Great classic music by composers throughout history has served as both educational and inspirational influence to new generations of musicians, composers and music lovers. Three composers of immense impact, inspiration and influence over the last few centuries are Johann Sebastian Bach, Fryderyk Chopin, and Franz Liszt. Their uniquely gifted talents of composition and performance place all three as icons representing the very heights of astute understanding and excellence in the world's history and legends of classical music.
J.S. Bach was born into a dynasty of musicians in Weimar, Germany in 1685. Although his musical talents surpassed those of his ancestors and family, he was never afforded the level of acclaim he deserved within his lifetime. He was an organist in Weimar during his early career, later moving Leipzig to assume the position of Cantor at the Choir School of St. Thomas, which made him responsible for music in the five main city churches. Writing large volumes of choral music, he prepared complete cycles of cantatas and other compositions to be played throughout the church year. These included the "St. Matthew Passion", and the "Christmas Oratorio." Among Bach's Secular Cantatas is the light of heart "Coffee Cantata", about a father's attempt to curb his daughter's addiction to the even then, fashionable beverage. His most famous works include the six "English Suites", the six "French Suites", the "Goldberg Variations" (composed to soothe an insomniac who was his patron), "The Well-Tempered Clavier", and his "Brandenburg Concertos", written in honor of the Margrave of Brandenburg.
Another extremely influential musician when considering great classic music by composers is Fryderyk Chopin, born near Warsaw, Poland in 1810 to a French emigrant father and a Polish mother. He won acclaim during his youth, before moving to Paris to expand his career. There, his ill-fated alliance with the writer George Sand lasted ten years until he died from tuberculosis. His compositions for the piano were explorations of this relatively new musical instrument's poetic capabilities. In the process, he created numerous new forms of piano music. He utilized the popular form and time signature of the Waltz in compositions, probably the best know of which is his "Minute Waltz." And in his "Polonaise", he took the Polish dance from village square to ballroom, writing the first of sixteen when he was seven years old. Also well known are his "62 Mazurkas" and four "Ballades," his "Sonatas", "Preludes", and "Scherzos."
A third musician of immense impact to the subject of classic music by composers is Franz Liszt, born in 1811 in Raiding, Hungary. Still a child, he moved to Vienna to study piano with Czerny and composition with Salieri. In 1823, he and his family moved to Paris, and he soon began touring extensively as a pianist. Greatly inspired by the virtuosity of violinist Paganini, Liszt strove to acquire a similar technique on the piano. About ten years later he left Paris with his mistress, the Comtesse d'Agoult, and they traveled together for the following years while Liszt's reputation as an amazingly creative and astute pianist grew. Later in life, he returned to teaching in Weimar, and then in Budapest, where he was considered a national hero. In 1886, he died in Bayreuth, just four years following the death of his son-in-law, Wagner. As a pianist, he had no rivals and no equals, and as a composer he led the way for the next generation of gifted young musicians. Among his well-known works are his so-called "Faust Symphony in Three Character-Sketches" after Goethe, the "Hungarian Rhapsodies", the "Transcendental Studies", the "Harmonies du soir", and his "Etudes."
These three musicians continue to maintain the status of giants in reference to the subject of great classic music by composers. Each used his unique gifts and talents to expand and enrich the classical music arena, as well as the world at large.
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