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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756, Salzburg–1791, Vienna) was an Austrian composer, harpsichordist, organist and conductor.
He learned the basics of the harpsichord, violin and organ from his father.
At the age of five, he began composing music and, at six years, he undertook his first concert tour (Munich and Vienna). Between 1769 and 77 he served as the concert master and between 1779 and 1781 as the organist at the Court of the Prince and Archbishop of Salzburg. Mozart wrote his Church works and Church sonatas mainly in Salzburg. Between 1769 and 1774 Mozart undertook three trips to Italy; in 1770 he was elected a member of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, where he took composition classes from Padre Martini, head of the academy, and in Rome he received the Order of the Golden Spur from the Pope.
Regardless of his successes, Mozart’s material position was far from glittering. Abandoning the post of organist in Salzburg and using the grudging generousness of the Court in Vienna, for the sake of his family Mozart had to give lessons, compose contredanses, waltzes and even pieces for wall clocks featuring music and perform at soirées of the Viennese aristocracy (which produced his numerous piano concerti).
The thematic catalogue of Mozart’s works with notes compiled by Kцchel (Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sämtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts, Leipzig, 1862) is a volume numbering some five hundred pages. According to Kцchel’s calculations, Mozart wrote sixty-eight works for wind instruments (masses, Offertories, hymns and so on), twenty-three works for theatre, twenty-two harpsichord sonatas, forty-five sonatas and variations for violin and harpsichord, thirty-two string quartets, forty-nine symphonies, fifty-five concerti and other pieces, totalling some sic hundred and twenty-six works.
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César Auguste Franck (1822–1890) was a French composer, born in Belgium. Studied at the Liиge and, later, the Paris Conservatoires. At the age of eleven, he won first prize at the Liиge Competition.
In 1835 Franck’s family moved to Paris and, as César was too young to enter the Conservatoire, he took private lessons from Аnton Reicha, Leborne and Zimmermann. In 1837, as an exception, Franck was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. At the end of his first year at the Conservatoire, Franck won second prize in the fugue class and, in 1838, he won first prize in the organ class.
Franck’s first significant works came with his Six pièces pour grande orgue (1860–1862). By then he was working as the organist of the Église St-Jean-et-St-François in Mar. From there, Franck moved to the Église Sainte Clotilde, where he performed the function of organist until the end of his days.
In 1872 Franck received a professorship of organ at the Paris Conservatoire. The Conservatoire was oriented first and foremost towards the genre of opera, and Franck’s organ class essentially became the composition class, which was attended not just by Franck’s officially admitted pupils, but by everyone who was prepared to accept the new learning principles based on studying the works of Bach and Beethoven. Franck strove to bring the organ and piano playing techniques closer together, which can be seen in two cycles that heralded a new stage in the development of French piano music. These were Prélude, Chorale et Fugue (1884) and Prélude, Aria et Final (1886–1887). Here we may observe the contrast between various genres of organ and piano music; while retaining clearly defined forms of their separate sections, each of the cycles is linked by a “transparent” theme.
Of great significance, too, are the Trois piиces pour orgue (1878) and Trois chorales pour grande orgue, which he wrote in the year of his death. These works clearly depict the inherent individuality of this absolute master of the art of variation.
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Johan Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) came from a dynasty of musicians that lived in Turin for over two centuries. His passion for music manifested itself at an early age and he began studying the violin, harpsichord and, later, the organ with the most enormous pleasure.
In Arnstadt, where from 1703–1707 Bach served as the organist of the Neue Kirche, he made a meticulous study of organ works by the composers of Flanders, France and Northern Germany. As an organist at the Church of Saint Blaise in Mulhouse between 1707 and 1708, Bach became firmly established in the eyes of his contemporaries as an unsurpassed expert in organ music.
From 1708–1717 he held the post of Court Chamber Musician and Organist at the Ducal Kapelle at the Court of Weimar. At this time, Bach was introduced to Italian art, perfected his technique as a composer and earned a reputation as an incomparable virtuoso, demanding connoisseur, teacher and qualified composer.
It is the Weimar period to which the vast majority of his works for organ can be linked. | | Pierre du Mage (1674–1751) was a French organist and composer. His teacher was his own father, the organist of Beauvais Cathedral. Pierre du Mage himself served from 1703 to 1710 as the organist of the Royal College of Saint-Quentin, subsequently accepting the post of organist in Laon. At the age of forty-five, he retired as he was unable to combine his work as an organist with his duties as the supervisor of the royal salt reserves in the city.
In 1733, together with Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Louis-Claude Daquin and Antoine Calvière, du Mage appeared in dazzling performances in Paris at the grand unveiling of the new organ in Notre Dame de Paris.
In his own lifetime, the composer had the pleasure of publishing only a fraction of his works. Of all his opuses, we know only the First Organ Book, which contains one suite in first tone. |
