Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 300. Chapters: Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Gioachino Rossini, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Albert Schweitzer, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Camille Saint-Saëns, Hector Berlioz, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Strauss, Pablo Casals, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Aaron Copland, Pierre Boulez, Paul Hindemith, Edvard Grieg, Antonín Dvorák, Jean Sibelius, Clara Schumann, Yehudi Menuhin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Charles-Marie Widor, Charles Gounod, György Ligeti, Arturo Toscanini, Max Bruch, Harrison Birtwistle, Leopold Stokowski, Claudio Arrau, Sigismond Thalberg, Alexander Glazunov, Joseph Joachim, Charles Mackerras, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Arthur Rubinstein, Elliott Carter, Vernon Handley, Niels Gade, Rafael Kubelík, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Peter Maxwell Davies, Stephen Heller, Julian Bream, Eugène Ysaÿe, Thérèse Tietjens, Bernard Haitink, Jules Massenet, Charles Groves, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, Ignaz Moscheles, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Frederic Austin, Lorin Maazel, Ferdinand Hiller, Katharine, Duchess of Kent, Pablo de Sarasate, Marion Scott, Fromental Halévy, Hans von Bülow, Oliver Knussen, Janet Baker, Alfred Cortot, Gregor Piatigorsky, Moritz Moszkowski, Giovanni Bottesini, David Willcocks, Willem Mengelberg, George Baker, Joachim Raff, Thomas Armstrong, José Antonio Abreu, John Gardner, George Onslow, Alberto Randegger, Daniel Auber, Johan Svendsen, Solomon, Jan Kubelík, Felix Aprahamian, Hans Richter, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Emil von Sauer, Lucy Anderson, Heinrich Marschner, Evelyn Barbirolli, David Lloyd-Jones, Eric Fenby, Jean-François Le Sueur, Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa, Howard Ferguson, Raoul Pugno, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Nikisch, Anthony Payne, Sophie Menter, Paul Sacher, William Glock, Julius Rietz, Gerald Moore, Johannes Verhulst, FrantiSek Ondrícek, Moriz Rosenthal, Joan Cross, Léon Goossens, Wassily Sapellnikoff, Moritz Hauptmann, Otto Goldschmidt, Vasily Safonov, Philip Jones, Michael Kennedy, Harold Bauer, Franz Rummel, Ernest Irving. Excerpt: Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; German pronunciation: ; 22 May 1813 - 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as they were later called). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex texture, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works such as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser which were in the romantic traditions of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner transformed operatic thought through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"). This would achieve the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, and was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised this concept most fully in the first half of the monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. However, his thoughts on the relative importance of music and drama were to change again and he reintroduced some traditional operatic forms into his last few stage works including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner pioneered advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shift...