Ludwig van Beethoven is often described by musicians as a "giant straddling two styles": the Classical and the Romantic. Indeed, it is a testimony to Beethoven's place in history that he is claimed for both periods. Whether Beethoven was a Classical or a Romantic composer, however, is beside the point. Instead, we might best view him as a new composer for a new age -- an age that is reflected in both musical as well as the nonmusical worlds.

Haydn and Mozart lived during a time of nascent ideals of liberty and two major revolutions. They also lived in a world of royal patronage, in which Haydn flourished but Mozart floundered. In contrast, Beethoven came of age as an artist when the consequences of revolutions had to be confronted and when the burden of patronage had already shifted to the less reliable mechanisms of the commercial sphere: publications and concerts proceeds, supplemented by sporadic noble patronage. It was a far more disorderly world for Beethoven, yet one full of exciting potential.

It is in this world of change that we find Beethoven one of the most enigmatic composers. By the middle of his life he was almost totally deaf, and had yet to produce his most profound works. In many ways cut off from the world, Beethoven was still committed to the idea of "brotherhood" as so powerfully expressed in his Ninth Symphony. These tensions and contradictions find a voice in many of his compositions. His symphonies starting with the Third (the "Eroica") are huge works, as are some of the late quartets. Yet at the same time, he could compress his works. These sometimes contradictory aspects are part of Beethoven's character and part of the times in which he lived. And they make Beethoven one of the most interesting of all the great composers.

Our picture of Mozart depends upon where we focus. Was he a brilliant, successful composer or a child prodigy who never grew up? Was he a facile composer who created nothing original or a composer of great emotional depth? He was all of these and more. For many of us, our focus is guided by our exposure to Mozart's personality in the film Amadeus, but is that an accurate picture?

Mozart's life remains a complicated puzzle. As a child, he seemed gifted beyond all measure, playing at age six before the empress, and composing at an even earlier age. By twelve he had written an opera, and his talents seemed to know no bounds. From this auspicious beginning, one would have predicted a future filled with prestigious royal appointments, the brilliant composer and performer constantly sought out by emperors and kings. But his career, which ended tragically with his death at age thirty-five, was a constant disappointment. When once asked about a meager court appointment he held, Mozart replied: "I get paid far too much for what I do, and far too little for what I could do." His music did not always please those in power: "Too many notes," Emperor Joseph II was reported to have said. And Mozart himself, who always felt that his talents were never adequately recognized, was often difficult.

The difficulties of Mozart the man, however, are eclipsed by the enormous power of Mozart the musician. His music was often joyous and almost raucous, and yet he could also write melodies of simple and haunting beauty. Like Haydn and Beethoven, Mozart was just as comfortable writing simple, direct melodies as he was writing complicated contrapuntal works. There seems to have been no genre in which he was not comfortable, and we can rightly point to his best work in any of them as the epitome of that genre.

When we say that a composer such as Johann Sebastian Bach was a genius, what are we really saying? It is easy to call someone a genius, but far more difficult to explain what that means. The word itself tends to intimidate us, and we often feel that it is impossible to bridge the gap and find the human side of genius. So we simply call him or her a genius and are done with it.

In the case of Bach, however, his genius is a combination of a number of simpler qualities, all of which point to that human side. First, Bach was a craftsman. He lived in an age in which the composer created works according to the demands of his employer. For Bach, this meant that his various positions demanded different kinds of music. As court organist in Weimar, he produced his most important organ works, and as a composer for the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen he created music that his patron desired: ensemble music (including the famous Brandenburg Concertos, written for another royal patron, the Margrave of Brandenburg). But his most important and long-term position was as cantor of St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig. Not surprisingly, it is in this period that he wrote the bulk of his great church music. Because of the demands of his various employers, Bach was able to create works in a wide variety of genres, providing a breadth of expression not often seen.

A second quality we find in Bach is that of a student or an emulator. The composer constantly surrounded himself with the music of his contemporaries, and his study of these pieces (often involving rearranging pieces for different combinations of instruments) provided him an insight into a wide variety of national and personal styles. Throughout his life, he integrated these ideas into his own unique style.

Bach was also a deeply religious man. His personal Bible is filled with annotations and comments, and this depth of feeling finds its way into his sacred music, which often strikes the listener as an intensely personal statement of faith.

Finally, Bach had a passion for completeness. Many of his works seem to be exercises in exploring every conceivable possibility. An example of this is his two collections of preludes and fugues, the Well-Tempered Clavier. In them, Bach explores every possible major and minor key. But it is in his final works that this encyclopedic quality stands out. His Musical Offering is a tour de force of variations and contrapuntal inventions on a theme suggested to him by Frederick the Great. His Mass in B minor is not a liturgical work, but a summation of his sacred style, much of it reworked from earlier pieces. And his Art of Fugue (unfinished at his death) is a compendium of contrapuntal techniques unequaled before or since.

None of these qualities, by themselves, explain Bach's genius. In some aspects, he has no equal, and in all aspects, his music is unique. Taken together, however, they constitute the human elements of that genius. They help us to understand why and how Bach created what he did, and perhaps that is as close as we can come.

It is telling that Richard Wagner's artistic beginnings lie in both music and drama. At the age of fifteen he wrote his first play and a year later his first musical composition. He was largely self-taught in music, although he did study privately when he was a university student in Leipzig. His career centered almost exclusively on the theater, and he wrote his first opera at the age of twenty, while serving as chorus master at the opera theater in Würzburg. His first great success came with Rienzi in 1842, followed soon after by The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.

Wagner fled Germany after the political upheavals of 1848, spending the bulk of this time in Zurich writing the text for his Ring Cycle, as well as a number of books on music. The most famous is the two-volume Opera and Drama, in which he set out his new ideas on reforming opera. The most infamous is his Jewishness in Music, a virulent antisemitic diatribe. In 1862 he returned to Germany, settling in Bavaria under the patronage of young Ludwig II. Here Wagner completed Tristan und Isolde, a tale of forbidden love made all the more fitting by the fact that he was at that time having an affair with Cosima von Bulow, daughter of Franz Liszt and the wife of Tristan's conductor, Hans von Bulow. In 1866 Wagner returned to Switzerland and continued work on the Ring, taking time out to compose a completely different type of work, the comedic Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

As each part of the Ring Cycle was finished and performed, Wagner became more and more determined to create a theater capable of realizing the complicated lighting and staging he envisioned. Once again, Ludwig stepped in. In 1874 he committed to building just such a theater in Bayreuth. Two years later, Wagner's complete cycle of four music dramas was presented there. While an artistic success, it was a financial disaster, and Wagner had to turn his efforts to recouping his losses. Out of this effort grew his final music drama, Parsifal, a tale of love and redemption. It premiered in 1882; Wagner died that winter while on a trip to Venice.

It is no overstatement to say that Wagner changed the face of opera. From his earliest works, he began to break away from the structure of separate numbers to one of continuous drama (he ultimately called them music dramas rather than operas). Other composers were heading in this direction, but none so relentlessly as Wagner. Perhaps more important was his concept of the "total art work," in which the composer controlled all the elements of the dramatic production and put them to work in projecting the drama. Musically, this was reflected in the idea of the Leitmotif, a musical theme that stands for a person, thing or idea. Wagner's music dramas are seamless webs of these musical ideas, with the music itself telling as much of the story as the action on the stage.

Perhaps due to the uncompromising nature of Wagner's musical ideals, or perhaps due to the difficulty of his politics and personality, he served (and still serves) as a polarizing figure in music. His admirers (often devotees) carried his legacy into the twentieth century, while his detractors either went in opposite directions or made use of some of his ideas while distancing themselves from him as much as possible. Although Wagner's place in history is established, the judgment of that position will be a source of controversy far into the future.

Franz Liszt embodied all of the great ambitions of the Romantic era, and many of its contradictions. His life spanned three generations of Romantic composers. In his early life, he was an extravagant virtuoso, the darling of the ladies, and a creator of new and adventurous music. In his old age, he turned to the church, becoming a priest, writing sacred music, and championing the music of a new generation.

Liszt was born in Hungary, where his father was in the employ of a wealthy family. His early talent in music was rewarded by the support of a group of Hungarian nobles who subsidized his studies in Paris. There he became part of an important circle of artists, writers and musicians that included Frédéric Chopin. He studied composition and made his living as a performer and teacher. In his performances he followed the model of such virtuosos as the violinist Paganini, making his personality and physical presence as much a part of the performance as his dazzling technique and musicianship. His affect on the audience -- especially women -- is preserved (and sometimes satirized) in numerous drawings and paintings. Liszt's long-lasting relationships with two married women (the Countess Marie d'Agoult, by whom he had three children, and the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein) were marked by both turbulent scenes and periods of great creativity.

In 1848, Liszt abandoned his concert career to concentrate more on his composing. He took the post of court conductor to the Duke of Weimar, and it was here that he wrote or revised many of his most well-known pieces. Late in life he moved to Rome, taking minor orders there in 1865. Much of the rest of his life was taken up with composing religious music, although he kept up his career as a teacher and performer, dividing his time between Rome, Weimar and Budapest.

Liszt stands out most for his new approach to large-scale form. Many of his symphonic works abandoned the four-movement structure of the symphony. Instead, these symphonic poems (as he called them) were huge single-movement works that relied on extra musical programs and the progressive transformation of a musical theme for their structural coherence. In these works, the themes are modified by changes in harmony, rhythm, or even melodic outline. These transformations are used to create a sense of narrative or psychological progression. Liszt also used the technique of thematic transformation in his non-programmatic works, such as his concertos. As a virtuoso pianist, Liszt filled his piano music with fantastic technical demands, and many represent the ultimate in nineteenth century virtuosity. He also expanded the repertory and possibilities of the piano with his many transcriptions and arrangements of symphonic and operatic works.

You've probably heard "Weird Al" Yankovic on the radio or recordings, or turned on PBS and seen Mark Russell. Each of them sings other people's songs, but with their own, often satirical words added to make the lyrics relevant and funny. This is called parody and it is exactly what John Gay did with his Beggar's Opera. To create what came to be known as a ballad opera, he concocted a plot that lampooned not only the morals of eighteenth century London, but also the style of Italian opera seria. In doing so, he played to the interests of a broad segment of society and helped to bring about changes on the opera stage. This wide appeal made The Beggar's Opera the most successful theater event of the century. The sources for his songs were equally broad, from parodies of operatic works by George Frideric Handel (the leading composer of Italian opera in England) to folk and popular songs that dated back over a hundred years. The work's influence continued into the twentieth century, when Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht created a modern version, the Threepenny Opera (1928).

In many ways, Tchaikovsky's life and career placed him uncomfortably between different worlds, and this conflict was a central aspect of his creative life. Perhaps this can be seen most clearly in his position as a Russian composer. Russia had a long history of cultural contact with the West. The very European city of St. Petersburg is the greatest example of this dynamic. Tchaikovsky's musical training at the newly founded St. Petersburg conservatory was likewise influenced by European ideals. His success in his studies there landed him a job as a teacher in the new Moscow conservatory. As a member of the musical elite of Russia, he found that his music pleased few. It was too advanced and modern for his Western-trained peers, and at the same time too Western in its outlook to please the growing and influential champions of a Russian national style.

He did begin to find favor with the Russian public, especially with his first symphonies. At the same time, his homosexuality also placed him in an untenable position. Unable to come to terms with it, he married an admirer, hoping to resolve his problems in domestic life. This proved a bitter failure, and in desperation he fled both the marriage and his post at the conservatory. He was fortunate to have at this time the support of the eccentric Nadezhda von Meck, allowing him to recover emotionally and continue his career, touring Europe and America. This period of despair is framed by two periods of great creativity. Before the crisis, he had written many of his most famous works, including his first three symphonies, the ballet Swan Lake, and his Romeo and Juliet overture. During the time of his greatest difficulty, he completed his monumental Fourth Symphony and the opera Eugene Onegin. But the next years brought little.

In 1884, spurred by the composer Balakirev, Tchaikovsky entered a final productive period, completing his last three symphonies and the ballets The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. His final work, the Sixth Symphony, deals powerfully with nothing less than the ideas of life, struggle and death. Nine days after its premiere, Tchaikovsky died. The circumstances of his death are still a matter of conjecture.

In the late sixteenth century, English composers took the Italian madrigal and made it their own; first by translating popular Italian works, and then by writing English settings in the same style. These pieces were modeled on either the lighter works of composers such as Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi (c.1550-1609) or more serious works, especially those of Luca Marenzio (1553/4-1599). This ushered in a brief but active period in English composition; the composers are often called the "English School" of madrigalists. John Farmer is one of the least known of this group of composers, which includes Thomas Morley (1557/8-1602), Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), and John Wilbye (1574-1638). In fact, the only solid information we have for this composer is for the years between 1591 and 1601 when he was active first in Dublin and then in London.

Farmer has the distinction, however, of composing one of the most popular pieces of this period, the madrigal "Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone". Using clever word painting, Farmer tells the story of the shepherdess Phyllis and her lover, who searches the hills for her before finally finding her. It is a pleasant piece to listen to, but more importantly, a fun piece to sing -- a primary goal of the madrigalists.

Maurice Ravel is often linked with his countryman Claude Debussy, and there are some important similarities in their music. Both used the rich harmonies and new scales that are usually associated with musical impressionism, and both had an interest in the exotic. But where Debussy was a sensualist, influenced by the symbolist and decadent movements, Ravel was more of a craftsman and traditionalist, creating a style that was almost neoclassical.

As so many French composers, Ravel received his training at the Paris Conservatory. After long study and five attempts to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, Ravel set off on his own. This was a time of great productivity for the composer in which he honed his craft and developed the meticulous qualities for which he would be known. One of these is his skill as an orchestrator. His most popular piece, Boléro, is in many ways a grand set of variations based on orchestration. A number of his pieces began as piano works, which he later orchestrated, and he is justly famous for a piece he didn't write, his masterful orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. He also was drawn to the music of other cultures. While he showed some interest in musical Orientalism (his Sheherazade being a fine example), his real love was the music of Spain, and he created a number of works (Rapsodie espagnole and Boléro being the best known) that have a distinctly Spanish flavor.

In the 1910s and 1920s, Ravel was influenced by the presence in Paris of the Russian Igor Stravinsky and the activities of the Ballets Russes. His music took on a sharper edge and, along with Stravinsky, returned to older principles. That resulted in what is often referred to as a neoclassical style. After World War I, Ravel traveled extensively as a conductor. He was especially appreciated in the United States, and during his visits to this country he was exposed to American jazz. This too found its way into some of his later pieces, most notably the slow movement of his sonata for violin, which incorporates elements of blues style.

Our image of the composer as an "artist," concerned with doing only what he or she wants to, is rooted in the nineteenth century. Composers of previous periods did not often have that luxury, but Franz Joseph Haydn did. Most of his creative life was spent in the service of the Esterházy family, writing pieces for their needs and desires. For example, he composed over 125 trios for the baryton -- an instrument something like a viola da gamba -- simply because it was the instrument that Prince Nikolaus played.

Surprisingly, these seeming restrictions, compounded by his frequent sojourns to the Esterházy summer palace at Esterháza (far removed from the musical center of Vienna) did little to dampen Haydn's creativity. Instead, he stated that this isolation and his ability to work daily with the musicians he was writing for was a perfect situation. Nor did it diminish his fame. By the 1780s, his music had been published all over Europe, and he was well-regarded in the music world. Because of this, he was invited to various cities and commissioned to write musical pieces for premieres in those cities. Most notable are the six symphonies he wrote for the Concerts Spirituels in Paris (Nos.82-87, called his "Paris" symphonies) and the twelve he wrote for the concert promoter Johann Peter Salomon in London (Nos.93-104, called the "London" symphonies). His final works, mostly sacred music for his patron, culminated in two large oratorios, The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801), the former being one of his most famous works.

Haydn is often referred to as "Papa" Haydn, and there is some justification for this. Although he did not invent either the symphony or the string quartet, he was a central figure in their development. His symphonies (especially the "Paris" and "London" sets) show a complete mastery of form and substance, setting the stage for the works of Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn's "paternity" is just as clear in the string quartets. Here Haydn helped transform the genre from little more than a string divertimento (with the emphasis on the top voice) to a type of chamber music in which all parts play an equal role. These ideas directly influenced Mozart, who responded with six quartets dedicated to Haydn (1782-1785). Haydn's style is detectable in the early music of Beethoven as well.

It can be humorously stated that Anonymous was the most long-lived and prolific composer of Western music. Virtually all chant and much early polyphony was created by anonymous composers, as was much medieval secular music. There are a multitude of reasons for this; taken together they can help us paint something of a portrait of this most enigmatic of "composers."

The anonymous chant composers may not have been composers at all, at least not in the modern sense. Most of what we know as "Gregorian Chant" was not written down until probably the ninth century. Before that, it existed as an oral art, passed from one musician to another. In the earliest traditions it was probably the result not of composition, but improvisation. By the time it was written down, it was far removed from what its original creators had first sung. Yet it had attained a place of authority that was further raised by the legend that it had been created by Pope Gregory I (who was pope from 590 to 604). A fanciful impossibility, but one of the West's first acts of musical authorship.

By the tenth century, we can point to new sacred compositions by musicians who wished their names to be attached to their works, something of a novelty. Interestingly enough, one of these early authors was a woman, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who went to the trouble of having all the music that she had written compiled into manuscripts. This was still somewhat unusual. Even with the birth of polyphony in the tenth century, we find few pieces with names of authors attached to them. Two of the most famous, Léonin and Pérotin (both of whom worked in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries) are known because of a later writer's discussion of their music. It wasn't, in fact, until the fourteenth century that we begin to find a reliable accounting of musical authorship in sacred music -- though until the seventeenth century, exact authorship is often open to question due to careless scribes or unscrupulous publishers.

In the realm of secular music, the situation is similar, and indeed, much of the music that would have been created does not survive because it was never written down. This changed in the courts of France starting in the twelfth century. Here, the aristocracy themselves, male and female, were the creators and performers in the rich tradition of the troubadours and trouvères. Not surprisingly, since this was music about, for, and even by the rich and powerful, it was carefully collected and notated, often with short biographies of the composers. Ironically, by the sixteenth century, the creation of music was seen as a profession, and beneath the dignity of the nobility. Because of this, a nobleman or noblewoman would usually not have taken credit for his or her creations and it may be that some of the anonymous music of this period is by aristocratic amateurs.

In short, anonymous composers were men and women, highborn and low, but they were different people at different times, reflecting society's changing feelings about authorship and the act of creation. It is worth remembering that anonymity was not always an accident of history. It was usually a reflection of the society in which the music was created.