Era: 20th Century

DOHNÁNYI, Ernst [Ernő]

Born Pozsony [now Bratislava], July 27, 1877
Died in New York, Feb 9, 1960

Pronunciation
Pronunciation in IPA: [ˈɛrnøː ˈdohnaːɲi]

Dohnányi was a virtuoso pianist, composer and conductor. Brahms was one of the early supporters of his composing career. After teaching at the Berlin Conservatory, he became a leading musical force in Hungary, championing the work of his Hungarian contemporaries Kodály and Bartók.
Later in life he became pianist- and composer-in-residence at Florida State University.
Although Dohnányi’s compositions were romantic in style, he was one of the earliest musicians to recognize and support Bartók’s modernist music.
Dohnányi’s students included Georg Solti and Géza Anda.¹

Short biography

Pieces

The Veil of Pierrette: “Wedding Waltz” (Finale)

20th Century Mexican

DOMINGUEZ, Alberto

Born in Chiapas, 21 April 1913
Died in Mexico City, 2 Sept 1975

Mexican composer Alberto Dominguez was a founding member of the Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de México (Society of Authors and Composers of Mexico).
Fun fact – Dominguez studied composition with Silvestre Revueltas.²

Pieces

Perfidia

20th Century English

DOUGLAS, Roy

Born in Tunbridge Wells, Dec 12, 1907
Died March 23, 2013

Roy Douglas was a composer and arranger who worked in film and television.
Douglas had a long collaboration with Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton, helping them prepare scores for performance and publication.
Douglas made a popular orchestration of the Chopin works used in the ballet Les sylphides.

Douglas “knew Vaughan Williams’s mind and, perhaps a rarer accomplishment, could read his handwriting”
From Roy Douglas’s obituary ³

“Mr. Douglas, who writes my music for me.“
This is how Vaughan Williams liked introducing Douglas to people. Douglas found this very embarrassing.⁴

⁵

Pieces

Cantilena

20th Century Irish

DUFF, Arthur

Born in Dublin, 1899
Died in Dublin, Sept 23, 1956

Arthur Knox Duff was an Irish composer, organist, bandmaster and radio producer.
Duff worked as a music producer for the Irish national broadcasting service, Radio Éireann, since its inception.⁶

Short biography

Pieces

Meath Pastoral

Late Romantic French

DUKAS, Paul

Born in Paris, Oct 1, 1865
Died in Paris, May 17, 1935⁷

Biography from Britannica

Pieces

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

20th Century French

DURUFLÉ, Maurice

Born in Louviers, Jan 11, 1902
Died in Paris, June 16, 1986⁸

Biography from the San Francisco Choral Society

Pieces

Requiem, Op. 9

20th Century American

EFFINGER, Cecil

Born in Colorado Springs, CO, July 22, 1914
Died in Boulder, CO, Dec 22, 1990⁹

Biography from the American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado

Pieces

Late Romantic English

ELGAR, Sir Edward

Born in Broadheath, near Worcester, June 2, 1857
Died in Worcester, Feb 23, 1934

Short biography

Pieces

20th Century Late Romantic American Haitian

ELIE, Justin

Born in Cap-Haïtien, 1883
Died in New York, Dec 3, 1931

Elie was a composer and pianist who studied at the Paris Conservatory and concertized throughout Latin America before relocating to New York in 1921.
In addition to composing concert works, Elie also hosted a radio show called The Lure of the Tropics (in which he occasionally conducted his own compositions. He also composed music for silent films and the theater.¹⁰

Biography from Africlassical.com

Pieces

Légende Créole

20th Century Estonian

ELLER, Heino

Born in Tartu, March 7, 1887
Died in Tallinn, June 16, 1970

Eller was educated at St. Petersburg Conservatory and later taught composition at schools of music in Estonia.
One of Eller’s composition students was Arvo Pärt.
Style: Eller’s music is influenced by Impressionism and Estonian folk music. ¹¹

Biography

Pieces

Videvik (Twilight)

20th Century American

ELLINGTON, Duke

Born in Washington, DC, April 29, 1899
Died in New York, NY, May 24, 1974

Born Edward Kennedy Ellington

Ellington picked up his nickname as a child because his friend felt he had an “elegant demeanor.”
Ellington studied piano as a child, but lost interest until he discovered ragtime as a teenager.
Ellington began working as a bandleader in the late 1920s, and achieved international fame by the 1940s, touring the United States and Europe.
Starting in 1942, Carnegie Hall booked Ellington for one concert per year.
Ellington’s long-form and concert works include operas, ballets, musicals, incidental music, film scores, tone poems, and orchestral suites.¹²

Biography from Songwriters’ Hall of Fame

Dukeellington.com

Pieces

Suite from “The River”

20th Century Late Romantic Romanian

ENESCU, George

Born in Liveni Vîrnav [now George Enescu], near Dorohoi, Romania, Aug 19, 1881
Died in Paris, France, 3/May 4, 1955

He is also known by the French version of his name, “Georges Enesco.”¹³

Biography from the National Museum “George Enescu” in Bucharest

Pieces

20th Century Australian

EVANS, Lindley

Born in Cape Town, Nov 18, 1895
Died in Sydney, Dec 2, 1982

Evans was an Australian pianist and composer. His family emigrated from South Africa to Australia when he was a child.
Evans was Nellie Melba’s accompanist on several concert tours.
Evans achieved fame in Australia as the host of the radio shows “Adventures in Music” (1932-9) and “Mr. Melody Man” (1941-69), a music show for children, which he later re-created for television.¹⁴

Biography from AustralianComposers.com

Pieces

Idyll for Two Pianos and Orchestra

20th Century Spanish

FALLA, Manuel de

Born in Cádiz, Nov 23, 1876
Died in Alta Gracia, Argentina, Nov 14, 1946

Biography

Pieces

20th Century Hungarian

FARKAS, Ferenc

Born in Nagykanizsa, Dec 15, 1905
Died in Budapest, Oct 10, 2000

Composer website

Farkas was both a composer and a teacher of composition. He studied with Respighi and his students included Ligeti.
Farkas composed concert music, and radio music, and film music. He wrote over 70 film scores.¹⁵

Pieces

Aria and Hungarian Rondo for oboe, violin & string orchestra

20th Century Canadian

FARNON, Robert

Born in Toronto, ON, July 24, 1917
Died in Guernsey, April 22, 2005

Farnon was an arranger, conductor and composer.
He came to Britain as the conductor of the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force in in 1944 in WWII (his American bandmaster counterpart was Glenn Miller).
Farnon wrote many film scores and TV themes, and in his later career his made arrangements for Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan and other pop singers.¹⁶

Biography

Pieces

How Beautiful Is Night

Late Romantic Romantic French

FAURÉ, Gabriel

Born in Pamiers, Ariège, May 12, 1845
Died in Paris, Nov 4, 1924

Gabriel Fauré (pronunciation), while often overshadowed, undeniably transformed French music through his influence, his teaching, his leadership, and his compositions.¹⁷
As a composer, Fauré was the most advanced composer in French music of his time and anticipated Impressionism, among many other significant stylistic trends. His musical language is deeply personal and immediately identifiable.
- The bulk of Fauré’s music consisted of piano music, songs, and chamber music (works that could be performed by his friends and colleagues in Paris salons). He is regarded by many as the greatest master of French art song.
Growing up, Fauré anticipated training for a career as a church musician. The arrival of a new piano teacher at Fauré’s school in Paris, Camille Saint-Saëns, played a pivotal role in the teenaged Fauré’s decision to start composing. Saint-Saëns would go on to become an important mentor for the young composer.
Fun fact – Fauré was ambidextrous. His piano compositions share a common characteristic in that both hands are of equal importance and “in many passages alternate and complement each other for the presentation of a theme or the execution of a run.”¹⁸
Among his many professional posts was educator at the Paris Conservatoire, where he taught many burgeoning young composers such as Nadia Boulanger, Arthur Honegger, George Enescu, and Maurice Ravel.¹⁹

Learn More

Biography via Deutsche Grammophon

Pieces

20th Century American

FERRIS, William

(1937–2000)

William Ferris was a liturgical musician and choral conductor. He served at several American cathedrals and was the first American to teach music at the Vatican.²⁰
He founded the William Ferris Chorale, which specialized in new music and premiered more that 150 works by contemporary composers.²¹

Biography

Pieces

Bristol Hills

20th Century Late Romantic English

FINZI, Gerald

Born in London, July 14, 1901
Died in Oxford, Sept 27, 1956

Finzi was an introspective composer, an agnostic and a pacifist, whose attitude toward life was shaped by the deaths of his father, brothers and music teacher in the First World War when he was a child.
Finzi found inspiration in nature. Although he taught for a time at the RAM, he and his wife Joyce, an artist, eventually chose to settle in the countryside where they cared for their orchard of apple trees and created their art in privacy.
Finzi founded and directed a small orchestra, the Newbury String Players, and through their concerts promoted the work of young composers. His orchestra also performed 18^th century English music, one of Finzi’s research specialities. He also prepared scholarly published editions of these older works.
Finzi is known for his art songs, as well as choral works and orchestral works.²²

Biography

Pieces

20th Century Late Romantic English

FLETCHER, Percy

Born in Derby, Dec 12, 1879
Died in Windsor, Sept 10, 1932

Fletcher spent most of his career as a music director at London theaters.
In addition to his original compositions, Fletcher orchestrated many works by other composers, and created choral arrangements of Wagner which were popular among the choirs of his day.²³

Biography

Pieces

Folk Tune and Fiddle Dance

Late Romantic Czech

FOERSTER, Josef Bohuslav

Born in Prague, Dec 30, 1859
Died in Nový Vestec, nr Stará Boleslav, Bohemia, May 29, 1951

Josef Bohuslav Foerster was a composer, music critic, and educator. He was a contemporary of Leoš Janáček and Gustav Mahler.
- *Foerster’s last name is also spelled Förster
Foerster came from a musical family. His father (also named Josef) was an organist and choirmaster in the foremost Prague churches and served on the faculty at Prague Conservatory. His uncle Antonín was a pupil of Smetana as well as an organist, choirmaster, and conductor.
Foerster married soprano Berta Lautererová and moved to various cities around central Europe based on her singing engagements, including Hamburg and Vienna. He always took up prominent teaching positions wherever he landed, in addition to composing and writing for journals.
- In 1918, the couple returned to Prague. Foerster continued to teach at prominent institutions, such as the Prague Conservatory and the Charles Conservatory.
Despite having faded into the background among other Czech composers, Foerster was a highly respected figure during his lifetime and held several notable titles. From 1920-45, he was president of the Association of Czechoslovak Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers, and from 1931–9, he was president of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Art. In 1945, he was awarded the title of National Artist.
As a composer, Foerster was a traditionalist deeply loyal to the nationalist 19th-century vernacular. His extensive compositional oeuvre includes opera, cantatas, choral music, songs, orchestral music, chamber pieces, and more.²⁴

Learn More

Short biography from Naxos
Short biography from Britannica

Pieces

Symphony No. 4 in c minor, “Easter Eve,” Op. 54

Late Romantic American

FOOTE, Arthur

Born in Salem, MA, March 5, 1853
Died in Boston, MA, April 8, 1937

Fun fact: According to his Oxford Music Online article, “Arthur Foote was the first noted American composer of art music to receive his musical education entirely in the United States.” He earned a Master of Arts in Music from Harvard – the first music MA program offered in the United States.
Foote was a liturgical musician based in Boston, where he taught music privately, directed choirs, and played the organ at a number of churches. He was a co-founder of the American Guild of Organists.
Foote served as guest faculty at Harvard, UC Berkeley, and the New England Conservatory during the course of his career.²⁵

Biography from the New England Conservatory

Pieces

Piano Quartet in C Major, Op. 23

20th Century American

FOSS, Lukas

Born in Berlin, Germany, Aug 15, 1922
Died in New York, NY, Feb 1, 2009

Foss was a German-born American conductor, pianist and composer who had a distinguished career conducting several major American orchestras.²⁶
Foss began composing at the age of 7, and throughout his career he was honored with a New York Music Critics’ Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship (he was the youngest composer ever to win one), a Fullbright grant and a Library of Congress Gold Medal for Music (2000)²⁷
Foss’s teachers included Randall Thompson, Paul Hindemith, and Serge Koussevitsky.²⁸

Biography

Pieces

20th Century Late Romantic English

FOULDS, John

Born in Hulme, Manchester, Nov 2, 1880
Died in Calcutta, April 24, 1939

Foulds was a cellist, conductor and composer who wrote salon music and music for the theater as well as more experimental works using techniques like quarter-tones and non-western modes.
Foulds spent the latter portion of his life in India, studying Indian music and directing Western music radio programming for All-India Radio in Delhi.²⁸

Biography

Pieces

Le Cabaret Overture (1921)

20th Century Danish

GADE, Jakob

Born in Vejle, Nov 29 1879
Died in Assens, Feb 20 1963

Gade was a violinist with no formal training who began his career as a dance fiddler and eventually worked as a bandleader and cinema orchestra leader in Copenhagen.
Gade composed light music as well as larger orchestral works.²⁹

Biography

Pieces

Jalousie (Tango Tsigane – 1925) (arr. Mathew Naughtin)

20th Century English

GARDNER, John

John Gardner conducting at the Canford summer school, Dorset, in the mid-1960s

Born in Manchester, March 2, 1917
Died in Liss Forest, Hampshire, December 12, 2011

John Gardner was an organist, composer and teacher.
Gardner was an organ scholar at Exeter College, Oxford before serving in WWII. Later he taught at several English colleges and schools, including the Royal Academy of Music.
Gardner’s music is noted for eclecticism, with stylistic traits selected to fit the subject of each of his works, ranging from jazz to serialism to counterpoint to popular styles.³⁰

Biography

Pieces

Overture: Midsummer Ale, Op. 73

20th Century Romantic French

GAUBERT, Philippe

Born in Cahors, Lot, July 5, 1879
Died in Paris, July 8, 1941

Gaubert was a French flutist, composer and conductor. He won first prize for flute at the Paris Conservatory in 1894 and second prize for composition in the Prix de Rome in 1905.
Gaubert enjoyed a successful career as an orchestral and solo flutist, a conductor and artistic director at the Paris Opéra, and professor of flute at the Paris Conservatoire.
In addition to flute music, Gaubert composed operas, ballets, songs, and works for orchestra.
With his teacher Paul Taffanel, he wrote the influential flute method, Méthode complete de flúte.³¹

Biography

Pieces

Late Romantic British

GERMAN, Sir Edward

Born in Whitchurch, Shropshire, Feb 17, 1862
Died in London, Nov 11, 1936

Born Edward German Jones

Pronunciation: the “G” in “German” is a hard G, like the G in “garden,” not “jer-man” as in “Germany.” The name “German” is an anglicized version of the Welsh name “Garmon.”

German’s father was Welsh and his mother was English; his Oxford Music Online article describes the composer as “Anglo-Welsh.”

Edward German was a violinist and composer educated at the Royal Academy of Music.³²
- He adopted the professional name “Edward German” while he was a student, apparently because there was already an Edward Jones at the RAM.³³
German specialized in music for the theater. He composed music for stage plays, including working as Musical Director at the Globe Theatre. He also continued the English operetta tradition of Gilbert and Sullivan, becoming one of the genre’s last prominent practitioners.³⁴

Biography from AllMusic

Pieces

Welsh Rhapsody

20th Century American

GERSHWIN, George

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Sept 26, 1898
Died in Hollywood, CA, July 11, 1937

Biography

Pieces

20th Century American

GIANNINI, Vittorio

Born in Philadelphia, Oct 19, 1903
Died in New York, Nov 28, 1966³⁵

Biography from AllMusic

Pieces

20th Century English

GIBBS, Armstrong

Born in Great Baddow, Essex, Aug 10, 1889
Died in Chelmsford, May 12, 1960

C. Armstrong Gibbs studied music at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later took classes at the Royal College of Music with Vaughan Williams, Charles Wood and Adrian Boult.
Gibbs was a composer, music educator and festival adjudicator.
As a composer, Gibbs is best known for his songs.³⁶

Biography

Pieces

Almayne (English 17th-Century Air), Op. 71

20th Century Argentinian

GINASTERA, Alberto

Born in Buenos Aires, April 11, 1916
Died in Geneva, June 25, 1983

Biography

Pieces

20th Century English

GIPPS, Ruth, MBE

Photograph of Ruth Gipps courtesy of the British Music Collection.

Born in Bexhill-on-Sea, Feb 20, 1921
Died in Eastbourne, Feb 23, 1999

Gipps was a child prodigy: she began her music studies at age 3 (at the Bexhill School of Music, her mother was its principal) and her first composition was published when she was 8 years old.
Gipps studied composition with Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music. She also studied oboe and piano there.
Gipps became a trailblazing conductor in Britain, conducting the City of Birmingham Choir and guest conducting ensembles like the Pro Arte Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. When professional appointments were scarce because of her gender, she founded her own orchestras: the London Repertoire Orchestra and the Chanticleer Orchestra.
Gipps served as a professor of music at Trinity College of Music and the RCM, and served as chair of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain.³⁷

Biography and partial works list from the British Music Collection

Biography from BBC Music

Pieces

20th Century Australian

GLANVILLE-HICKS, Peggy

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Dec 29, 1912
Died in Sydney, Australia, June 25, 1990

Though Glanville-Hicks was born in Australia, she became a naturalized American citizen.
She was inspired by the melodies and rhythms of music traditions from around the world, including Spain, India, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the Italian peninsula, and ancient Greece. These traditions directly translated into her music.
In addition to composing, Glanville-Hicks was an active music critic and concert organizer. She was particularly passionate about promoting and recording new music.³⁸

Biography from Australian Music Centre

Pieces

Etruscan Concerto

20th Century Romantic Russian

GLAZUNOV, Alexander

Born in St Petersburg, 29 July/Aug 10, 1865
Died in Paris, March 21, 1936

Glazunov studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov at the recommendation of Mily Balakirev.
Part of a circle of young Russian composers supported by arts patron Mirtofan Belyayev, Glazunov and his colleagues built on the Russian music tradition pioneered by The Five while also finding ways to integrate Western musical styles.
In addition to composing, Glazunov was a conductor, and the Director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1905-1930. His students included Dmitri Shostakovich.

³⁹

Pieces

20th Century Late Romantic Russian

GLIÉRE, Reinhold

Born in Kiev, Dec 30, 1874/ Jan 11, 1875
Died in Moscow, June 23, 1956

Glière was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory who taught many Soviet composers, chaired the USSR Composers’ Union, and was instrumental in founding the Soviet ballet tradition.
Style: Glière was heir to the Romantic Russian tradition, and also influenced by folk music of Soviet areas, including Ukraine.⁴⁰

Biography

Pieces

The Red Poppy: “Russian Sailor’s Dance”

20th Century English

GOOSSENS, Eugene

Born in London, May 26, 1893
Died in Hillingdon, Middx, June 13, 1962

Sir Eugene Goossens was a conductor who began his career as an assistant to Sir Thomas Beecham.
Goossens was a prominent conductor of opera in England, he directed the Cincinnati SO, Rochester SO and Sydney SO, and was instrumental in planning the Sydney Opera House.
Goossens was of Belgian extraction. Both his father and grandfather were also named Eugene Goossens and both were conductors in Belgium.⁴¹

Biography

Pieces

20th Century Polish

GÓRECKI, Henryk Mikołaj

Born in Czernica, near Rybnik, Dec 6, 1933
Died in Katowice, Poland, Nov 12, 2010⁴²

Pronunciation:
[‘xɛnrɨk mʲi’kɔwaj ɡu’rɛtskʲi]
Phonetic: “goo-REHT-ski”
Listen

Biography from Britannica

Pieces

Late Romantic American Australian

GRAINGER, Percy

Percy Grainger playing in a benefit concert for the Red Cross in 1917.

Born in Brighton, Victoria, July 8, 1882
Died in White Plains, NY, Feb 20, 1961

Biography

Pieces

Late Romantic Catalan

GRANADOS, Enrique

Enrique Granados, photographed on May 3, 1914.

Born in Lérida [Lleida], July 27, 1867
Died at sea, English Channel, March 24, 1916

Granados was a Catalan composer and pianist who spent most of his life in Barcelona.
Though he wrote more than 140 pieces, he achieved little fame outside Barcelona, and few of his works were published during his lifetime.
As a concert pianist, Granados was famed for his improvisations, so much so that what he actually played at a recital frequently differed greatly from the printed score.
Fun Fact: Granados visited the United States for the 1916 American premiere of Goyescas at the Met.
- During this visit Granados caused a stir by claiming that his listeners were ignorant of real Spanish music. Critics were offended and later took revenge by saying Granados’s opera was inferior to Carmen.⁴³
Not-Fun Fact: Granados was invited to visit President Wilson when he was in the US in 1916. The visit caused him to miss his boat home. He booked a different sailing and ended up being torpedoed by a German submarine⁴⁴ in the English Channel. The boat survived but many passengers were tossed into the ocean.
- Granados was rescued by a life raft, but when he saw his wife struggling in the water, he jumped back in to save her. Neither of them survived.

Biography