By Betsy Schwarm

Nicolo Paganini

Imagine an eleven-year-old violinist playing concerts in public. That's how the career of Nicolo Paganini, born in Genoa in 1782, began. His father had taught him to play. Soon, the boy took up composing, too. But since young Nicolo knew so much more about the violin than about any other instrument, he almost always composed violin music. As he grew older and became a better violinist, his violin compositions became more and more difficult to play. Some of his compositions were so hard to play that no one else could play them at all: only Paganini. His playing ability was so incredible that some people said it was diabolical, that there was no way an ordinary human could play so well. What they didn't know was that Paganini practiced all day long every day, and that it was this hard practicing that had made him so good. He was such a wonderful violinist that a rich man who had loaned an expensive violin to Paganini refused to take it back after hearing Paganini play. The rich man said that Paganini deserved the violin as a gift. Today, when one hears his violin music, one can imagine how exciting it sounded when he played it himself. When he died in 1840, he donated his collection of dozens of fine violins and other string instruments to a museum in his birthplace, where the instruments remain today.

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev was a lucky boy. Born in Russia in 1891, he was an only child whose mother loved music. His father, who earned a good living managing a country estate, made sure that his young son had the chance to study music. By the time he was sixteen, little Sergei had already written over sixty compositions. He was a wonderful pianist, too, and soon was studying at Russia's finest music school, the St. Petersburg Conservatory. There, the boy became an even better at composing music and playing the piano. When the time came for him to graduate from the school, he gave a piano concert at which he played his own composition. None of the other students had dared to do such a thing. They were playing music by Beethoven and Liszt; Prokofiev was playing Prokofiev.

When Sergei was nineteen, his father died. Although the young composer could still live with his mother, the family was no longer wealthy. It was clear that Sergei would need to work hard to support himself. He began traveling to far-off cities to perform as a pianist. His own compositions were also popular, and people who liked new and exciting music began to notice young Prokofiev. Amongst the cities he visited were London, Paris, Chicago, and New York City. Some of his most famous music was composed and first performed outside of his native Russia.

In 1936, Prokofiev came back to Russia, which by then was called the Soviet Union. He had been away for eighteen years. He and his wife wanted to live in Russia again. Their two sons, Svyatoslav and Oleg, had never even seen Russia. Twelve and eight years old, the boys had been born while their parents lived in France. Prokofiev hoped that he would be able to make a new life in his old homeland, that his music might become as popular there as it had been in other countries. But working in the Soviet Union was more difficult than he had expected. The nation's political leaders thought his music was too modern. Sometimes, Prokofiev couldn't even get his music performed.

But his musical career was not over. Despite the difficulties that he faced, Prokofiev continued to compose. Peter and the Wolf, written for his young sons, was first performed in Moscow shortly after the Prokofievs came back from Paris. His ballet Cinderella was also composed in the Soviet Union. By the time of his death in 1953, he was considered one of the greatest of all Russian composers.

Although Peter and the Wolf is his best-known composition, Mr. Prokofiev was also known for writing exciting symphonies, difficult piano music, and delightful ballets. His ballet version of Cinderella uses music and dancing to tell a familiar fairytale. He also composed ballets about the legendary sweethearts Romeo and Juliet, as well as other stories. Around the world, ballet companies and orchestras still perform Prokofiev's music over fifty years after his death. When a composer's music brings so much pleasure to so many millions of people, it's a safe bet that he'll always be remembered.

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Born in 1873, Sergei Rachmaninoff actually had three musical careers: conductor, composer, and pianist. One of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, he could play incredibly difficult music because of his large, strong hands. Rachmaninoff's piano career got off to an early start, but as a composer, he ran into problems. His first symphony was a terrible failure. Audiences and critics rejected it completely, though some blamed the apparently drunken conductor more than Rachmaninoff himself. Faced with a thorough failure, the composer grew so depressed that he was afraid to compose. Only after being treated by a hypnotist was he able to try composing again. His Piano Concerto no. 2, which he wrote after seeing the hypnotist, was so successful that he was never afraid of composing again.

His music is often very bold and exciting, and has long, beautiful melodies. It sounds a lot like the music of Peter Tchaikovsky. Both men were Russian composers, but they lived in two different generations. Tchaikovsky was already middle-aged by the time Rachmaninoff was born. It was unusual that a composer would still write in a style that had been popular fifty years earlier. Some people criticized Rachmaninoff for writing this way, saying that they preferred more modern styles. But Rachmaninoff liked the old way best. He felt it was perfect for expressing his feelings, for conveying, as he said, "that which is in my heart." Whether or not it sounded old-fashioned to someone else wasn't important to him. He was determined to do it his way.

Rachmaninoff had been born in Russia and had spent the first half of his life there, except when he traveled for concert tours. But in 1917, Russia had a revolution. The country was given a new government and a new name: the Soviet Union. Not liking the changes in his country, Rachmaninoff decided to leave Russia forever. It was a hard decision, because it meant that he might never again see his friends and family, but sometimes people have to make hard choices. Rachmaninoff, his wife, and their young daughters Tatyana and Irina lived for a while in Switzerland, then in the United States, where he built a house exactly like the one they had lived in back in Russia. He may have moved far, far away, but he never wanted to forget his homeland.

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel (say "rah-VELL") grew up in the great French city of Paris where he started music lessons in 1882 at the age of seven. He became an excellent pianist who also liked to compose. He studied for sixteen years at the best music school in Paris. Although he never won the school's top competition, his music was being performed in the concert halls of Paris even while young Ravel was still a student. The public liked his compositions, even if his professors weren't quite sure about it.

Ravel never married. Instead, he lived alone in his home in the countryside with a family of Siamese cats and a collection of mechanical toys. A shy man, he frequently suffered from poor health, but this didn't prevent him from composing music. Some of his compositions were written for solo piano. He also wrote orchestra music. Sometimes, he would write a piece one way and then re-write it the other way, changing orchestra music into piano music or piano music into orchestra music. For example, his Mother Goose music was first written for a piano duet. Later, he re-wrote it for orchestra and made a ballet out of it. Similarly, his Le Tombeau de Couperin started as piano music, then became an orchestral work. This allowed Ravel and his listeners to hear his music two different ways.

Some composers write hundreds and hundreds of compositions, but that's not the way it was for Ravel. He worked slowly, "drop by drop," as he once said. For that reason, there are not as many compositions by Maurice Ravel as there are by Mozart or Bach. But it isn't necessary to write a lot of music to be considered great. Ravel may have been cautious about his music, but the pieces that resulted are a joy to hear.

Ottorino Respighi

This composer was born in 1879 in the Italian town of Bologna, famous as the home of a popular sandwich meat. As a teenager, Ottorino learned to play the piano and the violin. Then, when he was twenty-one, he went to Russia where he played in an orchestra and began studying composition. His teacher, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, was a superstar Russian composer especially famous for his exciting orchestra music. He inspired young Respighi to write orchestra music, too, even though most Italian composers of the time were writing operas. Throughout his life, Ottorino Respighi would be best known for his orchestra music.

When Respighi returned to Italy, he began writing colorful orchestral works inspired by his country. The first of these compositions, called The Fountains of Rome, portrayed four public fountains in the capital city of Rome, showing the activities that might happen around those fountains at various times of day from morning to evening. The second work, called The Pines of Rome, showed forest scenes instead of fountain scenes. This composition is especially famous for its last movement, in which the armies of ancient Rome march victoriously into the city. The third and last of the series, Roman Festivals, was inspired by the city's grand celebrations. In each of these works, Respighi showed his knowledge of the orchestra, using the different instruments and their unique sounds to help his listeners imagine the scenes that were portrayed in the music.

Respighi was also interested in music of past centuries. He studied the works of earlier composers and helped prepare this music to be published. He felt that it was important for people to know about the music of earlier days, rather than just listening to new music. After all, without the old music that came first, the new music of today wouldn't sound the way it does. Sometimes, Respighi even used these old melodies in his own new compositions, in hopes of encouraging people to appreciate the old and the new together. Composer and historian: Ottorino Respighi was both. He lived until 1936.


Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Born in 1844, this composer started out as a navy officer, just like his older brother. He even traveled around the world on a naval ship, reaching the Mediterranean Sea, South America, and New York City in the 1860s. But his true love was music. In fact, while in New York, he was much more interested in hearing concerts than in seeing the other navy ships in the harbor. When he returned to Russia, he left the navy and began working as a composer.

At the age of only twenty-seven, Rimsky-Korsakov became a university professor of composition. He was surprised to get the job, because he had never attended a music school himself. It was a challenge at first. But he studied hard and soon learned the things he needed to teach to his students.

Rimsky-Korsakov was an extremely popular composer whose music was exciting and filled with imagination. Some of his compositions were inspired by Russian fairytales. Others were musical impressions of exotic countries, including Arabia and Spain, which seemed pretty exotic to a Russian. Better than almost anyone, he understood how to create moods and scenes in music by using the many instruments of the orchestra. To learn this technique, many younger composers came to study with Rimsky-Korsakov, so that his skills and ideas influenced the next generation, too. He remained at the St. Petersburg Conservatory until a few years before his death in 1908.

Joaquin Rodrigo

Joaquin Rodrigo was the perfect twentieth century composer, because he lived in almost every year of the century. He was born in 1901 and lived until 1999. He had a long and successful life, despite a serious disability. When he was three years old, he contracted diphtheria, which left him blind. But blindness didn't stop the boy from enjoying music. When his parents saw how fond he was of music, they decided that he should learn more about it. They hired an assistant who helped Joaquin to study by reading to him and taking him to concerts. With this man's help, Joaquin was able to learn how to play and compose music.

Although he first studied music at home in Spain, Rodrigo later went to Paris to study. At the time, many people thought that Paris had the best music schools in the world. Also, since so many famous composers lived there, Rodrigo was able to meet important people in the world of music. He learned from them, and they helped his music to become more famous. During the years that he lived in Paris, a war was happening in Spain. For many years, it was not safe for Rodrigo to go home. But even though he was living in France, he still wrote music that sounded like Spain. Especially in his guitar concertos, one can hear the lively and exciting rhythms of Spanish music.

How does a man write music when he can't see what he's writing? Rodrigo used a Braille music typewriter. Each key on a Braille music typewriter has a different little bump that the user can read with his fingers. Tap that key, and it makes exactly the same bump on the paper. Persons who are blind learn to read those bumps. Sometimes, people with sight learn to read them, too. Rodrigo would write music on his typewriter. Then, his wife - who wasn't blind - would read the bumps and write out the music in regular notes. After it was written down, she would sit at the piano and play the music back to her husband, so he could hear it and be sure that it was exactly the way he wanted it. Blindness made it a little slower for him to compose, but it didn't prevent him from having a musical career.

Gioacchino Rossini

When a boy's mother is an opera singer and his father plays brass instruments in the opera orchestra, it's a sure bet that he'll grow up to be interested in opera. That's exactly what happened with Gioacchino Rossini [say "jah-KEY-no row-SEE-nee"], who was born in Italy on February 29, 1792. He began studying music when he was a young boy, and composed his first opera when he was only sixteen years old. At age twenty-one, he had his first big hit with a funny opera about an Italian girl's wild adventures in Algeria. By the time he stopped composing operas at the age of thirty-seven, Rossini had already written thirty-nine operas, more than any other important composer.

Rossini composed other pieces, too, in addition to operas. He wrote songs and church music and chamber music, a type of composition for small groups of players. After he retired from writing operas, Rossini continued to write these other kinds of compositions. He became famous in Paris, where he and his wife were living, for hosting musical dinner parties with fine music and fine food and wine. Everyone who was anyone in the arts in Paris hoped for an invitation, and the parties were the only place to hear Rossini's newest music. When he died in 1868, he was still a star of the musical world, though his last new opera, William Tell, was already nearly forty years old.

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