Portal:Music

The Music Portal

Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.

Music often plays a key role in social events and religious ceremonies. The techniques of making music are often transmitted as part of a cultural tradition. Music is played in public and private contexts, highlighted at events such as festivals and concerts for various different types of ensembles. Music is used in the production of other media, such as in soundtracks to films, TV shows, operas, and video games.

Listening to music is a common means of entertainment. The culture surrounding music extends into areas of academic study, journalism, philosophy, psychology, and therapy. The music industry includes songwriters, performers, sound engineers, producers, tour organizers, distributors of instruments, accessories, and publishers of sheet music and recordings. Technology facilitating the recording and reproduction of music has historically included sheet music, microphones, phonographs, and tape machines, with playback of digital music being a common use for MP3 players, CD players, and smartphones. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various music-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A radio broadcasting system from 1906 (from Music industry)
Image 2An ancient Egyptian mural of people playing music. (from History of music)
Image 3A musician in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 4Stevie Wonder, among the era's innovative artists (from Album era)
Image 5A young couple listening to music on an iPod Mini, 2006 (from Album era)
Image 6A smartphone displaying playlists on Spotify, 2010. The streaming service became a dominant and redefining platform for music consumption through the decade. (from Album era)
Image 7Circular definition of "musicality" (from Elements of music)
Image 8Kanye West (2007) emerged during the decade as an important hip-hop producer and album artist. (from Album era)
Image 9Drawing of the tablet with the Hymn to Nikkal (c. 1400 BCE), the oldest of the Hurrian songs (from History of music)
Image 10The Rolling Stones in 1967 (from Album era)
Image 11A young man browsing through a record store in Bonn, West Germany, June 1988 (from Album era)
Image 12Pink Floyd (1973) performing The Dark Side of the Moon, a leading commercial success of the LP era (from Album era)
Image 13The portable Discman CD player, which was released in 1984 and precipitated the displacement of LPs (from Album era)
Image 14A Rhodes College student listening to the 1969 Yes LP on campus, c. 1970 (from Album era)
Image 15The Bull Headed Lyre of Ur, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is the best known of the ancient Lyres of Ur (from History of music)
Image 16Beyoncé (2016) popularized the surprise-album strategy of the 2010s. (from Album era)
Image 17The monumental Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, c. 5th century BCE, from Hubei (from History of music)
Image 18An LP record on a phonograph (from Album era)
Image 19Frank Sinatra (c. 1955), an early pop album artist (from Album era)
Image 20An HMV record shop in Wakefield, England closing its operation in 2013 (from Album era)
Image 21As LPs fell out of favor to CDs, hip hop producers repurposed them as sampling sources, contributing to the development of record collecting. (from Album era)
Image 22A studio engineer working with an audio mixer in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 23Guillaume Du Fay (left), with Gilles Binchois (right) in a c. 1440 Illuminated manuscript copy of Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames (from History of music)
Image 24Two musicians of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE), Shanghai Museum (from History of music)
Image 25The Japanese boy band Arashi, who had the world's best-selling album (5x20 All the Best!!) in 2019 (from Album era)
Image 26Clara and Robert Schumann (from History of music)
Image 27Notation indicating differing pitch, dynamics, articulation, and instrumentation (from Elements of music)
Image 28Musicians working in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 29Sheet music for part of the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (from History of music)
Image 30J. S. Bach (from History of music)
Image 31c. 379 CE Bas relief of Sassanid women playing the chang in Taq-e Bostan, Iran (from History of music)
Image 32Platinum records by Elvis Presley, Prince, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen, at Julien's Auctions (from Album era)
Image 33The Beatles have been credited by music historians for heralding the album era. (from Album era)
Image 34An example of mechanically printed sheet music (from Music industry)
Image 35Terracotta statue of a Parthian lute player (from History of music)
Image 36US vinyl sales in units, 1995–2020; while album sales overall declined, those in the vinyl format rose toward the end of the 2010s. (from Album era)
Image 37Frances Densmore at the Smithsonian Institution in 1916 where she was recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In this picture, Mountain Chief is listening to a recording. (from Music industry)
Image 38The logo for Apple Inc.'s online iTunes store, which sells digital files of songs and musical pieces–along with a range of other content, such as digital files of TV shows and movies (from Music industry)
Image 39Alleluia nativitas by Perotin from the Codex Guelf.1099 (from History of music)
Image 40An audience watching a concert (from Music industry)

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Featured articles - load new batch

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Slipknot, released on May 25, 2004, by Roadrunner Records. A special edition, containing a bonus disc, was released on April 12, 2005. It is the band's only album produced by Rick Rubin. Following the band's tour to promote its second album in 2002, speculation regarding the future began. Some band members had already been involved in side projects including Murderdolls, To My Surprise, and the reformation of Stone Sour. In 2003, Slipknot moved into The Mansion to work on the album. Initially, the band was unproductive; lead vocalist Corey Taylor was drinking heavily. Nevertheless, the band managed to write more than enough material for a new album. Vol. 3 is credited as Slipknot's first to incorporate more traditional, melodic song structures, guitar solos and acoustic instruments.

The album received generally positive reviews. Slipknot was praised by AllMusic for its "dedication to making it a Slipknot album", while Q added that the album was "a triumph". The album peaked within the top ten in album sales across eleven countries, and went Platinum in the United States. The band also received the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for the song "Before I Forget". At the end of 2009, "Before I Forget" was listed as "AOL's Top Metal Song of the Decade". Roadrunner Records have listed the music video for "Duality" as the best music video in Roadrunner history. (Full article...)
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"Shake It Off" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the lead single from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). She wrote the song with its producers, Max Martin and Shellback. Inspired by the media scrutiny on Swift's public image, the lyrics are about her indifference to detractors and their negative remarks. An uptempo dance-pop song, "Shake It Off" features a looping drum beat, a Mellotron-based saxophone line, and a handclap-accented bridge. Big Machine Records released it on August 18, 2014, to promote 1989 as Swift's first pop album after her previous country image and sound.

Initial reviews mostly praised the production as catchy, but some criticized the lyrics as weak and shallow. Retrospectively, critics have considered "Shake It Off" an effective opener for 1989, transforming Swift's status to that of a pop star. NME and Consequence ranked it among their best songs of the 2010s decade. The single reached the top 10 and has been certified multi-platinum in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and the UK. In the US, the single peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and has been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America. (Full article...)
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Worlds is the debut studio album by the American electronic music producer Porter Robinson, released on August 12, 2014, by Astralwerks. Initially known for his heavier bass-centric production, Robinson became increasingly dissatisfied with the electronic dance music (EDM) genre, believing it limited his artistic expression. In 2012, Robinson released his first song with a greater emphasis on melody, "Language", and decided thereafter to prioritize aesthetic and emotional qualities in his work. He was inspired by media that evoked nostalgia for his childhood, and wrote music integrating elements taken from anime, films, and sounds from 1990s video games.

Robinson's primary inspirations for Worlds were Daft Punk's Discovery (2001) and Kanye West's Graduation (2007). Critics described the work as electropop, noting similarities to the styles of M83 and Passion Pit. In late 2013, a bidding war broke out among record labels over which of them would release the record. The album was preceded by four singles: "Sea of Voices", "Sad Machine", "Lionhearted", and "Flicker", and promoted with a tour in North America and Europe. (Full article...)
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"Baby Boy" is a song by American singer Beyoncé featuring Jamaican dancehall musician Sean Paul, from her debut solo studio album, Dangerously in Love (2003). It was also included on the reissue of Paul's second studio album, Dutty Rock (2002). Both Beyoncé and Paul co-wrote the song with Robert Waller, Jay-Z and Scott Storch, who produced it with Beyoncé. Containing a lyrical interpolation of "No Fear" by hip-hop group O.G.C., "Baby Boy" is a dancehall and R&B song with Caribbean and Indian influences; its lyrics detail a woman's fantasies.

The song was released as the second single from Dangerously in Love on August 3, 2003, by Columbia Records and Music World Entertainment. "Baby Boy" topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks and was Beyoncé's longest-running number-one single until 2007, when it was surpassed by "Irreplaceable". It reached the top-ten in many countries and was certified two-times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Baby Boy" also reached the top-ten in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
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Shostakovich in 1950

Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 had its Leningrad première on 9 August 1942 during the Second World War, while the city was under siege by the Nazi German forces.

Shostakovich had intended the piece to be premièred by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, but because of the siege that group was evacuated from the city, as was the composer himself. The world première of the symphony was held on 5 March 1942, in Kuybyshev with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. The Leningrad première was performed by the surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, supplemented with military performers, with Karl Eliasberg conducting. Most of the musicians were suffering from starvation, which made rehearsing difficult: musicians frequently collapsed during rehearsals, and three died. The orchestra was able to play the symphony all the way through only once before the concert. (Full article...)
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It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water is the second studio album by American indie folk and indie rock band the Microphones. It was released by K Records on September 26, 2000. After gaining a small following with 1999's Don't Wake Me Up, frontman Phil Elverum recorded It Was Hot at Dub Narcotic Studio in Olympia, Washington, between September 1999 and March 2000. Recorded on analog tape, Elverum embraced the medium's technical imperfections. Classified by critics as indie rock, lo-fi, and indie pop, It Was Hot revolves thematically around the concept of water, with lyrics focusing on nature. The 11-minute track "The Glow" acts as the album's climax and introduces the concept of the "glow", which would be explored in more depth on the Microphones' subsequent studio album, The Glow Pt. 2.

On release, It Was Hot received positive reviews from Pitchfork, AllMusic, Rock Sound, and NME. Pitchfork listed the album at number seven in their "Top 20 Albums of 2000". Following its 2013 reissue, the album was critically reappraised, receiving positive reviews from PopMatters, Consequence of Sound, and Treblezine. The album is frequently compared to, and commonly said to be overshadowed by, The Glow Pt. 2. (Full article...)
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"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" is a song by American singer Beyoncé from her third studio album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008). Columbia Records released "Single Ladies" as a single on October 8, 2008, as a double A-side alongside "If I Were a Boy", showcasing the contrast between Beyoncé and her aggressive onstage alter ego Sasha Fierce. It explores men's unwillingness to propose or commit. In the song, the female protagonist is in a club to celebrate her single status.

"Single Ladies" won three Grammy Awards in 2010, including Song of the Year, among other accolades. Several news media sources named it as one of the best songs of 2008, while some considered it one of the best songs of the decade. Rolling Stone ranked it at number 228 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time in 2021. It topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for four non-consecutive weeks and received a 11× platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The song charted among the top ten within the singles category in several other countries. Globally, it was 2009's seventh best-selling digital single with 6.1 million copies sold. (Full article...)
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"Can't Let Go" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey for her second studio album, Emotions (1991). Columbia Records released it as the album's second single in November 1991. Featuring synthesizers and drum programming, "Can't Let Go" is a breakup song in the form of an R&B and pop slow jam. The lyrics, written by Carey, are about post-breakup sadness. She composed the music and produced the song with Walter Afanasieff, who had previously worked on her 1990 single "Love Takes Time". Carey's vocal range spans more than three octaves; her delivery is predominately breathy and in a low register, with whistle notes in the song's introduction and ending.

Music critics considered "Can't Let Go" a vocal showcase for Carey but gave the composition mixed reviews. In the United States, "Can't Let Go" received significant airplay across adult contemporary, contemporary hit, and urban contemporary radio formats. It peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and ended her streak of five consecutive number one songs dating to her debut, "Vision of Love". "Can't Let Go" also became her lowest-charting single in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, at the time. Elsewhere, the song peaked within the top ten on sales and airplay charts in Canada and at number twenty in the United Kingdom. The Recording Industry Association of America certified it gold. (Full article...)
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Alan Dudley Bush (22 December 1900 – 31 October 1995) was a British composer, pianist, conductor, teacher and political activist. A committed communist, his uncompromising political beliefs were often reflected in his music. He composed prolifically across a range of genres but struggled through his lifetime for recognition from the British musical establishment, which largely ignored his works.

From a prosperous middle-class background, Bush enjoyed considerable success as a student at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in the early 1920s and spent much of the decade furthering his compositional and piano-playing skills under distinguished tutors. A two-year period in Berlin from 1929 to 1931, early in the Nazi Party's rise to power, cemented Bush's political convictions and moved him from the mainstream Labour Party to the Communist Party of Great Britain, which he joined in 1935. He wrote several large-scale works in the 1930s and was heavily involved with workers' choirs, for whom he composed pageants, choruses and songs. His pro-Soviet stance led to the BBC temporarily banning his music in the early years of the Second World War, and his refusal to modify his position in the postwar Cold War era led to a more prolonged semi-ostracism of his music. As a result, the four major operas he wrote between 1950 and 1970 were all premiered in East Germany. (Full article...)
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"Ghost in the Machine" is a song by the American singer-songwriter SZA from her second studio album, SOS (2022), featuring the American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers. The song is a ballad that falls within the indie pop and R&B genres; music critics described it as a cross between Bridgers's and SZA's respective sounds. Written in a conversational style, the lyrics express disillusionment with inauthentic relationships, the inhumane behavior of other people, and artificial intelligence. They also portray SZA asking her lover to provide an escape from a world she sees as having been consumed by vanity.

The collaboration began with an online conversation between Bridgers and SZA; the two musicians rapidly completed the song a week before the album was scheduled for release. They co-wrote the song with Rob Bisel, Carter Lang, Matt Cohn, and Marshall Vore. Production and engineering duties were handled by Bisel, Lang, and Cohn. (Full article...)
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Pinkerton is the second studio album by the American rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996, by DGC Records. The guitarist and vocalist Rivers Cuomo wrote most of Pinkerton while studying at Harvard University, after abandoning plans for a rock opera, Songs from the Black Hole. It was the last Weezer album to feature the bassist Matt Sharp, who left in 1998.

To better capture their live sound, Weezer self-produced Pinkerton, creating a darker, more abrasive album than their self-titled 1994 debut. Cuomo's lyrics express loneliness and disillusionment with the rock lifestyle. The title comes from the character BF Pinkerton from Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, whom Cuomo described as an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star". Like Madama Butterfly, Pinkerton views Japanese culture from the perspective of an outsider who considers Japan fragile and sensual. (Full article...)
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Lions is the sixth studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes. It was released in 2001 as their first album on V2 Records following their departure from Columbia, and is their only studio album to feature guitarist Audley Freed. Lions was recorded in New York City in January and February of that year, and was produced by Don Was. Bass guitar duties were shared by Rich Robinson and Was, as Greg Rzab had left the band and was not replaced until the tour that followed the release of the album.

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 at its peak position of 20, selling more than 53,000 copies in its first week. Lions received mixed reviews; although the overall sound of the album generally garnered praise, a frequent complaint was the lack of "memorable" songs. The critics who rated Lions lowest considered it a poor imitation of the band's influences, such as Led Zeppelin. (Full article...)
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"Hey Jude" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in August 1968. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The single was the Beatles' first release on their Apple record label and one of the "First Four" singles by Apple's roster of artists, marking the label's public launch. "Hey Jude" was a number-one hit in many countries around the world and became the year's top-selling single in the UK, the US, Australia and Canada. Its nine-week run at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 tied the all-time record in 1968 for the longest run at the top of the US charts, a record it held for nine years. It has sold approximately eight million copies and is frequently included on music critics' lists of the greatest songs of all time.

The writing and recording of "Hey Jude" coincided with a period of upheaval in the Beatles. The ballad evolved from "Hey Jules", a song McCartney wrote to comfort John Lennon's young son Julian Lennon, after Lennon had left his wife Cynthia Lennon for the Japanese artist Yoko Ono. The lyrics espouse a positive outlook on a sad situation, while also encouraging "Jude" to pursue his opportunities to find love. After the fourth verse, the song shifts to a coda featuring a "Na-na-na na" refrain that lasts for over four minutes. (Full article...)
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Saint-Saëns c. 1880

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (UK: /ˈsæ̃sɒ̃(s)/, US: /sæ̃ˈsɒ̃(s)/, French: [ʃaʁl kamij sɛ̃sɑ̃(s)] 9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto (1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre (1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony (1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886).

Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from 1858, La Madeleine, the official church of the French Empire. After leaving the post twenty years later, he was a successful freelance pianist and composer, in demand in Europe and the Americas. (Full article...)
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Control is the third studio album by American singer Janet Jackson, released on February 4, 1986, by A&M Records. Her collaborations with the songwriters and record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis resulted in an unconventional sound: a fusion of rhythm and blues, rap vocals, funk, disco, and synthesized percussion that established Jackson, Jam and Lewis as the leading innovators of contemporary R&B. The distinctive triplet swing beat utilized on the record is a precursor to the new jack swing genre. The album became Jackson's commercial breakthrough and enabled her to transition into the popular music market, with Control becoming one of the foremost albums of the 1980s and contemporary music.

Containing autobiographical themes, a majority of the album's lyrics came as the result of a series of changes in her life: a recent annulment of her marriage to singer James DeBarge, severing her business affairs from her father and manager Joseph and the rest of the Jackson family, hiring the A&M executive John McClain as her new management, and her subsequent introduction to Jam and Lewis. The album has been praised by critics as both an artistic feat and as a personal testament of self-actualization. It has also been regarded as a template upon which numerous female artists have modeled their careers, particularly Black women. (Full article...)

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Fervaal
Illustration credit: Carlos Schwabe; restored by Adam Cuerden
Fervaal is an opera with a prologue and three acts by the French composer Vincent d'Indy. Fervaal is the son of a Celtic king and is destined to be the last advocate of the old gods. His mission is to save his homeland from invasion and pillage, but in doing so he must renounce love. This illustration, by the Swiss painter Carlos Schwabe, relates to the 10 May 1898 premiere of the opera at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris. Here, Fervaal is depicted ascending a mountain while carrying the body of his beloved Guilhen at the end of the opera, as the pagan gods and their worshippers fade out of existence with the dawn of Christianity.
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Lina Rafn
Photo: Jepsen
Lina Rafn (b. 1976) is a Danish singer, songwriter and producer active with the band Infernal. She had previously been a VJ on the show The Voice TV Danmark.
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Simon Neil
Photograph: Achim Raschka
Simon Neil (b. 1979) is a Scottish vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. Born in Irvine, he established the band Biffy Clyro in 1995 with James and Ben Johnston. He has also played with JP Reid of Sucioperro in Marmaduke Duke, using the pseudonym "The Atmosphere", and started a solo career.
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Mary Lou Williams
Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor and teacher to numerous other jazz musicians. The second of eleven children, she was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A young musical prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of three. This photograph of Williams at the piano was taken by William P. Gottlieb around 1946.
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Ane Brun
Photo: Benoît Derrier; edit: Keraunoscopia
Ane Brun (b. 1976) is a Norwegian songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. She has recorded eight albums, starting in 2003 with Spending Time with Morgan.
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Thomas Linley the elder
Painting: Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Linley the elder (17 January 1733 – 19 November 1795) was an English bass singer and musician. He began his musical career at age 11 in Bath, becoming apprentice to the organist Thomas Chilcot. Linley married in 1752 and fathered eight children, supporting the family by working as a music teacher. As his children grew he developed their musical talent and was able to draw an increasing amount of income from their concerts. When the Bath Assembly Rooms opened in 1771, Linley became musical director and continued to promote his children's careers. He was eventually able to move to London with the thousands of pounds which he had amassed from their concerts. In addition to his children Linley taught tenor Charles Dignum, singer and actress Anna Maria Crouch, and novelist Frances Sheridan. He collaborated with his son Thomas Linley the younger in penning the comic opera The Duenna, with libretto by his son-in-law Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

This picture is an oil-on-canvas painting created around 1770 by Thomas Gainsborough, showing Linley holding his "Elegies for Three Voices". It hangs in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
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Aida
Photograph: Avinoam Michaeli
Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini.

This picture shows the set for a performance of Aida by the Israeli Opera in 2011.
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Médée
Graphic: Giuseppe Palanti
Médée is a French-language opera by the composer Luigi Cherubini. Set in the ancient city of Corinth, Greece, it features a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman and is based on Euripides's tragic play Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée. The opera premiered in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have deleted from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing X-ray techniques to reveal areas that the composer had blackened out.

This picture shows the title page for a vocal score of the 1909 hybrid version of Médée.
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Photo: W. J. Mayer; Restoration: Lise Broer
A bust of the German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), made from his death mask. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time. Born in Bonn, of the Electorate of Cologne and a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in present-day Germany, he moved to Vienna in his early twenties and settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.
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Johann Strauss II
Photograph credit: Fritz Luckhardt; restored by Adam Cuerden
Johann Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899) was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. Part of the Strauss dynasty, his father demanded that none of his sons pursue music as a career, despite their display of musical talent. It was only after his father had abandoned the family for a mistress that the younger Strauss was able to develop his skills as a composer, with the encouragement of his mother. He eventually attained greater fame than his father, and became one of the most popular waltz composers of the era, conducting extensive tours of Austria, Poland and Germany with his orchestra.
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Ariadne auf Naxos
Illustration credit: unknown
Ariadne auf Naxos ('Ariadne on Naxos'), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera was ninety minutes long, and the performance of the play and opera together totalled over six hours. It was first performed at the Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year.

This picture is the cover of a vocal score of the revised edition of Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916.
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English composer and conductor. His greatest success was his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. This set the epic poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to music, and was widely performed by choral groups in England and the United States. Composers were not well paid; the work sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but he had sold the music outright for the sum of 15 guineas, so did not benefit directly. He learned to retain his rights and earned royalties for other compositions after achieving wide renown, but always struggled financially. This photograph of Coleridge-Taylor was taken around 1905.
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Alexz Johnson
Photo: Epitome Pictures
Alexz Johnson (b. 1986) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and actress, best known for roles as Jude Harrison in the CTV series Instant Star (character shown here), Annie Thelan in the Disney Channel series So Weird, and as Erin Ulmer in the 2006 horror film Final Destination 3. Her album Voodoo was released in 2010.
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Vexi Salmi
Photo: Teemu Rajala
Vexi Salmi is a popular Finnish lyricist who has become popular through the successes of the platinum-selling music artists for whom he writes. During his prolific career, he has written the lyrics for over 4,000 songs, more than 2,400 of which have been recorded by prominent artists such as Irwin Goodman, Jari Sillanpää, and Katri Helena. A music writer's award, the Vexi Salmi Award, is named after him.
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Carl Nielsen
Photograph: Georg Lindstrøm; restoration: Adam Cuerden
Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) was a Danish musician, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. Initially playing in a military band before attending the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, he premiered his Op. 1, Suite for Strings, in 1888, at the age of 23. His early music was inspired by composers such as Brahms and Grieg, but he soon developed his own style. By the time of his death, he had produced 419 known works; some of these, such as his opera Maskarade (1906), have become integral to Denmark's national heritage.
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... that in his early career Charlie Chaplin was booed, heckled, and pelted with oranges and coins until he left the stage of Foresters Music Hall?
... that the title track of hip-hop album 400 Degreez has been compared to James Bond music?
... that Michele Singer Reiner worked to legally challenge and overturn California's same-sex marriage ban?
... that Arthur Honegger's only cello concerto was premiered by its dedicatee and the Boston Symphony Orchestra?