Obscure Music Mondays

Emilie Luise Friderica Mayer (May 14, 1812 - April 10, 1883) was a German composer of Romantic music. While she studied music growing up, it was nothing serious. It wasn't until 1840 when her father died that she took music and composing seriously; she moved to Stettin to study with Carl Loewe, and then later moved to Berlin to study...

Chiquinha Gonzaga (born Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga) was a Brazilian composer, pianist, and conductor, born October 17, 1847 and died February 28, 1935. Since Gonzaga was born in to a military family, she received an excellent education. In addition to learning how to read and write, she was taught piano, and fell in love with it at a young age...

Maria Teresa Carreño Garcia de Sena (Dec. 22, 1853 - June 12, 1917) was a Venezuelan pianist, singer, conductor, and composer. Born in to a musical family, she became known around he world as a virtuoso pianist, often referred to as the "Valkyrie of the piano". Continue reading →

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. The fourth of eight children, Smyth showed a keen interested in music as a career. Her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, was not particularly supportive, though that didn't stop her from pursuing music anyway. Smyth studied...

Giselle Galos (commonly known as C. Galos) was an obscure 19th century pianist and composer, born in France.  Very little is known about her; she didn't perform in public, and mainly published her works under the name "C. Galos" and no one knew if they were a woman or man. Some earlier works were found however, with the name "Madmoiselle Giselle...

Henry Thacker "Harry" Burleigh (Dec. 2, 1866 - Sept. 12, 1949) was an African-American composer, arranger, and baritone born in Erie, Pennsylvania. Burleigh is well known for introducing spirituals and folk songs to classically trained singers, in more classically arranged versions for them. He grew up hearing spirituals and slave songs from his grandfather, who suffered the deep injustice of slavery himself (he was eventually granted freedom, by buying his, and his mother's way out of slavery).  Continue reading →

Florence Beatrice Price (April 9, 1887 - June 3, 1953) was an African-American pianist and composer, and the first African-American woman to have a piece played by a major symphony orchestra. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price's first piano teacher was her mother, a music educator, and Price's first recital was at the age of 4. After high school (where she...

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Dec. 25, 1745 – June 10, 1799) was a composer, violinist, and conductor, born to George Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and Anne dites Nanon, his wife's African slave. Though born in Guadeloupe, his father took him to France when he was a child, where he was educated, and he became a skilled fencer. Later on he joined the Légion St.-Georges during the French Revolution, the first all-black regiment in Europe. Continue reading →

Scott Joplin (c. 1867/68 - April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist, who came to be known as the "King of Ragtime Writers". Joplin was born in to a family of railroad laborers in Texas, but got as much musical knowledge as he could from local teachers, and ended up  forming a vocal quartet, and teaching mandolin and...

Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (Aug. 21, 1893 - March 15, 1918) was a French composer, and  the younger sister of the famed composition teacher/composer Nadia Boulanger. Born in Paris, Lili Boulanger was a child prodigy; at the age of two, it was discovered that she had perfect pitch. Her parents, both musicians, encouraged her musical education, and she accompanied her sister Nadia...