Notable Composers Posters, “H...-I...-”
posters, prints for music, art, and social studies classrooms, theme decor for office, studio.

Marvin Hamlisch
George Frederick Handel
W. C. Handy

Franz Joseph Haydn
Victor Herbert
Paul Hindemith

Gustav Holst
Engelbert Humperdinck

Marvin Hamlisch
b. 6-2-1944; Manhattan, NYC
d. 8-6-2012; Los Angeles

Composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch was a child prodigy, admitted to Juilliard when he was six years old. He is one of only eleven people to date to win an Emmy, Grammy (4), Oscar (3) and Tony award; he was also awarded a Pulitzer Prize and two Golden Globes.

George Frederick Handel
b. 2-23-1685; Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg, Germany
d. 4-14-1759; London, Great Britain

Baroque composer George Frideric Handel is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerti grossi that include the Messiah, Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.

• more George Frederick Handel posters

W.C. Handy, “Father of the Blues”
b. 11-16-1873; Florence, AL
d. 3-28-1955; NY

Composer and musician William Christopher Handy is widely known as the “Father of the Blues”. Handy managed to learn music through guitar, organ and cornet, even though his father, a minister, thought musical instruments were the work of the devil.

His St. Louis Blues was published in 1912, and is credited as inspiration for the foxtrot dance by Vernon and Irene Castle.

Handy was also qualified as a teacher but the pay was so low he went back to working in the iron industry in Alabama.

• Black History posters
• W. C. Handy at Amazon.com

Franz Joseph Haydn
b. 3-31 or 4-1-1732; Austria
d. 5-31-1809; Vienna

Classical composer Franz Joseph Haydn is often called the “Father of the Symphony”. Haydn was a close friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven's teacher.

Victor Herbert
b. 2-1-1859; Dublin, Ireland
d. 5-31-1924; CT

Victor Herbert was composer of two operas, one cantata, 43 operettas, incidental (background) music, piano compositions and probably the first original orchestral score for a full-length film, The Fall of a Nation (1916), the sequel to Birth of a Nation.

Paul Hindemith
b. 11-16-1895; Hanau, Germany
d. 12-28-1963; Frankfurt (pancreatitis)

Paul Hindemith was a violinist, composer, and professor whose work spanned the late Romantic and early Expressionist styles.

Gustav Holst
b. 9-21-1874; Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
d. 5-25-1934; London (complications of surgery)

Gustav Holst, composer, teacher and conductor, is best remembered for The Planets, a seven-movement orchestral suite with each movement named after a solar system planet and corresponding astrological character.

Gustav Holst quotes ~
• “Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.”
• “Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity.”
• “If nobody likes your work, you have to go on just for the sake of the work. And you're in no danger of letting the public make you repeat yourself. Every artist ought to pray that he may not be “a success”. If he's a failure he stands a good chance of concentrating upon the best work of which he's capable.”
• “One of the advantages of being over forty is that one begins to learn the difference between knowing and realising.”
• “The enormity of the universe revealed by science cannot readily be grasped by the human brain, but the music of The Planets enables the mind to acquire some comprehension of the vastness of space where rational understanding fails.”
• “About ‘Aristocracy in art’ - art is not for all but only for the chosen few - but the only way to find those few is to bring art to everyone - then the artists have a sort of masonic signal by which they recognise each other in the crowd.”
• “That the artist is born again & starts afresh with every new work.”

FYI ~ Holst was one of many composers who set a Robert Bridges' poet to music.

• Gustav Holst: The Collector's Edition Audio CD

Englebert Humperdinck
b. 9-1-1854; Sieburg, Prussia, German Empire
d. 9-27-1921; Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Composer Engelbert Humperdinck is best remembered for his opera Hänsel und Gretel, loosely based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, and association with Richard Wagner at Bayreuth.

Humperdinck, who showed an early talent for music, was able to overcome his parents desire for him to study architecture.