CLARA SCHUMANN - GERMANY
BORN 13 SEPTEMBER
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer and is regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists and composers of the Romantic era. She exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital and composed a body of work including piano concertos, chamber works and choral pieces. She was married to composer Robert Schumann, and together they encouraged and maintained a close relationship with Johannes Brahms. She was the first to perform publicly any work by Brahms, notably the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. She was also an influential piano educator at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt.
During her lifetime, Clara Schumann was an internationally renowned concert pianist. Over 1,300 concert programs from Schumann's performances throughout Europe between 1831 through 1889 have been preserved. She championed the works of her husband, Robert Schumann, and other contemporaries Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, and Felix Mendelssohn.
As part of the broad musical education given to her by her father, Clara Wieck learned to compose, and from childhood to middle age she produced a good body of work. Clara wrote that "composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound". At age fourteen she wrote her piano concerto, with some help from Robert Schumann, and performed it at age sixteen at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Mendelssohn conducting.
Clara's compositional output decreased notably after she reached the age of thirty-six. The only completed compositions that exist from later in her life do not have opus numbers and are: Vorspiele (Improvisations), 1895, and cadenzas written to two concertos, one by Mozart and the other by Beethoven. Today her compositions are increasingly performed and recorded. Her works include songs, piano pieces, a piano concerto, a piano trio, choral pieces, and three Romances for violin and piano. Inspired by her husband's birthday, the three Romances were composed in 1853 and dedicated to Joseph Joachim, who performed them for George V of Hanover. He declared them a "marvellous, heavenly pleasure".
Source: Schumann Official Website and Wikipedia
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Three Romances by Clara Schumann
RIIKKA TALVITIE - FINLAND
BORN 13 SEPTEMBER
BORN 13 SEPTEMBER
Riikka Talvitie is a composer, oboist and pedagog. She graduated as oboist at the Sibelius-Academy in 1997. After that she continued her composition studies with composer Tapio Nevanlinna and professor Paavo Heininen. Nowadays she is mainly working as a freelance-composer.
As a composer Talvitie has worked a lot among text and choir music. She has collaborated with many Finnish poets and writers.
Her particular interest has also been electro-acoustique music, especially live-electronics. In 2001-2002 Talvitie participated one-year-course (Curcus I) at IRCAM in Paris. The course was focused on music technology.
In 1995-96 Talvitie spent abroad in the Conservatory of Paris studying oboe playing with professors Jean-Louis Capezzali and Jaques Tys, and composition with composer Gérald Grisey.
Talvitie has been an active member in Society of Finnish Composers and in Finnish Composers' Copyright Society Teosto. Talvitie has written many articles about music for Finnish cultural magazines and written radio programs of contemporary music for Finnish National Radio.
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Mais je suis mort by Riikka Talvitie
Mais je suis mort by Riikka Talvitie
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