Four composers all celebrate milestone anniversaries this year. Representing a wide span of classical music history (especially in the area of vocal music), Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn make 2009 an excellent season in which to showcase the varied offerings of the past.
Henry Purcell: Baroque Composer and Father of English Opera
Born September 10, 1659, Henry Purcell will soon see 350 candles on his cake, making him the oldest of the composers celebrated this year. Purcell is perhaps best remembered for his dramatic work Dido and Aeneas, considered by many to be the first English opera. From this work comes Dido's Lament, or "When I Am Laid In Earth," a mezzo soprano aria often performed as a solo piece. The dramatic leaps in this aria may be the most famous signifiers of grief and loss in the opera repertory.
George F. Handel: Blending Secular and Sacred, the Father of English Oratorio
The Baroque composer George F. Handel celebrates the 250th anniversary of his death in 2009. Though born in Germany, Handel became a British citizen in 1727 and served as the court composer to the kings George I and George II (also of German ancestry). He blended the secular tradition of operatic story telling with sacred subject matters and performance styles, becoming one of the most prolific composers of English oratorios, including the ever popular Messiah.
Franz Joseph Haydn: Classical Composer of Strum und Drang
Celebrating the 200th anniversary of his death this year, Franz Joseph Haydn is best remembered for his quirky sense of musical humor and his Sturm und Drang compositional style, which incorporated passionate extremes in short succession. He was also a prolific composer of symphonies, writing 104 symphonic works in all.
Though Haydn's form and musical language largely followed the rational rules of the Classical era, he nevertheless found ways to inject a somewhat subversive humor into his music, playing tricks not only on musical authority, but public authorities as well. The "Farewell Symphony was written when Haydn's patron, the Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, declined to let his musicians leave the court to visit their families. An overarching artistic movement that set itself against Enlightenment ideals, Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") was another way to subvert the bounds imposed by rationality.
Felix Mendelssohn: Romantic Composer and Champion of Bach
Born the year that Haydn died (1809), Felix Mendelssohn celebrates his 200th birthday in 2009. Though Mendelssohn lived and composed during the early Romantic period, his works retained a more conservative "classicism" when compared to his contemporaries Chopin, Schumann or Schubert. Credited with "rediscovering" Bach, Mendelssohn was influenced by the sacred works of his predecessors and composed his oratorio Elijah in their honor.
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