COMPOSER

SPOTLIGHT

Renaissance
Josquin des Prez
c.1450/1455 27 August 1521

Often referred to simply as Josquin,

was a Franco-Flemish composer of
the Renaissance. His original name is
sometimes given as Josquin Lebloitte
and his later name is given under a
wide variety of spellings in French,
Italian, and Latin, including
Iosquinus Pratensis and Iodocus a
Prato. His motet Illibata Dei virgo
nutrix includes an acrostic of his
name, where he spelled it "Josquin des Prez". He was the most famous
European composer between Guillaume Dufay and Palestrina, and is
usually considered to be the central figure of the Franco-Flemish School.
Josquin is widely considered by music scholars to be the first master of the
high Renaissance style of polyphonic vocal music that was emerging during
his lifetime.

Baroque
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
4 March 1678 28 July 1741

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an

Italian[2] Baroque composer,
virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric.
Born in Venice, he is recognized
as one of the greatest Baroque
composers, and his influence during
his lifetime was widespread across
Europe. He is known mainly for
composing many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of
other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty
operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as
The Four Seasons.

2

Classical
Jan Vclav Antonn Stamic

18 June 1717, Deutschbrod, Bohemia 27 March 1757, Mannheim,

Electorate of the Palatinate

Later, during his life in Mannheim, Germanized
as Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, was a Czech
composer and violinist. His two surviving sons,
Carl and Anton Stamitz, were scarcely less
important composers of the Mannheim school, of which Johann is considered the
founding father. His music is stylistically transitional between Baroque and
Classical periods.

Romantic
Jean Sibelius
8 December 1865 20 September 1957

Born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius, was a Finnish

composer and violinist of the late Romantic and
early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as his
country's greatest composer and, through his music, is
often credited with having helped Finland to develop a
national identity during its struggle for independence
from Russia. The core of his oeuvre is his set of seven
symphonies which, like his other major works, continue
to be performed and recorded in his home country and
internationally. His best-known compositions are Finlandia, the Karelia Suite,
Valse triste, the Violin Concerto, the choral symphony Kullervo, and The Swan
of Tuonela (from the Lemminkinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired
by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, over a hundred songs for voice and
piano, incidental music for numerous plays, the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The
Maiden in the Tower), chamber music, piano music, Masonic ritual music,[3]
and 21 publications of choral music. Throughout his career, the composer found
inspiration in nature and Nordic mythology, especially the heroic legends of the
national epic, the Kalevala.

Modern
Richard Georg Strauss
11 June 1864 8 September 1949

He was a leading German

composer of the late Romantic
and early modern eras. He is
known for his operas, which
include Der Rosenkavalier,
Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten
and Salome; his Lieder,
especially his Four Last Songs;
his tone poems, including Don
Juan, Death and
Transfiguration, Till
Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein
Heldenleben, Symphonia Domestica, and An Alpine
Symphony; and other instrumental works such as
Metamorphosen and his Oboe Concerto. Strauss was also a
prominent conductor throughout Germany and Austria.
Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late
flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner,
in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are
combined with an advanced harmonic style.
5

Contemporary
John Coolidge Adams
born February 15, 1947
An American composer of classical music and
opera, with strong roots in minimalism. His works
include Harmonielehre , Short Ride in a Fast
Machine, On the Transmigration of Souls, a choral
piece commemorating the victims of the
September 11, 2001 attacks for which he won a
Pulitzer Prize in, and Shaker Loops , a minimalist
four-movement work for strings. His operas
include Nixon in China, which recounts Richard
Nixon's visit to China, and Doctor Atomic, which
covers Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan
Project, and the building of the first atomic bomb.
The Death of Klinghoffer is an opera for which he wrote the music, based on the
hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in, and
the hijackers' murder of wheelchair-bound 69-year-old Jewish-American passenger
Leon Klinghoffer. The opera has drawn controversy, including allegations by some
(including Klinghoffer's two daughters) that the opera is antisemitic and glorifies
terrorism. The work's creators and others have disputed these criticisms.