Page Category: Composer Biographies

Widely regarded as Romania's greatest-ever composer, born in 1881 and died in 1955. Curiously, The New Grove lists him as dying on "3 or 4 May 1955": it seems a little odd to be quite so casual about a death-date that far into the 20th Century! Other sources are less vague: the Encyclopaedia Britannica declares him dead on 4th May, for example).

His town of birth (Liveni Vîrnav) was renamed to be 'George Enescu' in his honour. He died and is buried in Paris, in the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery. [...] 

An obscure German composer who doesn't even merit his own English-language wiki page! He was born "before 1638" in Peine, which is near Hanover and due south of Hamburg, in Germany. The 'before 1638' terminology indicates that we don't have any good sources for a specific birth date. He is definitely known to have died in 1697, however, in Flensburg, which these days is on the German side of the German/Danish border.

He is documented as the Director of Music of Brunswick-Lüneberg in 1677, based at Bevern Castle (which is sort-of triangulated midway between Hanover and Bielfeld). He seems to have been imprisoned in 1678, though, and to have escaped into the service of the Bishop of Lübeck... which is, presumably, how he ends up living (and eventually dying) in the Danish peninsular region. [...] 

A Holding Page.

Back to the Music Listings [...] 

A Holding Page.

Back to the Music Listings [...] 

I don't have too many Jamaican composers in my collection, but Frederic Hymen Cowen (all three names are required, as per New Groves) is one of them. Sort of. He was certainly born in Jamaica in 1852... but, of course, his parents were there on colonial duties and they were all repatriated to England by the time he was four. He was actually christened Hymen Frederic, but at some point the word-order was reversed.

He had his first composition published -published, mind you!- when he was six and had written an operetta by the time he was eight. [...] 

Not a name anyone really conjours with these days, I'm afraid: he's almost totally forgotten, especially as he died quite young (his dates are 1903-1939). He was the son of the organist of the Hallé orchestra in Manchester and was therefore 'into' music from a very early age. His output was allegedly prodigious, but much of his work is now apparently lost. He's known, if at all, these days for a bassoon concerto and the occasional orchestral tone poem.

He was actually christened Charles William Eric Fogg, but the 'Charles William' are bracketed by New Groves, indicating that the chap never really used them himself. We can see proof of this in a couple of historical records. [...] 

One of the few composers in my collection that doesn't get a mention in the New Grove. She was named Dorothy Gertrude Howell when born in 1898, in Birmingham. She received private composition lessons from Granville Bantock, before moving on to study at the Royal Academy of Music. She had a tone-poem (Lamia) performed at the Proms in 1919 and won the Cobbett prize in 1921 with a Phantasy for violin and piano (a later winner of that same prize was one Benjamin Britten!). For a while, she achieved fame as 'the English Strauss' (presumably Johann, not Richard?), but appears to have concentrated on music teaching (at the Royal Academy and then at the Birmingham Conservatoire) for most of her life. Accordingly, she fell from the public spotlight and most of her music is now largely forgotten.

She died in Malvern in 1982, aged 83 -and the mention of Malvern might make you think of Elgar. She did apparently tend Elgar's grave for a long time, and ended up being buried near him. [...] 

Despite the name, Moszkowski is generally considered a German composer, having been born in Breslau, Prussia (which is now part of Poland and goes by the name of Wrocław) in 1854. He has Polish origins, though: his parents were Polish Jews. He was noted in early life as a great pianist; he toured extensively throughout Europe as such. He gradually acquired a reputation as a good composer too, however -though New Groves dismisses most of his large-scale orchestral music as 'competently turned out but [lacking in] originality or vitality'. He invested unwisely and lost all of his wealth when the First World War broke out; he died in poverty, in Paris, in 1925.

He has one of the more spectacular mustaches I've ever seen photographed in the wild: I should think even Elgar would have been jealous! [...] 

A Holding Page.

Back to the Music Listings [...] 

Born in New York in 1906 and died in San Diego in 1985, Paul Creston was the son of Sicilian immigrants and originally named 'Giuseppe Guttoveggio'... but no-one uses that birth-name when talking about him now. You might think that with a simple two-component, English name there wouldn't be much to get wrong about naming him correctly, but Last.fm (as ever) would like to disagree with that proposition, with around 30 different ways of cataloguing him (29 of which are, of course, completely erroneous)!

Describing his work (whilst he was still alive), my edition of New Groves says, 'Creston has made rhythm the keystone of his style, his technique depending primarily on constantly shifting subdivisions of a regular metre', which perhaps makes him grandfather to the minimalists of the 1970s and beyond. Groves also describes his music as 'lush impressionistic harmony and very full orchestration... brash and vital'. [...] 

Born 1884 and died 1961 (which makes him an almost-exact contemporary of Percy Grainger), York Bowen was christened 'Edwin York Bowen' and his wiki page records him as such. Last.fm is as confused as ever, offering at least a dozen variations on his name(s). The New Groves is clear, however: it lists him as Bowen, (Edwin) York, with the brackets around the first name indicating that it's optional or seldom used.

As the only composer I have whose 'first' name begins with a 'Y', I'm more than usually keen to follow New Groves on the matter: just as it's Benjamin Britten and not Edward Benjamin Britten, so it's plain York Bowen in these pages! [...] 

Born in 1918 and dying in 1982, this Azerbaijani composer is really best thought of as a 'Soviet composer' (just as his equally non-Russian colleague Khachaturian is), as that is the cultural and political context in which he worked his entire professional composing career. I guess it is inevitable, being non-European and even non-Russian that his name can be (and has been!) spelled fifty seven different ways before breakfast! His wikipedia entry lists him as 'Gara Garayev', for example, before going on to suggest Qara Qarayev  or even Gara Abulfaz oghlu Garayev. He is also listed -completely separately!- under all of his various K, G and Q spellings, in multiple variations, at Last.fm (which is hardly surprising, given the liberties that site usually takes with minor matters such as accuracy or facts). Frankly, it's a bit of a mess, but needn't be: my trusty New Groves, published before the guy had died, lists him as Karayev, Kara (Abdl'faz-ogli), and the brackets around his second name indicate that bit is optional... leaving Kara Karayev as the only authorised spelling that's accurate, Wikipedia notwithstanding.

Probably the most famous of his works is the ballet Sem' krasavits (Seven Beauties), written in the early 1950s and, for Western CD purchasers at least, the orchestral suite derived from it. The music is lush, expressive and romantic, though its free adaptation of national dances indicate a fondness for and appreciation of folkloric music. [...]