1.
Classical music
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Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
2.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
3.
Tsar
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Tsar /zɑːr/ or /tsɑːr/, also spelled tzar, csar, or czar, is a title used to designate certain Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, occasionally, the word could be used to designate other secular supreme rulers. Simeon II, the last Tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have borne the title Tsar, the title Tsar is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors, Caesar. In the history of the Greek language, basileus had originally meant something like potentate and it gradually approached the meaning of king in the Hellenistic Period, and it came to designate emperor after the inception in the Roman Empire. Thus, tsar was not only used as an equivalent of Latin imperator but was used to refer to Biblical rulers. From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages, thus, the Bulgarian language and Russian language no longer use tsar as an equivalent of the term emperor/imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. Currently, the term refers to native sovereigns, ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales. The title of king is sometimes perceived as alien and is by some Russian-speakers reserved for European royalty, foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called imperator, rather than tsar. Biblical rulers in Serbian are called цар and in Croatian kralj, in the Polish language however tsar is always used as imperator, never as king. The term tsar is very used to refer to the Russian rulers after Peter the Great. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title, the sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the tsar was actually adopted and used for the first time by his son Simeon I. Since in Byzantine political theory there was place for two emperors, Eastern and Western, the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as a spiritual son of the Byzantian basileus. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated Emperor of Zagora, various additional epithets and descriptions apart, the official style read Emperor and autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks. During the five-century period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the sultan was referred to as tsar. This may be related to the fact that he had claimed the legacy of the Byzantine Empire or to the fact that the sultan was called Basileus in medieval Greek, after Bulgarias liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first autonomous prince. With the declaration of independence, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the traditional title tsar in 1908. However, these titles were not generally perceived as equivalents of emperor any longer, in the Bulgarian as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shifted
4.
Quackery
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Quackery is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. The term quack is a form of the archaic term quacksalver, from Dutch. In the Middle Ages the term quack meant shouting, the quacksalvers sold their wares on the market shouting in a loud voice. Common elements of general quackery include questionable diagnoses using questionable diagnostic tests, as well as untested or refuted treatments, quackery is often described as health fraud with the salient characteristic of aggressive promotion. To be both quackery and fraud, the quack must know they are misrepresenting the benefits and risks of the services offered. This definition would include questionable ideas as well as products and services. In line with this definition, the word fraud would be reserved only for situations in which deliberate deception is involved, unproven, usually ineffective, and sometimes dangerous medicines and treatments have been peddled throughout human history. Theatrical performances were given to enhance the credibility of purported medicines. Even where no fraud was intended, quack remedies often contained no effective ingredients whatsoever, some remedies contained substances such as opium, alcohol and honey, which would have given symptomatic relief but had no curative properties. Some would have addictive qualities to entice the buyer to return, the few effective remedies sold by quacks included emetics, laxatives and diuretics. However, knowledge of appropriate uses and dosages was limited, R. W. Donnell coined the phrase quackademic medicine to describe this attention given to alternative medicine by academia. Referring to the Flexner Report, he said that medical education needs a good Flexnerian housecleaning, for example, David Gorski criticized Brian M. Daffys Elixir and Turlingtons Balsam were among the first products that used branding and mass marketing to create and maintain markets. A similar process occurred in countries of Europe around the same time, for example with the marketing of Eau de Cologne as a cure-all medicine by Johann Maria Farina. The number of internationally marketed quack medicines increased in the later 18th century, by 1830, British parliamentary records list over 1,300 different proprietary medicines, the majority of which were quack cures by modern standards. A Dutch organisation that opposes quackery, Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij was founded in 1881 and it has published its magazine Nederlands Tijdschrift tegen de Kwakzalverij ever since. In these early years the VtdK played a part in the professionalisation of medicine and its efforts in the public debate helped to make the Netherlands one of the first countries with governmental drug regulation. In 1909, in an attempt to stop the sale of quack medicines and this publication was originally a series of articles published in the British Medical Journal between 1904 and 1909. The publication was composed of 20 chapters, organising the work by sections according to the ailments the medicines claimed to treat, the book did lead to the end of some of the quack cures, but some survived the book by several decades
5.
Joseph Haydn
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Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. Haydn spent much of his career as a musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, a village that at that time stood on the border with Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who served as Marktrichter. Haydns mother Maria, née Koller, had worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach. Neither parent could read music, however, Mathias was a folk musician. According to Haydns later reminiscences, his family was extremely musical. Haydns parents had noticed that their son was musically gifted and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain serious musical training, Haydn therefore went off with Frankh to Hainburg 12 kilometres away, he never again lived with his parents. Life in the Frankh household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry and he began his musical training there, and could soon play both harpsichord and violin. The people of Hainburg heard him sing treble parts in the church choir, Haydn passed his audition with Reutter, and after several months of further training moved to Vienna, where he worked for the next nine years as a chorister. Haydn lived in the Kapellhaus next to the cathedral, along with Reutter, Reutters family, and the other four choirboys, the choirboys were instructed in Latin and other school subjects as well as voice, violin, and keyboard. Reutter was of help to Haydn in the areas of music theory and composition. However, since St. Stephens was one of the musical centres in Europe. Like Frankh before him, Reutter did not always bother to make sure Haydn was properly fed, by 1749, Haydn had matured physically to the point that he was no longer able to sing high choral parts. Empress Maria Theresa herself complained to Reutter about his singing, calling it crowing, one day, Haydn carried out a prank, snipping off the pigtail of a fellow chorister. This was enough for Reutter, Haydn was first caned, then summarily dismissed and he had the good fortune to be taken in by a friend, Johann Michael Spangler, who shared his familys crowded garret room with Haydn for a few months. Haydn immediately began his pursuit of a career as a freelance musician and he was also briefly in Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitzs employ, playing the organ in the Bohemian Chancellery chapel at the Judenplatz
6.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
7.
Ludwig van Beethoven
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
8.
Felix Mendelssohn
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Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family and he was brought up without religion until the age of seven, when he was baptised as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a prodigy, but his parents were cautious. Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, where he revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Leipzig Conservatoire, which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook, Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions and he is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era. Mendelssohns father was the banker Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and his mother was Lea Salomon, a member of the Itzig family and a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy. Mendelssohn was the second of four children, his older sister Fanny also displayed exceptional, the family moved to Berlin in 1811, leaving Hamburg in disguise fearing French revenge for the Mendelssohn banks role in breaking Napoleons Continental System blockade. Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn sought to give their children – Fanny, Felix, Paul, Fanny became a well-known pianist and amateur composer, originally Abraham had thought that she, rather than Felix, would be the more musical. However, at time, it was not considered proper, by either Abraham or Felix, for a woman to have a career in music, so Fanny remained an active. Abraham was also disinclined to allow Felix to follow a career until it became clear that he seriously intended to dedicate himself to it. Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual environment, Sarah Rothenburg wrote of the household that Europe came to their living room. Abraham Mendelssohn renounced the Jewish religion, he and his wife decided not to have Felix circumcised. Felix and his siblings were first brought up without religious education, Abraham and his wife Lea were themselves baptised in 1822, formally adopting the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy for themselves and their children. The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Leas brother, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, in 1829, his sister Fanny wrote to him of Bartholdy this name that we all dislike. Like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart before him, Mendelssohn was regarded as a child prodigy and he began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six, and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris. After the family moved to Berlin, all four Mendelssohn children studied piano with Ludwig Berger, from at least May 1819 Felix studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin. This was an important influence on his future career, Zelter had almost certainly been recommended as a teacher by his aunt Sarah Levy, who had been a pupil of W. F. Bach and a patron of C. P. E. Bach
9.
Hector Berlioz
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Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts. Berlioz made significant contributions to the orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works, and he also composed around 50 songs. His influence was critical for the development of Romanticism, especially in composers like Richard Wagner, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss. Hector Berlioz was born in France at La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, Louis was an agnostic, with a liberal outlook, his mother, Marie-Antoinette, was a devout Roman Catholic. He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood, the other two, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout his life. Berlioz was not a prodigy, unlike some other famous composers of the time, he began studying music at age 12, writing small compositions. As a result of his fathers discouragement, he never learned to play the piano and he became proficient at guitar, flageolet and flute. He learned harmony from textbooks alone—he was not formally trained, the majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces. While yet at age twelve, as recalled in his Mémoires, he experienced his first passion for a woman and he also began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library, seeking out scores of Glucks operas and making personal copies of parts of them. He recalled in his Mémoires his first encounter with Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini attempted to throw the impetuous Berlioz out of the library since he was not a formal music student at that time. Berlioz also heard two operas by Gaspare Spontini, a composer who influenced him through their friendship, and whom he later championed when working as a critic, from then on, he devoted himself to composition. He was encouraged in his endeavors by Jean-François Le Sueur, director of the Royal Chapel, in 1823, he wrote his first article—a letter to the journal Le corsaire defending Spontinis La vestale. Despite his parents disapproval, in 1824 he formally abandoned his studies to pursue a career in music. This work was rehearsed and revised after the rehearsal but not performed until the following year, Berlioz later claimed to have burnt the score, but it was re-discovered in 1991. Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose the opera Les francs-juges, the work survives only in fragments, the overture has been much recorded and is sometimes played in concert. In 1826 he began attending the Conservatoire to study composition under Jean-François Le Sueur and he also submitted a fugue to the Prix de Rome, but was eliminated in the primary round. Winning the prize would become an obsession until he won it in 1830
10.
Gaetano Donizetti
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Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, Donizetti was a composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century. Donizettis close association with the bel canto style was undoubtedly an influence on composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy, there he received detailed training in the arts of fugue and counterpoint. Over the course of his career, Donizetti wrote almost 70 operas, in all, Naples presented 51 of Donizettis operas. Before 1830, success came primarily with his operas, the serious ones failing to attract significant audiences. However, his first notable success came with an opera seria, Zoraida di Granata, significant historical dramas did appear and became successful, they included Lucia di Lammermoor given in Naples in 1835, and one of the most successful Neapolitan operas, Roberto Devereux in 1837. Up to that point, all of his operas had been set to Italian libretti, Donizetti found himself increasingly chafing against the censorial limitations which existed in Italy. From about 1836, he interested in working in Paris. The first opera was a French version of the then-unperformed Poliuto which, two new operas were also given in Paris at that time. As the 1840s progressed, Donizetti moved regularly between Naples, Rome, Paris, and Vienna continuing to compose and stage his own operas as well as those of other composers, but from around 1843, severe illness began to take hold and to limit his activities. Eventually, by early 1846 he was obliged to be confined to an institution for the ill and, by late 1847, friends had him moved back to Bergamo. The youngest of three sons, Donizetti was born in 1797 in Bergamos Borgo Canale quarter located just outside the city walls and his family was very poor and had no tradition of music, his father Andrea being the caretaker of the town pawnshop. Simone Mayr, a German composer of internationally successful operas, had become maestro di cappella at Bergamos principal church in 1802, in 1807, Andrea Donizetti attempted to enroll both his sons, but the elder, Giuseppe, was considered too old. He remained there for nine years, until 1815, however, as Donizetti scholar William Ashbrook notes, in 1809 he was threatened with having to leave because his voice was changing. In 1810 he applied for and was accepted by the art school, the Academia Carrara. Then, in 1811, Mayr once again intervened, as Ashbrook states, this was nothing less than Mayrs argument that Donizetti be allowed to continue his musical studies. The piece was performed on 13 September 1811 and included the character stating the following, Ah, by Bacchus
11.
Vincenzo Bellini
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Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named the Swan of Catania. Other sources of information come from correspondence saved by other friends, C Bellini was the quintessential composer of the Italian bel canto era of the early 19th century, and his work has been summed up by the London critic Tim Ashley as. Also hugely influential, as much admired by composers as he was by the public. Verdi raved about his long, long, long melodies, wagner, who rarely liked anyone but himself, was spellbound by Bellinis almost uncanny ability to match music with text and psychology. Liszt and Chopin professed themselves fans, of the 19th-century giants, only Berlioz demurred. Those musicologists who consider Bellini to be merely a melancholic tunesmith are now in the minority, the genuine triumph of I puritani in January 1835 in Paris capped a significant career. Certainly, Capuleti, La sonnambula, Norma, and I puritani are regularly performed today, only nine months later, Bellini died in Puteaux, France at the age of 33. Born in Catania, at the part of the Kingdom of Sicily. His grandfather, Vincenzo Tobia Bellini, had studied at the conservatory in Naples and, in Catania from 1767 forward, had been an organist and teacher, as had Vincenzos father, by the age of five, he could apparently play marvelously. The document states that Bellinis first five pieces were composed when he was just six years old and at seven he was taught Latin, modern languages, rhetoric, and philosophy. Author Herbert Weinstock regards some of these accounts as no more than myths, not being supported from other, additionally, he makes the point in regard to Bellinis apparent knowledge of languages and philosophy, Bellini never became a well-educated man. After 1816, Bellini began living with his grandfather, from whom he received his first music lessons, soon after, the young composer began to write compositions. Among them were the nine Versetti da cantarsi il Venerdi Santo, by 1818, Bellini had independently completed several additional orchestral pieces. He was ready for further study, for well-off students, this would include moving to Naples. While his family wasnt wealthy enough to support that lifestyle, Bellinis growing reputation could not be overlooked and his break came when Stefano Notabartolo, the duca di San Martino e Montalbo and his duchess, became the new intendente of the province of Catania. They encouraged the man to petition the city fathers for a stipend to support his musical studies. This was successfully achieved in May 1819 with unanimous agreement for a pension to allow him to study at the Real Collegio di Musica di San Sebastiano in Naples. The young Bellini was to live in Naples for the eight years
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