Getting to know the composers

​While there’s a small handful of composers I know a fair amount about, the majority I don’t, especially information about their personal lives, and the details that make them “real people” not just fossils of an archaic time. As I sit down to delve into a composer’s life, I have no idea what I will find. I typically start with finding information on their important relationships, then I zoom into year 32. Once I have an idea of what they did at 32, I zoom out to the 5ish years on either side of 32 to give context to the lives of the composers. Next I use a combination of Grove Music Online (music encyclopedia) and *gasp* Wikipedia to compile a list of what pieces they were composing at 32. Once I have the blurb on the composer written, I look up the top works for each composer to see when they wrote the works that made them most famous. 

I try to find 1 or 2 snippets of information from my readings to look further into to tell a story about each composer. Did you know Schoenberg couldn’t make a living in music at 32, so he borrowed money from Mahler to make ends meet? Mahler, working primarily as a conductor at 32 had great success conducting the music of Wagner, even conducting Tannhäuser, which Wagner wrote when he was 32? Wagner at age 36 played an active role in a political uprising writing articles encouraging people to revolt and (it is alleged) he made hand grenades for the cause!?

I have 11 composers’ blurbs drafted, another 22 to go! (Yes, I realize that is 33 not 32, but I’m giving myself a cushion to veto one composer if I run into a brick wall in my writings). As I’m working on my book, I feel like I’m putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but I don’t know what the finished picture will look like, but the act of discovery is just as exciting as telling the stories for others to join me on my journey!