Franz Lehár (30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).

Lehár was born in the northern part of Komárom, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Komárno, Slovakia), the eldest son of an Austrian bandmaster in the Infantry Regiment No. 50 of the Austro-Hungarian Army and a Hungarian woman from a family of German descent. He grew up speaking only Hungarian until the age of 12. Later he put a diacritic above the "a" of his father's name "Lehar" to indicate the long vowel in Hungarian phonology.

While his younger brother Anton entered cadet school in Vienna to become a professional officer, Franz studied violin and composition at the Prague Conservatory, where his violin teacher was Antonín Bennewitz, but was advised by Antonín Dvořák to focus on composing music. After graduation in 1899 he joined his father's band in Vienna, as assistant bandmaster. In 1902 he became conductor at the historic Vienna Theater an der Wien, where his first opera Wiener Frauen was performed in November of that year.

He is most famous for his operettas – the most successful of which is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe) – but he also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems, marches, and a number of waltzes (the most popular being Gold und Silber, composed for Princess Pauline von Metternich's "Gold and Silver" Ball, January 1902), some of which were drawn from his famous operettas. Individual songs from some of the operettas have become standards, notably "Vilja" from The Merry Widow and "You Are My Heart's Delight" ("Dein ist mein ganzes Herz") from The Land of Smiles (Das Land des Lächelns)...

For more info and complete Article see Full Story.

Research has not been fully completed and new photos will be done soon.

This is a Oblique piano that was purchased by the Pianoforte Maker Emile Pfeiffer. Special Model Riches Sculpted!

For more photos and info see Full Story.

Antonio Maria Bononcini (June 18, 1677 – July 8, 1726) was an Italian cellist and composer, the younger brother of the better-known Giovanni Battista Bononcini.

Bononcini was born and died at Modena in Italy. Like his brother, he studied with Giovanni Paolo Colonna. Between 1690 and 1693, he played in the orchestra of Cardinal Pamphili. In 1698 he composed an allergory, La fama eroica, for performance in Rome. He worked for some years with his brother, and joined him in the court orchestra at Vienna, where in 1705 he became Kappellmeister to the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. In 1713 he returned to Italy, where he worked in Milan, Naples and Modena.

In 1721 he became the maestro di cappella in Modena, where he remained for the rest of his life. In addition to his stage works, he composed over 40 cantatas (most of them for solo voice and harpsichord), as well as sacred music including a Mass in G minor, a Stabat Mater in C Minor, and a Salve Regina...


For more info and complete Article see Full Story.

Antonio Bertali (probably March 1605 – 17 April 1669) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era.

He was born in Verona and received early music education there from Stefano Bernardi. Probably from 1624, he was employed as court musician in Vienna by Emperor Ferdinand II. In 1649 Bertali succeeded Giovanni Valentini as court Kapellmeister. He died in Vienna in 1669.

Bertali's compositions are in the manner of other northern Italian composers of the time and include operas, oratorios, a large number of liturgical works, and chamber music. Particularly his operas are notable for establishing the tradition of Italian opera seria in Vienna.

Approximately half of his output is now lost; copies survive made by Bertali's contemporary, Pavel Josef Vejvanovský, some of the pieces are currently in possession of Vienna's Hofbibliothek, the library of the Kremsmünster Abbey and the Kroměříž archive.

The most important source for Bertali's work is, however, the Viennese Distinta Specificatione catalogue, which lists several composers of the Habsburg court and provides titles and scoring for more than 2000 compositions.


For more info and complete Article see Full Story.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier , [maʁk ɑ̃.twan ʃaʁ.pɑ̃.tje], (1643 – 24 February 1704) was a French composer of the Baroque era.

Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres. His mastery in writing sacred vocal music, above all, was recognized and hailed by his contemporaries.

He was unrelated to Gustave Charpentier, the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth French opera composer.

Charpentier was born in or near Paris, the son of a master scribe who had very good connections to influential families in the Parlement of Paris. Marc-Antoine received a very good education, perhaps with the help of the Jesuits, and registered for law school in Paris when he was eighteen. He withdrew after one semester. He spent "two or three years" in Rome, probably between 1667 and 1669, and studied with Giacomo Carissimi. He is also known to have been in contact with poet-musician Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy, who was composing for the French Embassy in Rome. A legend claims that Charpentier initially traveled to Rome to study painting before he was discovered by Carissimi. This story is undocumented and possibly untrue. (At any rate, although his 28 volumes of autograph manuscripts reveal considerable skill at tracing the arabesques used by professional scribes, they contain not a single drawing, not even a rudimentary sketch.) Regardless, he acquired a solid knowledge of contemporary Italian musical practice and brought it back to France.

Immediately on his return to France, Charpentier probably began working as house composer to Marie de Lorraine, duchesse de Guise, who was known familiarly as "Mlle de Guise." She gave him an "apartment" in the recently renovated Hôtel de Guise — strong evidence that Charpentier was not a paid domestic who slept in a small room in the vast residence, but was instead a courtier who occupied one of the new apartments in the stable wing.

For more info and complete Article see Full Story.