Selected pictures list
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The only known
photograph of
Frédéric Chopin, often incorrectly described as a
daguerreotype. It is believed to have been taken in 1849 during the degenerative stages of his
tuberculosis, shortly before his death. Chopin, a
Polish pianist and
composer of the
Romantic era, is widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential, admired and prolific composers for the piano. He moved to
Paris at the age of twenty, adopting the
French variant of his name, "Frédéric-François", by which he is now known.
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Louis Armstrong, nicknamed "Satchmo" or "Pops", was an American
jazz trumpeter and singer. Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser and as a
scat singer.
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Vexi Salmi is a popular Finnish
lyricist who has become popular through the successes of the
platinum-selling music artists for whom he writes. During his prolific career, he has written the lyrics for over 4,000 songs, more than 2,400 of which have been recorded by prominent artists such as
Irwin Goodman,
Jari Sillanpää, and
Katri Helena. A music writer's award, the Vexi Salmi Award, is named after him.
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Hera is an Icelandic
singer-songwriter who emigrated to New Zealand as a teenager. She is known for her facial art, which is "inspired by
moko and also by
Celtic warrior paint" and intended to represent both her Icelandic and New Zealand heritage. In 2002 she was named Best Female Singer at the Icelandic Music Awards.
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Oceana (born 1982) is a German singer of German/Martiniquen descent. She is shown here performing at the
Radio Hamburg Top 820.
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Henrik Freischlader (b. 1982) is a German blues guitarist and singer. He began his career in 1998, and established his own label, Cable Car Records, in 2009.
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American singer
Elvis Presley meeting then-president
Richard Nixon on December 21, 1970. During the meeting, the singer expressed his patriotism and his contempt for
hippies, the growing
drug culture, and the
counterculture in general. Presley then asked Nixon for a
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts. Nixon gave Presley the badge and expressed a belief that Presley could send a positive message to young people and that it was therefore important he retain his credibility.
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Mike Dirnt (b. 1972) is an American musician, songwriter and composer. He is best known as the co-founder,
bassist, backing and occasional lead vocalist of American punk rock band
Green Day. He has played in several other bands, including
The Frustrators.
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Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) was a Danish musician, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. Initially playing in a military band before attending the
Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, he premiered his
Op. 1,
Suite for Strings, in 1888, at the age of 23. His early music was inspired by composers such as
Brahms and
Grieg, but he soon developed his own style. By the time of his death, he had produced
419 known works; some of these, such as his opera
Maskarade (1906), have become integral to Denmark's national heritage.
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Photograph: Avinoam Michaeli
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Hayley Williams (born December 27, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. She serves as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and occasional keyboardist of the
rock band
Paramore. Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Williams moved to Franklin, Tennessee, at the age of fifteen after her parents divorced. In 2004, she formed Paramore alongside
Josh Farro,
Zac Farro, and
Jeremy Davis. The band currently consists of Williams, Farro and Taylor York. They have released five studio albums:
All We Know Is Falling (2005),
Riot! (2007),
Brand New Eyes (2009),
Paramore (2013) and
After Laughter (2017).
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Illustration credit: unknown Ariadne auf Naxos ('
Ariadne on Naxos'),
Op. 60, is an opera by
Richard Strauss with a German
libretto by
Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute
divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of
Molière's play
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided
incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera was ninety minutes long, and the performance of the play and opera together totalled over six hours. It was first performed at the
Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by
Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the
Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year.
This picture is the cover of a
vocal score of the revised edition of
Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916.
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Aida is a
grand opera in four acts by
Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian
libretto by
Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the
Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's
Khedivial Opera House and had its premiere there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by
Giovanni Bottesini. Today, the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's
Metropolitan Opera alone,
Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886.
This picture is the set design for Act 1, Scene 2, of the opera's 1871 premiere, depicting the
portico of the Temple of Vulcan, designed by
Philippe Chaperon. The drawing is in the collection of the
Bibliothèque nationale de France.
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William Grant Still (1895–1978) was an American
composer of nearly 200 works, including five
symphonies and nine
operas. Often referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers", Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the
New York City Opera. His first symphony, entitled
Afro-American Symphony, was until 1950 the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in
Little Rock, Arkansas, attended
Wilberforce University and
Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and was a student of
George Whitefield Chadwick and later
Edgard Varèse. Still was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony
orchestra and the first to have an opera performed on national television. Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, he is considered to be part of the
Harlem Renaissance movement.
This picture of Still was taken by
Carl Van Vechten in 1949; the photograph is in the collection of the
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
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Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the
Romantic era, best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death, he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from
opéra comique to grand depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies and lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the leading opera composer in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time of his death, he was regarded as old-fashioned; his works, however, began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, and many have since been staged and recorded. This photograph of Massenet was taken by French photographer
Eugène Pirou in 1875.
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English composer and conductor. His greatest success was his
cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. This set the epic poem
The Song of Hiawatha by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to music, and was widely performed by choral groups in England and the United States. Composers were not well paid; the work sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but he had sold the music outright for the sum of 15
guineas, so did not benefit directly. He learned to retain his rights and earned royalties for other compositions after achieving wide renown, but always struggled financially. This photograph of Coleridge-Taylor was taken around 1905.
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Nicholas Lanier (baptised 10 September 1588 – buried 24 February 1666) was an English composer and musician; the first to hold the title of
Master of the King's Music, in the service of
Charles I and
Charles II. He was one of the first composers to introduce
monody and
recitative to England.
After this oil-on-canvas portrait was painted by the Flemish painter
Anthony van Dyck in Antwerp, Lanier convinced the king to bring van Dyck to England, where he became the leading court painter. The portrait displays an attitude of studied carelessness, often termed
sprezzatura, defined as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". The painting now hangs in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American
blues singer widely renowned during the
Jazz Age. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
Born in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, her parents died when Smith was young, and she and her sister survived by performing on the streets of
Chattanooga, Tennessee. She began touring and performed in a group that included
Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career began in the 1920s, until an automobile accident ended her life at age 43.
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Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American
jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after
Duke Ellington. He had a unique
improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including
"'Round Midnight", and
a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer
William P. Gottlieb in
Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York.
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Photograph credit: Fritz Luckhardt; restored by Adam Cuerden Johann Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899) was an
Austrian composer of
light music, particularly
dance music and
operettas. Part of the Strauss dynasty,
his father demanded that none of his sons pursue music as a career, despite their display of musical talent. It was only after his father had abandoned the family for a mistress that the younger Strauss was able to develop his skills as a composer, with the encouragement of his mother. He eventually attained greater fame than his father, and became one of the most popular
waltz composers of the era, conducting extensive tours of Austria, Poland and Germany with his orchestra.
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Billy Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American
jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best remembered for his long-time collaboration with bandleader and composer
Duke Ellington that lasted nearly three decades. Though classical music was Strayhorn's first love, his ambition to become a classical composer went unrealized because of the harsh reality of a black man trying to make his way in the world of classical music, which at that time was almost completely white. He was introduced to the music of pianists like
Art Tatum and
Teddy Wilson at age 19, and the artistic influence of these musicians guided him into the realm of jazz, where he remained for the rest of his life. This photograph of Strayhorn was taken by
William P. Gottlieb in the 1940s.
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Fervaal is an opera with a prologue and three acts by the French composer
Vincent d'Indy. Fervaal is the son of a Celtic king and is destined to be the last advocate of the old gods. His mission is to save his homeland from invasion and pillage, but in doing so he must renounce love. This illustration, by the Swiss painter
Carlos Schwabe, relates to the 10 May 1898 premiere of the opera at the
Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris. Here, Fervaal is depicted ascending a mountain while carrying the body of his beloved Guilhen at the end of the opera, as the pagan gods and their worshippers fade out of existence with the dawn of Christianity.
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Illustration credit: Antoine Barbizet; restored by Adam Cuerden Les Troyens (
The Trojans) is a French
grand opera in five acts by
Hector Berlioz, with a
libretto written by the composer himself based on
Virgil's
Aeneid. The score was composed between 1856 and 1858, but Berlioz did not live long enough to see the work performed in its entirety. The first two acts were performed separately under the title
La Prise de Troie. This picture shows the cover of the first-edition
vocal score for
La Prise de Troie, published in 1863.
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Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American
jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for
Duke Ellington and
Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor and teacher to numerous other jazz musicians. The second of eleven children, she was born in
Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the
East Liberty neighborhood of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A young musical prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of three. This photograph of Williams at the piano was taken by
William P. Gottlieb around 1946.
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Nelly Martyl (1884–1953) was a French opera singer. She sang in the premieres of several operas, including
Leborne's
La Catalane (1907),
Erlanger's
La Sorcière (1912), and
Massenet's
Amadis (1922). Martyl joined the
Red Cross as a nurse during the First World War, and served at the
Battle of Verdun in 1916, where she was known as
la fée de Verdun (the Fairy of Verdun), and at the
Second Battle of the Aisne in 1917. She continued as a nurse after the war to help with the 1918 epidemic of
Spanish flu. She was awarded the
Croix de Guerre with the
carte du combattant (signifying service under particular hazard) in 1920.
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