover George Sand took his care to heart, and in November 1838 she convinced him to spend the winter in the Balearic Islands, on the island of Majorca, with her and her two children. But the Mediterranean climate proved to be uncomfortable for the fragile musician: the humidity was suffocating, the rains torrential.

The composer’s cough was so violent that the local population thought he had a lung disease. “From that moment we became an object of horror and dread for the population “, wrote George Sand. The inhabitants feared the contagion, the doctors predicted the imminent death of the composer, and the family was finally forced to end their stay far from everything and everyone, in an old monastery. Chopin was gradually recovering, and at the beginning of 1839, he was back in France.  

It was therefore not in Majorca that Chopin would succumb to the disease but ten years later, in 1849, in Paris. He was 39 years old.

Built in 1966 and ranked among the most prestigious opera houses in the world, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, also known as “The Met ” (not to be confused with the Metropolitan Museum of Art ) is the most important classical music institution in the United States. With an impressive schedule of seven performances in six days each week, the Met’s history isn’t just about its busy schedule: here are 10 (small) things to know about its history.

Initially, a gift to the millionaire’s wife

In the middle of the 19th century, New York opera lovers adored visiting the Academy of Music Opera House. The room was small, but the wealthy spectators who could afford a place there were very proud to display their privilege.
One night when the wife of an heir to the Vanderbilt family (the richest in the United States at the time) found herself in a position of “less favorable” view, her husband decided to build the most lavish opera house, so his wife could fully enjoy the experience. This anecdote told by the soprano Lilli Lehmann partially introduces the story of the beginning of a new opera house in 1883, the famous Metropolitan Opera in New York.

A bad start of the fire at the right time

On August 27, 1892, a set painter dropped his cigarette into a bucket of paint thinner. Despite the promises of a building being capable of withstanding fire, the opera hall ignited instantly, and the flames spread quickly due to the faulty sprinkler system and wooden decorations.

After existing for only nine years, the auditorium was entirely ravaged. Its reconstruction required vast sums of money (nearly a million dollars in total), but the 35 shareholders of the “Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company” believed it was essential for New York to have such a hall and accepted the project. The new space would even be improved, with the addition of 350 new seats and an enlarged area for standing spectators. Had this fire taken place a year later, during the infamous financial crisis called “The Panic of 1893”, the reconstruction of the opera would have been unthinkable.

Moving the opera house

After the Second World War, several prominent American political, financial, and cultural leaders decided to seize the opportunity of Europe’s economic weakness to transform New York into an international cultural capital. But for this, it was necessary to build a new opera house worthy of the name. Despite its elegance and impeccable acoustics, the building of the Old Metropolitan Opera severely lacked technical means, especially on stage and behind the scenes.

After many discussions and proposals for new locations, it was decided that the new Metropolitan Opera would join the “Lincoln Center Renewal Project” proposed by the American urban planner Robert Moses, the “Haussmann” of New York. Alongside twelve artistic institutions such as the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet, the Lincoln Center needed to be a cultural center capable of elevating New York to the rank of London, Paris, or Vienna.

The objective was achieved: with 3,732 seats and 245 standing places, the Metropolitan Opera in New York held the title of the largest opera house in the world. And yet, the first architectural ideas proposed a room with 4,500 seats! Still, the director Rudolf Bing thought that the extra seats would not necessarily be an advantage and that it would be wiser to favor the success of a small room that’s full rather than the failure of an enormous empty room.

A golden room

Audiences are often dazzled by the artistic prowess on the Met stage, but there’s another dazzling element in this prestigious hall: the gold ceiling!

During the construction, more than a million sheets of gold of about 6 cm², each 23 carats, were meticulously applied to the ceiling, one by one. The process was long, but the American state itself also slowed it down: in order not to empty its reserves, it only made a small quantity of gold available to the Met each week.

A mythical chandelier created by chance

It’s hard not to notice the magnificent chandeliers in the foyer and auditorium at the Met. A gift from Austria to the United States in gratitude for the Marshall Plan (the American financial support program granted to Europe for its 1945 reconstruction), these chandeliers are veritable explosions of light. These luminous decorations attract viewers not only by their unique shape but also by their surprising origin.

Their story begins in 1965 when Tadeusz Leski, the right-hand man of the principal architect Wallace K. Harrison, got down to the preparation of a sketch of the interior, which he had to present to John D. Rockefeller III (chairman of the committee for the Lincoln Center project) and Rudolf Bing (director of the Metropolitan Opera). Leski modified his work until the very last moment when a drop of ink suddenly fell from the brush onto the drawing. By chance, the shape left by the radiance of the drop intrigued Leski, who connected the dots and drew inspiration from it to create a chandelier with astral appearances. The committee was delighted with the design, and the rest is history.

Upside down Chagall

Another incident that turned into a happy coincidence! When the new Met was being built, director Rudolf Bing commissioned Marc Chagall to create two enormous frescoes for the foyer.

The artist declared at the beginning of the 1960s, “I am looking for a big wall ”, and he was not disappointed. The French painter created two frescoes: The Sources of Music (King David plays the harp surrounded by musicians and angels) and The Power of Music (an angel with a trumpet at the heart of a whirlwind that carries away musicians and animals).

However, while installing the frescoes, the order was reversed. and the workers installed the paintings in the wrong place.

 “I screamed like I’ve never screamed before. My mother, when she gave birth to her children, hadn’t cried so much. You could probably hear me everywhere in Lincoln Square” – Chagall’s biography by Jackie Wullschlager.

Once calmed down, the painter decided to keep the error: he even noted the symbolic beauty of the positioning of the trumpet players in each painting, now facing inwards, serenading the public in the foyer.

A catastrophic inauguration

The Met opened on September 16, 1966, for its inaugural concert with the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s new opera Antony and Cleopatra; but alas, the evening was anything but a success. Certain technical means have never been tested before, lighting errors were multiplying, grips were unhappy, the orchestra without a contract was about to go on strike, and opera passages have been cut just before the concert because they were considered too difficult to play. In short, the inauguration seemed to be cursed. What’s worse, the star of the evening, soprano Leontyne Price, got locked in a faulty pyramid-shaped set!

 Abandoned after only eight performances, Antony and Cleopatra fell into oblivion and remain (according to the press) one of the biggest failures in the history of opera. The grandiose staging imagined by the scenographer, librettist, and director Franco Zeffirelli was the antithesis of the intimate work imagined by Barber: “What I had composed and what I had imagined had nothing to do with what we could see on this scene“, admitted the composer years later. Deeply discouraged by the failure of his work, the composer did not compose anything for five years.

A deadly room

Many deaths have taken place on the Met stage, and not just in staged storylines. Some singers really drew their last breath in front of the audience, such as baritone Leonard Warren in 1960, bass Armand Castelmary in 1987, and tenor Richard Versalle in 1996, all of whom died on stage from heart problems.

But it was in 1980 that the Met had its most sordid history. On July 24, violinist Helen Hagnes Mintiksis was found dead in an air duct, naked and tied up. The police investigation lasted several months and fascinated the entire city of New York. It was revealed that the young woman died the day before after being absent during the intermission. She met Craig Crimmins, a 21-year-old grip under the influence of drugs and alcohol, who sexually assaulted her and, faced with her refusal, killed her. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Met on the radio? Never! And then…

It’s hard to imagine not being able to hear opera on the radio. Yet, before 1931 that form of entertainment didn’t exist! Met director Giulio Gatti-Casazza repeatedly refused live radio broadcasting from his opera, for fear of poor sound quality and a likely drop in sales if the opera became free on radio.

But the final decision was not just up to Gatti. In October 1931, Otto Kahn, chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Opera Company, resigned, and he was replaced by his attorney Paul D. Cravath. With a portfolio of prestigious clients, such as the American audiovisual group NBC, the latter took advantage of his new position to sign a contract with NBC for the broadcasting of 24 operas live. Convinced by the technical prowess of the American group, Gatti finally accepted, and on December 25, 1931, the Met became the first opera house in the world to broadcast a live opera.

The Met at the forefront

Since its radio revolution in 1931, the Met has continued to be at the forefront of technological innovation. In 1995, small screens were installed in the seats of the auditorium allowing the public to read the subtitles of the work presented in the language of their choice.

In an effort to expand his audience, the current director of the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, launched a bold project in 2006, inspired by his predecessor Gatti-Casazza: the very first live broadcast of an opera in the cinema. Risk-taking was rewarded, the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD project is now a great success, broadcasting around ten different productions in several thousand theaters across 60 countries around the world and several million spectators.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

From the scores transcribed by the hand of Anna Magdalena, Heidi Harralson, the graphologist in question, declares to be convinced that Bach is not the composer of specific pieces. His wife’s handwriting would not have the “slowness or heaviness” usually noticed in someone who copies but rather the mark of an idea that stems from her own mind. Moreover, the numerous corrections by Anna Magdalena present on the scores would prove that she would have indicated them as she composed.
Jarvis’ documentary goes even further by attributing some of the major pieces of Bach’s work to his wife – the Cello Suites, the Aria in the Goldberg Variations, and an essential part of the first book of the Well-tempered Clavier.

British composer Sally Beamish, who took part in the documentary, believes that this discovery raises many questions about female composers and could have huge consequences for the confidence of young women who want to write music.

Anna Magdalena and Bach were married in 1721 when she was 20, and he was 36. She was known to be an accomplished singer, and she transcribed many of her husband’s scores towards the end of his life.