As a boy, he studied the music of Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven, and in order to use good instruments, he practiced daily in the showrooms of local piano stores. He earned money at night by playing on out-of-tune pianos in “stimulation bars.” Although his formal education never went past primary school, he was awarded honorary degrees from Cambridge University (1876) and Breslau University (1879).

This composer first came to the public’s attention in 1853, when Robert Schumann wrote an article praising him as heir to the tradition of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. After Robert was confined to a mental institution, he became Clara Schumann’s confidant, yet while this friendship and respect deepened into love, their relationship did not result in marriage.

What is the term for instrumental music that is free of a text or any preexisting program?

Which composition is an example of absolute music?

Which composer brought the orchestral Lied to maturity?

He began his career as an orchestral conductor in provincial towns, but gradually worked into larger and more important musical centers, eventually leading the Vienna Court Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic for ten tumultuous concert seasons.

He left Vienna to conduct the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, but after doctors diagnosed a heart condition, he returned to Vienna in 1911, where he died of heart failure.