Music on the Staff
George Frideric Handel
(23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759)
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, and concertos.
He received critical musical training in Italy before settling in London and becoming a naturalised British subject.
Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, and his works include
He was strongly influenced by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
Handel's music was well-known to such later composers as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Johann Sebastian Bach
(31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist
whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments
drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity.
Bach's works include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas, The Well-Tempered Clavier,
the Mass in B minor, the St Matthew Passion, the St John Passion, the Magnificat, the Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue,
the English and French Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the Cello Suites, more than 200 surviving cantatas,
and a similar number of organ works, including the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor and Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor,
and the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes and Organ Mass.
Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime,
although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century.
He is now generally regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque style, and as one of the greatest composers of all time.
Antonio Vivaldi
(March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741)
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi nicknamed "The Red Priest" because of his red hair,
was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice.
Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers,
and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe.
Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin,
as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas.
His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.
Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà,
a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi worked from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740.
After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for preferment.
The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and the composer died a pauper, without a steady source of income.
Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime,
it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century.
Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded Baroque composers.
Saint Cecilia
Patron Saint of Music
Saint Gregory the Great
Patron Saint of Music and Teachers
