Classical Views    
 
If we were doing Views By the Sea in the 
1700-1800's, we might have written about...

Teleman - self taught on the flute, violin, oboe, trombone and other instruments. He was the director of music at the Church of the Barefoot Friars.

Tchaikovsky - studied law. He began piano lessons at age 4, and played in Carnegie Hall's opening night in 1891.

Barrios - composed over 300 works. Spoke his native Guarani and Spanish, and could read English, French and German.

Liszt - composer, pianist, conductor, arranger, organist, writer and philanthropist.

Wagner - composer, theater director, conductor...and polemist.

Grieg - composer who lost a lung to disease at an early age.

Haydn - Father of the Symphony, Father of the String Quartet, mentor of Mozart and tutor of Beethoven.

Mozart - baptized Johannes Chrysotomous Wolfganus Theophilos Mozart. Composed beginning at age 5, pianist, violin, symphonies, concertos, operas.

Beethoven - nine symphonies, five piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, a mass and an opera.

Handel - operas, oratorios (including the Messiah), anthems, organ concertos.

Fasch - studied composing at age 13.

Vivaldi - taught violin to girls in an orphanage, became an ordained priest.

Unknown - one composer wrote his first opera at age 11.  

In the 1900's...

Jimmy Donut - two years piano lessons, seven years on cornet... undistinguished, 
no sympathies.