Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
About 1575, Giovanni began working for Orlando di Lasso at the Bavarian court, as his uncle Andres Gabrieli had before him. Little is known of his time in Munich, and he left in 1579 after the death of his patron, Duke Albrecht. There is no record of Gabrieli's activities until 1584 when he'd returned to Venice. That year he replaced organist Claudio Merulo at Basilica di San Marco, church of Venice's patron saint. Due to Merulo's resignation, a contest was eventually held January 1, 1585 to fill his post, which Gabrieli won, having already occupied the position anyway. Giovanni and his uncle, who had raised him and taught him music, worked together only a short time at the church before Andres died in August 1585. Giovanni held his post until he died in 1612.

Also in 1585 Giovanni had been appointed as organist of Scuola Grande di San Rocco, where he composed ceremonial music.

During all this, he was also a music teacher. Heinrich Schutz was one of his students.
Giovanni is well known for being one of the first composers who specified volume markings and instrumentation in music.

Other websites
http://www.goldbergweb.com/en/history/composers/10946.php 
http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/appendix/composers/G/GiovanniGabrieli.html 

1557 births
1612 deaths
16th-century Italian composers
Baroque composers
Italian organists
17th-century Italian composers
Arcangelo Corelli (17 February 1653  8 January 1713) was an Italian violinist and composer. He composed some of the most important Italian music of the Baroque period. He was also very famous as a violin player. Other violinists learned from his style of playing and developed the art of playing the violin. His works include sonatas and concerti grossi.

18th-century Italian composers
Baroque composers
Italian violinists
1653 births
1713 deaths
17th-century Italian composers
Henry Purcell (born in Westminster, ; died in Westminster, 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Many musicians think he is the greatest English composer of all time. Although he only lived until he was 36, he wrote a large amount of music. His compositions include church music, instrumental music, music for the theatre, even popular drinking songs. He wrote the first English opera. He lived in the time called the Baroque period. He liked Italian and French music, and combined those styles to make something that was typically English.

His life
His life

Early years 
We do not know very much about Purcell’s childhood. His mother’s name was Elizabeth. In 1664, Henry Purcell senior died and the widow took her children to live with her brother in law, Thomas Purcell, who was very kind to them. Thomas Purcell was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal which meant that he sang in the king’s choir. Soon Henry was singing in the Chapel Royal. This was the best musical training a boy could have in England. His teachers were Captain Henry Cooke, and then Pelham Humfrey. Henry sang in the choir until his voice broke in 1673. He was then given the job of looking after the king’s musical instruments.
Purcell may have been composing already when he was nine. We know that he wrote an ode for the King's birthday in 1670. When Humfrey died Purcell studied with the famous composer John Blow. He went to Westminster School. In 1676 he was made organist at Westminster Abbey. He started writing music for the theatre. He also wrote church music, including an anthem for a singer called John Gostling who had a very good, deep bass voice. Purcell wrote several anthems for him during his life. One is called "They that go down to the sea in ships". It goes down to a low D.

Later career 
In 1680, Blow, who had been made organist of Westminster Abbey in 1669, resigned so that the 22-years-old Purcell could have his job. Purcell then spent the next six years just writing sacred (religious) music. Later he went back to writing music for the theatre, including the first English opera Dido and Aeneas.
In 1682 Purcell became organist of the Chapel Royal. He did this job as well as being organist at Westminster Abbey. His first printed composition, Twelve Sonatas, was published in 1683. Music printing was expensive in those days, so it was unusual to have something printed. He continued to write music including odes to the king and royal family. In 1685, he wrote two of his finest anthems, "I was glad" and "My heart is inditing", for the coronation of King James II.

In 1687 he wrote more theatre music. Sometimes this music was for masques (a kind of ballet with some singing as well), sometimes it was music for tragedies, e.g. plays by Dryden. In 1691, he wrote King Arthur, also written by Dryden. In 1692, he composed songs and music for The Fairy-Queen (an adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream). Purcell’s music for this was lost for many years, and was rediscovered and published in 1901. In these works the characters in the plays do not sing, they speak their lines.
Purcell's Te Deum and Jubilate was written for Saint Cecilia's Day, 1693, the first English Te Deum ever composed with orchestral accompaniment. He composed an anthem and two elegies for Queen Mary II's funeral.

Death 
He was very famous when he died in 1695, possibly from tuberculosis. His wife and two of his six children survived him. 

Purcell is buried next to the organ in Westminster Abbey. His epitaph reads, "Here lyes Henry Purcell Esq., who left this life and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded."

His music
His music 

Purcell wrote a lot of music for the theatre. He was born one year before the time known in England as the “Restoration”. Before the Restoration Oliver Cromwell had been ruling England for nearly 20 years. Most music had been banned. People were therefore very glad to be able to make music again, and they wanted lots of songs and instrumental music in their plays. Opera, however, was not wanted. In Europe opera was very popular in countries such as Italy, Germany and France, but it did not become popular in England until Handel came to England in 1709 and introduced Italian opera.

Dido and Aeneas is an exception because it is a real opera: everything is sung, and the words are in English. It was written for a performance at a girls’ school. It is quite short, lasting just one hour. It contains the famous lament When I am laid in earth sung by Dido.
Purcell wrote a very large amount of music for the church. This includes anthems and service settings. Although he was an organist he wrote very little for organ. He wrote chamber music, including some very beautiful fantasias for viols.

Influence 

Although Purcell was recognized as a great composer at the time he did not have much influence on other composers after his death. He was the last in a line of great English musicians in the 16th and 17th centuries. After his death English music was not as important as it had been. In the 18th century the music heard in England was largely imported from the continent, e.g. Italian opera.
Much later, in the 20th century, English composers were often inspired by Purcell’s music. Benjamin Britten wrote a piece called The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra which is based on a tune from Purcell's Abdelazer. The aria "I know a bank" from Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream is inspired by Purcell's aria "Sweeter than Roses". Sir Michael Tippett loved Purcell’s harmonies and rhythms and they influenced him in his compositions.

English composers
Baroque composers
1659 births
1695 deaths
People buried in Westminster Abbey
Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal
François Couperin (born in Paris on 10 November 1668; died in Paris, on 12 September 1733) was a French composer who lived in the Baroque period. Many of his relatives were composers. He is often called François Couperin le Grand (The Great) because he was the most famous of the Couperin family. He is best known today for his harpsichord music. He wrote several pieces which he called Ordres meaning the same as the word suite i.e. a collection of dance movements. Sometimes these movements have strange titles and we cannot always be sure what they mean. Some of them may have been nicknames of people he knew. He also wrote important organ music. He never had a family of his own before he died.

1668 births
1733 deaths
18th-century French composers
Baroque composers
Harpsichordists
French organists
17th-century French composers
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (born in Erasbach, July 2, 1714; died in Vienna, November 15, 1787) was a German composer. He is famous for his operas which were written in a new and exciting way. He was not interested in writing operas which were just a series of songs for singers to show off.  He wanted to make his operas into good pieces of drama. His operas had a big influence on later composers like Mozart, Weber and Wagner. He wrote Italian operas and French operas.

1714 births
1787 deaths
18th-century German composers
Classical era composers
Jan Ladislav Dussek (b. Ĉáslav, Bohemia, 12 Feb.1760; d.Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 20 March 1812) was a Bohemian composer of the Classical period.  He travelled a lot, living in Holland, Lithuania, Italy, France and England.  He lived nearly twelve years in London where he was a fashionable teacher and famous composer.  He is best remembered now for his piano music.

1760 births
1812 deaths
Dussek, Jan Ladislav
Czech composers
Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 - 3 April 1897) was a famous German composer. He started his career as a pianist. He was always very self-critical and destroyed any composition he thought was not really good. He thought that people were expecting him to be the “next Beethoven”, and spent many years on his first symphony before he allowed it to be performed. In the end, he wrote four symphonies altogether, as well as four concertos and a number of choral works, including a requiem. He also wrote chamber music, piano music, and German art songs, or Lieder. One of his best known songs is Wiegenlied ("cradle song"), often called "Brahms' Lullaby," which is often heard in music boxes.

His life
His life

Early years 
Brahms was born in Germany. His father was a double bass player in the Hamburg city orchestra. He probably gave the young boy his first music lessons. He soon was learning the piano with a teacher named Otto Cossel. When Brahms played in a public concert in 1843 an American agent asked him to tour America, but his teacher realized he was too young. He said that Johannes should study with Eduard Marxsen, a well-known teacher in Hamburg. By 1848 he was playing piano recitals. He also started to compose, and he sent some of his compositions to Robert Schumann to ask for his advice. Schumann sent the parcel back unopened.
At this time there were many Hungarian musicians in Hamburg. Brahms liked their folk music with its unusual rhythms, little triplet figures and sense of rubato. It was to influence his own style of composition. One of the Hungarians was called Remenyi. He played the violin and Brahms often accompanied him at concerts. They went on tour together and met famous people such as the composer Franz Liszt and the violinist Joseph Joachim who became a close friend of Brahms for many years. Joachim told Brahms to go and see Schumann and his wife Clara in Düsseldorf. Schumann liked Brahms and could see that he was going to be a great composer, so he wrote an article in his music journal about him. The article had the title: Neue Bahnen (New Paths). Schumann turned out to be correct: Brahms did become a famous composer and found “new paths” (new ways of composing).
Early career in Hamburg 
In 1859, Brahms settled in Hamburg. He founded a women’s choir and wrote and arranged a lot of music for them. His First Piano Concerto was a great success in Hanover and Hamburg, but not in Leipzig, where a lot of people preferred the wildly Romantic music of Liszt which was quite different from Brahms’s style based on the Classical music style. Brahms decided to go to Vienna. He was to stay there for the rest of his life.

First years in Vienna 
In Vienna he soon made many friends who liked his music. For a short time he was director of a choir called the Vienna Singakademie, who sang some of his compositions. He met Wagner. Wagner was afraid that Brahms would start to write operas which would be more famous than his own. So Wagner wrote an article saying that Brahms was a very bad conductor. Wagner had made himself an enemy of Brahms, who never did write any operas anyway.
In 1870, Brahms became director of a concert series called Vienna Gesellschaftskonzerte. He became more and more famous as a composer, but he was never very good at conducting, and in 1875 a conductor called Hans Richter took over conducting the concerts. During these years he finished one of his greatest works: Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), as well as one of his most popular works: the Variations on the St Anthony chorale (sometimes wrongly known as Variations on a Theme by Haydn).

Years of fame 
At last, in 1876, he allowed his First Symphony to be performed. It was not very successful at first, but in Vienna the audience liked it. He started to compose a lot of his greatest works and received many honours from universities. In the winter he gave concerts and in the summer he spent his time composing. He wrote his last symphony (Fourth Symphony) in 1885 and conducted it, going on tour with the orchestra through Germany and the Netherlands.
From 1889, Brahms spent each summer in Ischl where he had many friends. By 1890 he had decided to stop composing, although he did still write four beautiful works for clarinet after meeting the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. In 1896 he wrote Four Serious Songs which were probably inspired by the sad death of Clara Schumann. The next year Brahms died from cancer in Vienna. His father had died of the same illness.
His music 
Brahms wrote a great deal of vocal music. The greatest of these works is the German Requiem. There were many works for choirs, and a large collection of songs with piano accompaniment (Lieder). He wrote a lot of piano music which includes sonatas and many shorter pieces such as fantasias, rhapsodies, ballades, intermezzos, capriccios and romances. His chamber music includes string quartets, quintets and sextets and piano trios, quartets and a piano quintet. He wrote four symphonies and four concertos: two for piano, one for the violin and one for violin and cello (the Double Concerto). The German Requiem is his greatest vocal work.
Brahms was also very interested in old music and helped to edit music by François Couperin as well as the music of his friend Robert Schumann. For writing his music Brahms was mostly using German and Viennese pianos. He owned a Conrad Graf piano that he received from Clara Schumann in 1856. Later in life he was mostly playing on a Streicher piano. Brahms kept this piano in his house until his death.

20th-century German composers
German pianists
People from Hamburg
Romantic composers
1833 births
1897 deaths
Frederick Delius (b.Bradford, 29 Jan.1862; d.Grez-sur-Loing, 10 June 1934) was an English composer. At first his parents did not let him study music, so he went off to Florida to work on an orange plantation. He later returned, studied music, and settled in France for the rest of his life. His music is often quite gentle and atmospheric, with chords that shift about in unusual ways. One of his best known orchestral works is On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring. In his last years he was very ill, but he still wanted to compose, so he dictated the music he heard in his head to a man called Eric Fenby.

1862 births
1934 deaths
20th-century English composers
Béla Bartók (b. Nagyszentimiklós, Hungary, 25 March 1881; d. New York City 26 September 1945) was a famous Hungarian composer and pianist. He was one of the most important and original composers of the 20th century. He became very interested in folk music and travelled a lot in Hungary and other countries, including Romania, listening to the folk songs which the country people sang. He often used the style of these songs in his music. He is famous for his piano music, string quartets and several pieces for orchestra including one called Concerto for Orchestra. Bartók’s harmonies and lively rhythms were sometimes quite new to classical music and some audiences found them difficult to understand at first.

Childhood and early years 
Béla Bartók was born in the small town of Nagyszentmiklós. In those days it was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but today it is in Romania. When he was very small he showed great musical talent, and his mother taught him to play the piano.
Béla was often ill when he was a child. When he was seven his father died, and his mother took him and his sister to live in Nagyszőlős (today it is called Vinogradiv and is in the Ukraine), and then to Pozsony (today it is Bratislava in Slovakia). There he gave his first public recital when he was eleven. He included some music which he had composed himself.

Early musical career 

Soon he was studying the piano with István Thoman who had studied with the famous Franz Liszt. He had lessons in composition from János Koessler at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. There he met the composer Zoltán Kodály, who was a great influence on him and who became a lifelong friend.

He soon started to compose longer pieces of music. He liked the music of Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy and these influenced his style of music. He started to be interested in folk music. This can be heard in the first of his six string quartets.
Bartók and Kodály travelled together into the countryside to collect and study old Hungarian folk melodies. People in those days thought that real Magyar (old Hungarian) folk music was Gypsy music. Bartók and Kodály showed that there were other traditions beside these. They found music which used pentatonic scales similar to those used in some parts of Asia. The two composers started to use these folk ideas in their own compositions. Kodály often quoted (copied) actual folk songs in his own music, while Bartók preferred to compose music which sounded like folksong without actually copying it.

Middle years and career 

In 1909, Bartók married Márta Ziegler. Their son, also named Béla, was born in 1910.
In 1911, Bartók wrote his only opera, Bluebeard's Castle. There are only two singers in the opera: Bluebeard and his wife Judith. He also wrote a ballet called The Wooden Prince. This started to make him famous abroad. Another ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin, is even more famous today. It shows the influence of Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, as well as Richard Strauss. He wrote a lot of chamber music including a total of 6 string quartets, 2 violin sonatas and a Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. He wrote some pieces for smaller orchestras: Divertimento for strings and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.

Bartók divorced Márta in 1923, and married a piano student, Ditta Pásztory. His second son, Péter, was born in 1924.

World War II and later career 

When World War II broke out Bartók criticized the Nazis. After they came into power in Germany, he refused to give concerts there and did not use his German publisher. His political ideas gave him a great deal of trouble in Hungary.
Bartók did not feel comfortable in the US, and found it very difficult to compose. He was also not very well known in America, and not many people were interested in his music. He and his wife Ditta gave concerts, and for a while, they were given some money to work on a collection of Yugoslav folk songs. They did not have very much money, although he had some friends who gave them enough to live on. Serge Koussevitsky asked him to write the  Concerto for Orchestra . This soon became Bartók's most popular work, and brought him some money. He was also asked by Yehudi Menuhin to write a Sonata for Solo Violin. This seemed to make him interested again in composing, and he went on to write his Piano Concerto No. 3 and began work on his  Viola Concerto.

Bartók died by polycythemia in New York City from on 26 September 1945, aged 64. He left the Viola Concerto unfinished at his death; it was later finished by his pupil Tibor Serly.

Music
Music 

Bartók’s music has many modern techniques such atonality, bitonality and modern harmonies. He often uses different kinds of scales (not just major and minor ones), and very complicated rhythms. A lot of these are inspired by the folk music he heard. He wrote a lot of piano music, including some easy pieces for people who are learning the piano. This includes a collection of pieces in six volumes called Mikrokosmos which are very popular with young musicians today.

20th-century composers
Cancer deaths in New York City
Deaths from blood disease
Hungarian composers
1881 births
1945 deaths
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, OM CH (born Lowestoft, 22 November 1913; died Aldeburgh, 4 December 1976) was one of the greatest English composers of his time.  He came from East Anglia (a region in the East of England) and he often thought about the East Anglian landscape and the sea when writing his music.  He wrote a lot of music for his long-term partner, the tenor Peter Pears.  His operas include Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Death in Venice. His War Requiem was performed in Coventry Cathedral in 1962 after it had been rebuilt because the old cathedral had been destroyed in the war.  He wrote music for children which sounds like proper, adult music.  Britten started the Aldeburgh Festival.  He was an excellent pianist and conductor.

Life
Benjamin Britten started composing music at the age of five although he had no one to help him. When he was ten years old he took part in an amateur music festival in Norwich.  A composer called Frank Bridge heard him and was so impressed that he offered to teach him composition.  He helped Britten to compose using proper musical techniques.  Britten started to get to know music by a lot of important modern composers including Schoenberg and Bartók.  In 1930 he went to the Royal College of Music.  He had excellent piano teachers but he did not learn much from his composition teacher John Ireland and most of the music he wrote was never performed.  Britten was more interested in music from abroad than in English music.  In 1934 he heard the opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg.  He wanted to go to Austria to study with Berg but he was not allowed to.  Meanwhile, some of his first proper compositions started to be performed
.  He wrote some music for movies that were being made by the General Post Office, including one about a train delivering mail.  The music describes the rhythm of the train rushing along.
USA
While working on the movie music he met the writer W. H. Auden.  He started to be interested in political ideas.   These can be heard in some works he wrote at this time such as Our Hunting Fathers (1936) and Ballad of Heroes (1939).  When Auden emigrated to the United States Britten followed him.  With him was the tenor Peter Pears who was to become a lifelong friend and partner, and who was to be the inspiration for many songs and operas.

Britten wrote several compositions in the USA including Sinfonia da Requiem (1940) and his First String Quartet (1941).  The following year he was reading about the poet George Crabbe who came from Suffolk, the same part of England where Britten had grown up.  Britten suddenly became homesick.  He realized that he could not work and be himself in a foreign country.  So he returned with Pears to England.
Aldeburgh Festival
As soon as he was on the boat sailing back to England he started work on Ceremony of Carols.  Back in England, Britten and Pears gave concerts to audiences of all kinds and took part in opera productions of Sadler's Wells Opera Company, which was having a new theatre built.  On the 7 June 1945 the new theatre was opened with a performance of Britten’s opera Peter Grimes.  This opera was to make Britten into the most famous English composer of his time.  It was soon being performed abroad as well as in England.
Britten was now composing lots of music: songs, chamber music and a very popular piece called Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (also known as Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell).  This piece shows off each instrument of the orchestra in turn so that young people can get to know the sound of the musical instruments.  It is based on a tune written by Henry Purcell 300 years ago.  There were more popular works: St Nicolas and the Spring Symphony.  There were not many opportunities for big operas to be performed, so he wrote some “chamber operas” which only needed small orchestras and a small number of singers.  These were performed in places such as local churches by a group which called themselves English Opera Group.  He wrote The Rape of Lucretia (1946) and Albert Herring (1947).  In 1948 the group helped to start a music festival in Aldeburgh.  Benjamin Britten spent the rest of his life mainly working on music which was to be performed at the Aldeburgh Festival
.  He composed some of his greatest works for the festival, and he took part in the performances as conductor and pianist.
The 1950s
One of Britten’s most popular pieces of music for amateurs including children was Noye’s Fludde (1957).  He wrote three “church parables”.  His large operas include Billy Budd (1951) which was soon produced in Covent Garden.  In June 1953 he wrote Gloriana, an opera about Queen Elizabeth I, written for the coronation celebrations of Elizabeth II.  When he travelled with Peter Pears to the Far East he was influenced by the music of Bali and he composed a ballet called The Prince of the Pagodas, performed in Covent Garden in 1957.  Another great work inspired by the East was the parable Curlew River (1964).  The opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written for the Aldeburgh Festival in 1960. In 1962 he wrote the War Requiem to celebrate the new Coventry Cathedral.  This is one of the greatest musical works of the 20th century.
His last years
In 1961 he became friends with the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. He composed a Cello Sonata and a Cello Symphony (1963) (a kind of cello concerto), as well as three suites for solo cello. He travelled with Pears to the Soviet Union.

In 1967 the Aldeburgh Festival had a new concert hall, the Maltings at Snape. His next opera was Owen Wingrave (1970), written for television but soon produced in Covent Garden. In June 1973 Britten produced another great opera Death in Venice. The main character, called Aschenbach, was perhaps the best music he ever wrote for Peter Pears. It was performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, but Britten was ill by this time and unable to be at the performance. His heart condition made it impossible to work on any more large works, but he still wrote some harp music for the harpist Ossian Ellis, a song called Phaedra for Janet Baker, and a Third String Quartet. He died in Aldeburgh on 4 December 1976.
Britten received many honours both in Britain and in other countries. He became a Companion of Honour in 1952 a member of the Order of Merit in 1965 and, in the year he died, he was the first musician ever to receive a life peer (the title Lord Britten).

His music
Britten’s early works were often written for instruments.  His Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937) for string orchestra is a very popular work today.  He often borrowed and reinvented themes by other composers (this is called “parody” technique).  During his last years he again gave much attention to instrumental music, mainly chamber music.
After he met Peter Pears much of his music was vocal.  This includes more than 100 songs, a number of operas, chamber operas as well as three works for tenor solo and orchestra: Les Illuminations, the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the Nocturne.  His songs are often grouped in cycles.  He also wrote many folksong settings.  These were very popular as encore pieces when he accompanied Peter Pears in song recitals.

Britten wrote music for choirs, including Hymn to St Cecilia (Britten was proud of having been born on St Cecilia’s day: 22 November).  The War Requiem is his greatest work which combines writing for choir and orchestra.  It describes the horrors of war (Britten had refused to fight in World War II).

He wrote a lot of work for children.  There are even parts for children in some of his operas, e.g. Peter Grimes, The Turn of the Screw and Owen Wingrave.  He even wrote an opera in which all the main parts are sung by children: The Little Sweep (1949).
Many of his great operatic roles, from Peter Grimes to Aschenbach in Death in Venice, deal with the theme of the outsider, the person who does not quite fit into society, or who is misunderstood.  Britten’s homosexuality (which was something that was never discussed in his lifetime) may have something to do with this.  He also knew what it was like to be an outsider when he tried to live in the United States, and his refusal to fight in the war may have distanced him from some people.

The Aldeburgh Festival at the Maltings in Snape (a village near Aldeburgh) continue to be a focus for Britten’s music.  Every year the Brittens-Pears School of Music organizes lessons and performance opportunities for young musicians.  A series of “Prom” concerts is held there every year in August.

References
References

20th-century English composers
British conductors
Companions of Honour
Deaths from heart failure
English LGBT people
English pianists
Gay men
Grammy Award winners
LGBT composers
LGBT musicians
Musicians from Suffolk
Order of Merit
1913 births
1976 deaths
Claudio Monteverdi (b.Cremona, 1567; d.Venice 25 November 1643) was the most important composer of the early Baroque period. He lived at a time of great change in musical style. The first opera ever written was composed in 1597 by a composer named Jacopo Peri. Just eleven years later Monteverdi wrote an opera Orfeo which was a really great work. Other important operas of his are Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. He wrote 9 books of madrigals. He also wrote a lot of church music including the 1610 Vespers. He was director of music at St Mark’s, Venice, which was the most important musical job in Italy.

Early life in Cremona
Monteverdi was the son of an apothecary and a doctor. He was very talented as a young boy and was only 15 when he published his first pieces of music. In the introduction to this music he says that his music teacher was Marc’ Antonio Ingegneri, the maestro di cappella of Cremona cathedral. We cannot find anything that shows that he sang in the cathedral choir. He probably had private music lessons. He learned composition, singing and how to play string instruments such as the viol and viola da braccio. He got several compositions published in Venice. By the time he got his first job he had already published two books of madrigals.

Mantua
His first job was working at the court of the Duke of Mantua. In Mantua there was a small band of excellent musicians. The musical director was the famous Giaches de Wert. Monteverdi got to know many famous poets, and there were famous singers at Ferrara which was not far away.
At first Monteverdi had a low-paid job. He married the daughter of one of the court musicians in the string band. Monteverdi soon became well-known. He sent several of his compositions to be performed at Ferrara, and he went with the duke to when his army was fighting the Turks.

The young Monteverdi was developing a new musical style. The old style was known as prima pratica (“first practice”) and the new style was called the seconda pratica (“second practice”). The prima pratica continued to be used for church music. In this style of writing the music was thought to be more important than the words. This meant that the music could be very contrapuntal, with several things going on at once so that the words could not be clearly heard. However, in the seconda pratica the words were more important than the music, i.e. it was important to be able to hear all the words clearly, and the music had to be simple enough for this to happen. This was particularly important in opera and in madrigals.
There were a lot of arguments among musicians about these two styles of composition, and this is perhaps the reason why there was a gap of 11 years between Monteverdi’s 3rd and his 4th book of madrigals. His opera Orfeo (1608) was performed at least twice at court, and several times at Salzburg. Monteverdi was becoming famous all over Europe.

Monteverdi went back to Cremona. His wife died, leaving him with their three small children. It was a terrible tragedy for Monteverdi, and he did not want to go back to Mantua, but the Duke wrote to him telling him he must come back to provide music for the wedding of Prince Francesco Gonzaga and Margharita of Savoy.

Monteverdi returned to Mantua, where he composed his opera Arianna. The performance was a great success, and the audience were moved to tears by the music Arianna’s lament. This song is the only part of the opera that has not been lost.
Venice
The job of maestro (director of music) at San Marco (Saint Mark’s church) in Venice was perhaps the most important job for a church musician in the whole of Europe. However, the music was in a bad state because previous directors of music had not been very good. Monteverdi started to reorganize the music there: he bought new music for the library and got some new musicians. He had to compose music for many special feast days during the year. He was doing a good job, and in 1616 his salary was increased to 400 ducats (about 44.28 ounces of gold, worth about US$73,500 today). The duke of Mantua was probably cross that he had lost such a good musician. He still asked Monteverdi to write music for him. Monteverdi probably had to obey, as he was still a Mantuan citizen (Italy did not become one country until more than two centuries later). He wrote music for important events such as weddings and carnivals at Mantua.
By 1619 Monteverdi had published his seventh book of madrigals. However, he then started to publish less music. Perhaps it was because he was so busy, or perhaps because he no longer needed to look for fame. He probably wrote a lot of church music which is now lost.

During the 1620s continued his work in Venice, although he may have tried to get other jobs. His hobbies include alchemy. He welcomed the composer Heinrich Schütz who visited Venice for a second time. After the Duke of Mantua died in 1626 Monteverdi wrote less music for Mantua. He was supposed to receive an annual salary from them, but he often did not get it. There was a war in Mantua, a lot of buildings were destroyed and the invading armies brought the plague. Monteverdi became a priest in 1632. It is not clear whether he did this because he really was religious or whether he thought it would help his career.
In 1637 public opera was started in Venice. Monteverdi, who was now in his 70s, wrote operas for Venice. Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642) form a brilliant end to his career. After the performance of this opera he made a six-month trip to Lombard and Mantua, where again he had to argue at the court about not being paid his pension. After he returned to Venice he was ill for nine days and then died.

References
 Groves Dictionary of Music Online

1567 births
1643 deaths
16th-century Italian composers
Baroque composers
People from Cremona
17th-century Italian composers
Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman (born November 1, 1958) is an American screenwriter.  Some of the movies he wrote screenplays for are Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Charlie Kaufman is known for writing very surreal movies - that is, movies where the plot has things in it that could never happen in real life, or that make the audience notice that they are watching a movie.

He is one of the most celebrated screenwriters for now.

References 

American screenwriters
Writers from New York City
1958 births
Living people
An oxbow lake is a lake, or area of water, in a U-shape. It is made by special bends in a river, called meanders, getting farther away from the river until they become separate. The river becomes straight and the bend becomes a lake. This happens due to floods or when a meander's neck gets too thin.

Why does this happen?

Water flows at different speeds at different parts of the river. In the middle, farthest away from the sides (or banks), the water flows fastest. At the banks, the water flows slowest. When the river bends, water flows faster on the outside of the bend than the inside. The fast water on the outside 'erodes' the outside of the bend. This means it breaks bits of the bank off. At the same time, the slow water on the inside of the bend leaves behind mud, sand and parts of plants (deposition). Together, these make the bend move in the direction of the outside of the bend.
The bend moves farther and farther along until it leaves the river. The river becomes straight and the bend is left as an oxbow lake.

Lakes
A sequel is a type of new creation, like a movie, book, video game, or song, that follows or expands on a story from an earlier work. It is made because people liked the original and want more of it. Sequels let people see their favorite characters and settings again while adding new things to the story to make it interesting.

Types of sequels
Sequels can be different depending on the medium and the original work. In movies, sequels can continue the same story, go back in time, or focus on different parts of the original. In books, sequels can start where the last book ended or tell what happened before. Some sequels are spin-offs, which means they focus on other characters or explore different parts of the original world.

Purpose and significance
Sequels are made to give fans what they want. They let people explore more of the world, learn more about the characters, and discover new ideas. Sequels are important because they build on the success of the original and keep the story going.
Audience reception
People have different opinions about sequels. Some sequels become very popular, while others don't live up to the original. People are excited to see sequels, but they also want them to be as good as the original. The success of a sequel depends on things like how well the story is told and how the characters develop.

Impact on pop culture
Sequels have had a big impact on popular culture. They have changed the way stories are continued and expanded in movies, books, and other forms of entertainment. Sequels create excitement and make fans want to talk about the story and buy related things. They also help create bigger worlds and universes.

Literary terms
Movie industry
Major League Soccer (MLS) is an American soccer league that started in 1996. As of the current 2023 season, 29 teams play in the league. One other team plans to join in 2025. The commissioner of the league (the person in charge) is Don Garber.

MLS, founded in the United States, is a fully professional league with 28 teams, three of which are based in Canada. The United States Soccer Federation (USSF or U.S. Soccer), which runs soccer in that country, considers MLS to be the country's top men's league. The Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), which runs soccer in Canada, considers the Canadian Premier League as its top men's league, but MLS has much greater Canadian media coverage and is seen as having a higher level of play. Referees are approved by U.S. Soccer and the CSA. In turn, both national governing bodies are members of FIFA, which governs all play between national teams and sets the rules for the sport along with the national governing bodies of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
MLS was formed in 1993 as a professional league, with play starting with 10 teams in 1996. The MLS regular season starts in late February and ends in November, with each team playing 34 games. The regular season is followed by a 14-team playoff tournament to decide the league champion.

Teams

Current

Former teams

Future teams

MLS Cup Winners

Related pages
 USL Championship

References 
 Best Players in Major league Soccer (MLS) in 2012. hub, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.
 Major League Soccer.  Princeton, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.
 An Overview of American Soccer History.  Dave Litterer, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.
 Soccer Politics / The Politics of Football. Duke University, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.

 
Soccer in the United States
Sports organizations of the United States
1996 establishments in the United States
Soccer leagues in the United States
Chicago Fire FC (officially Chicago Fire Football Club, and before 2020 Chicago Fire Soccer Club) is a soccer team that plays in Major League Soccer in Chicago.  They started in 1998 and won an MLS Cup in that year. The club is named after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

League title 
 Major League Soccer : 1
 1998

League position

References 

American soccer teams
Sports in Chicago
1997 establishments in the United States
1990s establishments in Illinois
Major League Soccer teams
The Columbus Crew (known from 2015 to 2021 as Columbus Crew SC, and briefly in 2021 as Columbus SC) are an American soccer team that plays in Major League Soccer in Columbus, Ohio.  They started play in 1996, playing at Ohio Stadium on the campus of Ohio State University until opening the new Columbus Crew Stadium in 1999. That stadium would be renamed Mapfre Stadium in 2015 and Historic Crew Stadium in late 2020. The Crew played their first match at the new Lower.com Field on July 3, 2021.

Shortly after the start of the 2021 season, the team announced a name change to Columbus SC. Fan reaction was extremely negative.  On May 17, 2021, only a week after the change to Columbus SC, the team announced that it would return to the original name of Columbus Crew, without the "SC".

Honors
 MLS Cup (league championship): 2 (2008, 2020)
 MLS Supporters' Shield (best regular-season record): 3 (2004, 2008, 2009)
 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup: 1 (2002)

League position

References
References

American soccer teams
Columbus, Ohio
Major League Soccer teams
1994 establishments in the United States
20th-century establishments in Ohio
Sporting Kansas City are an American football (soccer) team that plays in Major League Soccer in Kansas City, Kansas.

They started out as the Kansas City Wiz, before changing their name to the Kansas City Wizards in 1997. Later, in November 2010, they changed their name again to Sporting Kansas City, as the team was moving into a new stadium in the 2011 season. The stadium has been known by several names, first Livestrong Sporting Park, then Sporting Park, and now Children's Mercy Park.

Honors
 MLS Cup (league champions): 2 (2000, 2013)
 Supporters' Shield (best regular-season record): 1 (2000)
 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup: 2 (2004, 2012)

League position

References

Other websites
 Official Homepage
 Official Website of Supporters Section: The Cauldron
 Official Wizards board, courtesy of BigSoccer

Major League Soccer teams
Kansas City, Kansas
1995 establishments in the United States
20th-century establishments in Kansas
The New England Revolution are a United States football (soccer) team from Foxborough, Massachusetts that plays in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer. They share the Gillette Stadium with the New England Patriots, a football team in the NFL.

The team is owned by Robert Kraft, who also owns the New England Patriots.

History 
The team won their first major trophy when they won the U.S. Open Cup in 2007. They won the North American SuperLiga in 2008.

Related pages
 List of United States soccer teams

American soccer teams
Major League Soccer teams
1994 establishments in the United States
1990s establishments in Massachusetts
The New York Red Bulls are an American soccer team. They play in Major League Soccer in Harrison, New Jersey. Until 2006, they were known as the MetroStars. Their homeground is the Red Bull Arena in Harrison.

History
The club was founded in 1995 by John Werner Kluge  and  Stuart Subotnick, two managers for MetroMedia, under the name MetroStars. The club was a founding member of Major League Soccer. In 2006 the team was sold to the Austrian company Red Bull and renamed the New York Red Bulls. The team is the only one in the MLS which never reached a major title. There were a lot of well-known soccer players on the team from all over the world such as Roberto Donadoni, Lothar Matthäus (FIFA World Cup 1990, UEFA Champion 1980), Adolfo Valencia, Youri Djorkaeff, Amado Guevara, Juan Pablo Angel,Daniel Rodriguez, Thierry Henry, and  Rafael Márquez.

Current squad

Captains 

|align="left"| Aaron Long||2021–2022
|}
|align="left"| Sean Nealis||2022–Present
|}
International players 
Former players Tony Meola, Tab Ramos, Tim Howard, Alexi Lalas, Clint Mathis, Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley, Claudio Reyna, Eddie Pope, and Tim Ream have all played for the U.S. national team. Current players Juan Agudelo,Daniel Rodriguez, Dax McCarty, and Kenny Cooper have also played for the USMNT.

Achievements
MLS Cup
Runners-up (1): 2008
Supporters' Shield (best regular-season record)
Winners (3): 2013, 2015, 2018
MLS Eastern Conference
Winners (Regular Season) (2): 2000, 2010
MLS Western Conference
Winners (Playoff) (1): 2008
Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
Runners-up (1): 2003
Minor Trophies
Atlantic Cup (2): 2003, 2010
Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic (1): 2010
Head coaches
 Eddie Firmani (1996)
 Carlos Queiroz (1996)
 Carlos Alberto Parreira (1997)
 Alfonso Mondelo (1998)
Bora Milutinović (1998–99)
 Octavio Zambrano (2000–02)
 Bob Bradley (2003–05)
 Mo Johnston (2005–06)
 Richie Williams (2006), (Interim)
 Bruce Arena (2006–07)
 Juan Carlos Osorio (2008–09)
 Richie Williams (2009), (Interim)
 Hans Backe (2010–2012)
 Mike Petke (2013-2014)
 Jesse Marsch (2015-2017)
 Chris Armas (2018-2020)
 Bradley Carnell (2020)
 Gerhard Struber (2020- present)

Gallery

References

Other websites

American soccer teams
Football clubs owned by Red Bull
1995 establishments in the United States
1990s establishments in New Jersey
The Colorado Rapids are an American soccer team that plays in Major League Soccer. They are one of the founding clubs of the MLS. The hometown  of Rapids is Denver, Colorado. The club was formed in 1996.

Stadium

 Mile High Stadium; Denver, Colorado (1996–2001)
 Invesco Field at Mile High; Denver, Colorado (2002–2006)
 North Area Athletic Complex; Arvada, Colorado (2003) 1 game in US Open Cup
 Dick's Sporting Goods Park; Commerce City, Colorado (2007–present)

The Rapids play their home games at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado (ca. 8 miles north of the center of Denver). The stadium capacity is 19,680 and cost $131 million to construct. It is a stadium for football only. The soccer stadium opened on April 7, 2007. Before moving to DSG Park in 2007, Colorado Rapids shared Mile High Stadium and then Invesco Field at Mile High with the Denver Broncos an American football team.
Honors
MLS Cup
Winners (1): 2010
Runners-up (1): 1997
MLS Eastern Conference
Winners (Playoff) (1): 2010
MLS Western Conference
Winners (Playoff) (1): 1997
Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup
Runners-up (1): 1999
Minor Trophies
MLS Reserve Division (2) 2006, 2007
Rocky Mountain Cup (2) 2005, 2006

Team records

Year-by-year results

Year-by-year stats
Sources: 

Note: MLS did not allow ties prior to the 2000 season as games were decided by shootout when tied at full-time.

By opponent

 Dissolved after 2001 season.
 Dissolved after 2014 season.

International tournaments
 1998 CONCACAF Champions' Cup
Qualifying Play-off v.  Club León – 1:0, 2:4 (León advances 4:3 on aggregate)
 2011–12 CONCACAF Champions League:
 Group Stage v.  Isidro Metapán – 3:2
 Group Stage v.  Real España – 1:1
 Group Stage v.  Santos Laguna – 1:4
 Group Stage v.  Real España – 1:2
 Group Stage v.  Isidro Metapán – 1:3
 Group Stage v.  Santos Laguna – 2:0
 2018 CONCACAF Champions League:
 TBD

References
References

Other websites
 http://www.coloradorapids.com Official Homepage

1990s establishments in Colorado
1996 establishments in the United States
American soccer teams
Major League Soccer teams