Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

His real name was Giovanni Battista Lulli, as mentioned in the "Ullstein Music Encyclopedia (Berlin/Frankfurt, 1965). Lully was born in Florenz/Italy on November 28, 1632. In 1646, Lully started his carreer as kitchen helper in Paris. He was an outstanding violinist and has been promoted as one of the "music popes" - a member of the "violins du roi" (Royal Violinists). His new string techniques inspired the French violin play with an unbelievable precision. As  nobleman, Lully became a royal dancer, actor and composer of King Louis XIV. All his compostions showed a royal but sometimes uncomfortable glorification. In 1669, Lully "invented" the French National Opera with lyrics from the Greek and Roman mythology. Orchestral compositions with oboes soli remained with tonal glam and glory. Lully passed away in Paris on March 22, 1687.

The French Arhur Honegger has been born in Le Havre on March 10, 1892 as a son of Swiss parents. He studied with Andre Gedalge (1856-1926) and Charles-Marie Widor (1845-1937). Honegger's compostion works couldn't be dictated by conglomeration-tendencies. Honegger remainded incredible and unique, catholic-mysterious and as a great composer of mythical stories, adapted in "King David" (1921), "Johanna - burned of the shike" (1938, German version premiered 1947) or the dramatic psalm, also entitled "King David" (1941). The Biblical drama "Judith"(1925) or "Oedipus Rex" (1926) became real composition challenges because of Igor Stravinsky. Honegger's fifth symphony entitled "Di Tre Tre" is already incredible, because of all movements and an ending with a drumbeat. Arthur Honegger passed away in Paris on November 27, 1955.

Claude Debussy was born into a poor family in France  on August 22, 1862, but his obvious gift at the piano sent him to the Paris Conservatory at age 11. At age 22, he won the Prix de Rome, which financed two years of further musical study in the Italian capital. After the turn of the century, Debussy established himself as the leading figure of French music. During World War I, while Paris was being bombed by the German air force, he succumbed to colon cancer at the age of 55. Quotes "Music is the space between the notes." – Claude Debussy- Achille-Claude Debussy was born on August 22, 1862, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, the oldest of five children. While his family had little money, Debussy showed an early affinity for the piano, and he began taking lessons at the age of 7. By age 10 or 11, he had entered the Paris Conservatory, where his instructors and fellow students recognized his talent, but often found his attempts at musical innovation...

Born on December 16, 1775 in Rouen, the Frenchman Francois Adrien Boildieu was a son of an Archdiocesan secretary. At the age of 18, he started composing cheerful and amusing lyrical dramas and operas. In Paris, the piano constructor Sebastian Erard (1752-1831) became Boildieu's mentor. Etienne Nicolas Mehul (1763-1817) and Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) were Boildieu's very closed friends. He composed 38 operas, which remained as pearls of the so-called Opera Comique. I like to mention just only a few such as "Der Kalif von Bagdad" from 1800 (a kalif was an Arabian governor and Mohammed's follower), "Johann von Paris" (1812), and, especially "La Dame Blanche" (The White Lady, 1825) - just aired in my show last Sunday. Boildieu's piano compositions amuse through wonderful but superficial gleam. The great composer passed away in Paris on October 8, 1834.

Born on October 25, 1838, in Paris, the French George Bizet passed away -also in Paris- on June 3, 1875. As a music professor's son, Bizet started to study at the Parisienne College of Music at the age of 9!!! During the ten academic years Bizet passed many examinations with distinctions. One of his teacher was Jacques Halevy a.k.a. Elias Levy (1799-1862), his then future father-in-law. At the age of 17 (1855), Bizet composed his first symphony in c-major. The premiere took place only in 1935 through Felix von Weingaertner (1863-1942) in Basel, Switzerland. Bizet considered this composition as immature 'schoolboy-work". In 1857, his operetta "Le Docteur Miracle" (The Wonder Doctor0 won the first prize. In Italy, Bizet composed the comic opera "Don Procopio" with its premiere only 1906 in Monte Carlo. The following operas remained as very unsuccessful, even they content many wonderful classic compositions: "Le Pecheurs de Perle...

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, born January 29, 1782 in Caen/France and passed away May 12, 1871, was a leading composer of French opera from the 1820s onwards, collaborating from then for some thirty years with the librettist Augustin- Eugène Scribe. He is particularly known for his contributions to the genre of opéra- comique, although one of his most famous works is Masaniello or La muette de Portici (The Dumb Girl of Portici), of which the first title is preferred in English. This work, staged in Paris in 1828, began the era of French grand opera. Auber wrote a considerable quantity of music, vocal and instrumental, sacred and secular. He was respected by Rossini and Wagner, and much honoured by the state in his life-time. Operas Auber's most popular operas are Fra Diavolo, Le cheval de bronze (The Bronze Horse), Les diamants de la couronne (The Crown Diamonds), and the seminal grand opera Masaniello or La muette de Portici (The Dumb Girl of Porti...