๐ผ Composers
Meet the people who wrote the music! Pick a card. Each has three true facts, a famous piece, and one question.
- Vivaldi1678 to 1741. The Four Seasons
- Bach1685 to 1750. Brandenburg Concertos
- Handel1685 to 1759. Water Music
- Haydn1732 to 1809. Surprise Symphony
- Mozart1756 to 1791. Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music)
- Beethoven1770 to 1827. Symphony No. 5
- Rossini1792 to 1868. William Tell Overture
- Schubert1797 to 1828. Trout Quintet
- Chopin1810 to 1849. Minute Waltz
- Robert Schumann1810 to 1856. Scenes from Childhood (Kinderszenen)
- Clara Schumann1819 to 1896. Piano Concerto in A minor
- Saint-Saรซns1835 to 1921. The Carnival of the Animals
- Tchaikovsky1840 to 1893. The Nutcracker
- Dvoลรกk1841 to 1904. Symphony No. 9, From the New World
- Grieg1843 to 1907. In the Hall of the Mountain King
- Rimsky-Korsakov1844 to 1908. Flight of the Bumblebee
- Sousa1854 to 1932. The Stars and Stripes Forever
- Debussy1862 to 1918. Clair de lune
- Satie1866 to 1925. Gymnopรฉdie No. 1
- Joplin1868 to 1917. Maple Leaf Rag
- Ravel1875 to 1937. Bolรฉro
- Gershwin1898 to 1937. Rhapsody in Blue
What is a composer?
A composer is a person who makes up music and writes it down, so other people can play it. Before there were recordings, the only way to hear a piece was for someone to play it from the composerโs notes. That is why music from hundreds of years ago can still be played today.
The cards go from the oldest, Bach and Vivaldi, born more than 300 years ago, to George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel, who lived about 100 years ago. Each card has three facts, the composerโs most famous piece, the city where they did their best-known work (tap it to fly there on the globe), and a question with three big answers. Some cards have a listening map of a famous piece, played by Peabodyโs band.
For grown-ups: every fact was checked against two separate sources, listed on each card behind a grown-up hold. Where sources gave different numbers, the card says โmore thanโ or leaves the number out. Every composer here died long ago, and every piece named was written before 1930, so the music is in the public domain in the United States.