# Significant or meaningful years



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sometimes looking at events in a single year can help put the timeline of classical music into perspective. Here's 1782:

- J.C. Bach dies at age 46 -- he was younger than Haydn!
- Haydn, age 50, publishes his Op. 33 string quartets.
- Mozart, age 26, writes his canon "Leck mich im Arsch" (well, the Haffner Symphony and "Il Seraglio" too...)
- Beethoven, age 11, writes his first published work, the Dressler Variations.
- John Field and Niccolò Paganini are born.

Echoes of the past and portents of the future! Any years you find specially significant or interesting?


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

1685 birth of Domenico Scarlatti, Handel and Bach. Rather like 1420 in the shire, somebody seems to have sprinkling fairy dust about.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Taggart said:


> 1685 birth of Domenico Scarlatti, Handel and Bach. Rather like 1420 in the shire, somebody seems to have sprinkling fairy dust about.


Not a bad crop that year. Weather the previous year must've been just right, you could tell, in 1419, by the tails on them cats.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

1810: birth of Chopin and Schumann.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2013)

I'm still wrestling with the notion that the timeline of classical music is somehow out of perspective.

(Which means that there's no way for me to deal with whether or not looking at events in a single year can put the timeline back into perspective or not.)

1960 is interesting for me, as it saw Gerhard's _Collages,_ Cage's _Cartridge Music,_ and Kodaly's _Symphony_ (in C!).

But the years of the twentieth century are full of those kinds of anomalies.

Time itself may be sequential, but all sorts of things happen in it simultaneously.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> I'm still wrestling with the notion that the timeline of classical music is somehow out of perspective.


Well, the timeline is what it is. Perspective is our understanding of it, which may be accurate or not. In looking at 1782, for instance, I was surprised that:

- Haydn was actually older than J.C. Bach (he was 18 when J.S. Bach died!)
- He was 50 when he published the Op. 33, so most of his great masterworks were from his late middle age...and beyond.
- When Beethoven had his first publication, Mozart was just 26 and launching into his last and most glorious decade. Van Swieten was just introducing him to Bach's music, and he had not yet gotten to know Haydn.

So my perspective on those times was certainly improved.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

1934 - deaths of Elgar, Holst and Delius. Granted that all three were pretty much spent by then but it's not often that three notable composers from the same nation die in the same year.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

1994 - I was born


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

1813: Birth of Richard Wagner. No other significant composers were born that year.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2013)

1865 - Sibelius, Glazunov, and Nielsen were born.

Also, I was born 100 years later and inherited all their talents. 

My forthcoming Double Concerto for Sledgehammer and Prepared Dishwasher will both synthesize and eclipse all their greatest works. Wait for it!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

1908 saw the births of Olivier Messiaen and Elliott Carter, the première of Mahler's _7th Symphony_, the completion of Schoenberg's _2nd String Quartet_, Berg's _Piano Sonata_, Webern's _Passacaglia_, Bartók's _1st Violin Concerto_ and Scriabin's _Poem of Ecstasy_.

Good year.


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

In 1969, Bryan Adams got his first real six string.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> 1908 saw the births of Olivier Messiaen and Elliott Carter, the première of Mahler's _7th Symphony_, the completion of Schoenberg's _2nd String Quartet_, Berg's _Piano Sonata_, Webern's _Passacaglia_, Bartók's _1st Violin Concerto_ and Scriabin's _Poem of Ecstasy_.
> 
> Good year.


 Better than the year you finally told me you love me?


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

1750 dies J. S. Bach, and with him Music's 'Old Testament' or a complete era of musical progress which greatest peak was counterpoint precisely in hands of Bach. IMO, is one of the biggest turning points in musical development into classicism and beyond.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

1895 was a very good year, IMO. It witnessed the premier of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake in St. Petersburg and also the premier of Gustav Mahler's The Symphony No. 2 , the Resurrection, in Berlin. Argumentatively, the two greatest works of their genre. I wonder if anyone attended both premiers?
Swan Lake had premiered earlier in 1877 but didn't go over very well. I'm talking about the Petipa-Ivanov-Drigo revival of 1895, which is the one we know today.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Better than the year you finally told me you love me?


I said "good" not "indescribably beautiful." You know nothing could be greater than our love, Couchie.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Ondine said:


> 1750 dies J. S. Bach, and with him Music's 'Old Testament' or a complete era of musical progress which greatest peak was counterpoint precisely in hands of Bach. IMO, is one of the biggest turning points in musical development into classicism and beyond.


You mean decline of course.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

Couchie said:


> 1813: Birth of Richard Wagner. No other significant composers were born that year.


Mr. Verdi begs to differ.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2013)

Crudblud, Couchie - think of the consequences:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Skilmarilion said:


> Mr. Verdi begs to differ.


He's just green with envy.  (sorry Joe, just couldn't resist it.)


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