Daniel Francois Esprit Auber - His Music and Life

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 Portici). It's funny, that only Auber's 13th opera "Le Macon" became a great success. I love all his compositions.

The Best of Beethoven - exlusively for you HERE...

Igor Strawinski, Konzert fuer Klavier und Blaeser 1 Satz Lento Allegro

Richard Strauss - His Music and Life

“I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.” Richard Strauss, composer

Born on June 11, 1864 in Munich, the German Richard Strauss passed away in Garmisch on September 8, 1949. His mother came from the Munich brewery family Pschorr.

His father, Franz Strauss, had been the "First Royal Bugle Player" of the Royal Musician Academy Munich. Also Richard Strauss had nothing to do with the Viennese Johann Strauss dynasty.

His first compostions left (or better "bequeathed") great classical music treasures: "String Quintet a-major" (1881), "Symphony a-major" (1884), and many more. Strauss' "Great Symphony in f-minor" (1882-1884) has been performed for the first time in New York. His "Burlesque for piano and orchestra" (1885) showed great influences of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

In 1888, Strauss composed his first sound poetry "Don Juan", which became the first lasting report of a new classical composition direction. The following pieces "Marbeth" (1890) and "Death and Transfiguration" (1891) overtaxed many musicians' possibilities.

Also "Zarathustra speaks" (1896) suffered from the attempt something to express more by music but remaining unsuccessful.

Strauss started to accept his own naive-uninhibited phantasm and much more beautiful compositions attained his goal. The opera "Salome" (lyrics by Oscar Wilde) was a hazardous business, but the title role's perverted hysteria griped Strauss. The premiere in Dresden/German in 1905 became a great success.

Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra / 2001 Space Odyssey opening t...

Oscar Straus - His Music and Life

Born on March 6, 1870 in Vienna, The Austrian Oscar Straus passed away in Ischl on January 11, 1954.

Straus studied in Vienna, later with Max Bruch, the composer of the most performed violin concertos from 1868 uo to now. Straus' Opus 1 has been the overture "The dream - a life!"

Straus is known as a chamber music careerist and theater bandmaster as well as conductor in the former CSSR, Teplitz, mainz and Berlin/Germany. In 1900, Straus became Musical Director of E.V. Wolzogen's cabaret "Ueberbrettl". During that time Straus found out his talent for the so-called "light music". As an operetta composer he walked off with such great successes as "A waltz dream" (1920), "Teresina" (1925) or "Her first waltz" (1950).

The category "Viennese Waltzes" got many highlights because of him, who, by the way has not nothing to do with the Johann Strauss dynasty,

In 1940, Oscar STraus migrated to the USA and composed many movie themes, i.e. Max Ophuels "Der Reigen" (The Rondale/La Ronda).

Oscar Straus - Der Reigen (La Ronde), Waltz