When I Was 25, It Was A Very Good Year...
When Johann Strauss, Jr. was 25: (1850-51)
World Events: US President Zachary Taylor dies from pneumonia contracted at inauguration ceremony, succeeded by Millard Fillmore; Taiping Rebellion in China; first appearance of New York Times newspaper.
Music: Schumann - Symphony #3, Cello Concerto; Liszt - Liebestraume; Wagner - Lohengrin.
When Louis Moreau Gottschalk was 25: (1854-55)
World Events: 'Bleeding Kansas' War; Republican Party formed.
Music: Berlioz - L'Enfance du Christ; Gottschalk - The Last Hope; Brahms - Piano Trio #1 in B; Liszt - Years of Pilgrimage (Switzerland); Robert Schumann attempts suicide and is committed to asylum.
Births: Engelbert Humperdinck
When Karl Goldmark was 25: (1855-56)
World Events: Taiping Rebellion ends in China; London seized by cholera epidemic.
Music: Bizet - Symphony in C; Liszt - Piano Concerto #1; Verdi - Sicilian Vespers.
Births: Christian Sinding
Deaths: Robert Schumann
When Charles Lecocq was 25: (1857-58)
World Events: James Buchanan takes office as 15th US President; Britain wars with India and China; Pasteur experiments with fermentation.
Music: Verdi - Simon Boccanegra; Liszt - A Faust Symphony.
Births: Edward Elgar
Deaths: Mikhail Glinka
When Johannes Brahms & Alexander Borodin were 25: (1858-59)
World Events: Britain and China end war
Music: Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underword; Cornelius - The Barber of Bagdad; New York Symphony gives debut performance.
Births: Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Giacomo Puccini
When Amilcare Ponchielli was 25: (1859-60)
World Events: France and Austria go to war; digging commences on Suez Canal.
Music: Gounod - Faust; Verdi - Un Ballo en Maschera; Daniel Emmett - Dixie
Deaths: Louis Spohr
When Camille Saint-Saens, Cesar Cui & Henryk Wieniawski were 25: (1860-61)
World Events: Garibaldi's Italian unification forces install Victor Emmanuel II on throne; Abraham Lincoln elected 16th US President; South Carolina secedes.
Music: Suppe - Das Pensionat; Brahms - String Sextet #1 in B Flat
Births: Gustav Mahler, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Hugo Wolf
When Leo Delibes was 25: (1861-62)
World Events: American Civil War begins.
Music: Liszt - Mephisto Waltz #1; Vieuxtemps - Violin Concerto #5; Brhams - Piano Concerto #1 in D Minor, Piano Quartet #1 in G Minor, Handel Variations
When Mily Balakirev & Emil Waldteufel were 25: (1862-63)
World Events: Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation; Gatling Gun invented.
Music: Verdi - La Forza del Destino; Berlioz - Beatrice and Benedict; Ludwig Kochel publishes his catalog of Mozart's works.
Births: Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius, Edward German
When Georges Bizet & Max Bruch were 25: (1863-64)
World Events: Battle of Gettysburg signals decisive momentum turn in American Civil War; French army seizes Mexico City.
Music: Bizet - The Pearl Fishers; Berlioz - Les Troyens; Rossini - Petite Mass.
Births: Pietro Mascagni
When Modest Mussorgsky was 25: (1864-65)
World Events: US Grant takes over Union armies; Sherman's devastating march through the South; Lincoln re-elected President; Pasteur invents pasteurization process.
Music: Offenbach - La Belle Helene; Meyerbeer - L'Africaine; Gounod - Mireille; Bruckner - Symphony No. "0"; Brahms - Piano Quintet in F Minor
Births: Richard Strauss
Deaths: Giacomo Meyerbeer, Stephen Foster
When P. I. Tchaikovsky & Johann Svendsen were 25: (1865-66)
World Events: American Civil War ends with Lee's surrender at Appomatox; Abraham Lincoln assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, Andrew Johnson becomes 17th President; Ku Klux Klan founded; Salvation Army organized.
Music: Suppe - The Beautiful Galatea; Wagner - Tristan und Isolde; Brahms - Horn Trio in B Flat; first performance of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.
Births: Paul Dukas, Alexander Glazunov, Jean Sibelius
When Antonin Dvorak & Emmanuel Chabrier were 25: (1866-67)
World Events: War between Italy and Austria; invention of dynamite by Nobel.
Music: Offenbach - Gaite Parisienne; Smetana - The Bartered Bride; Suppe - Light Cavalry; Thomas - Mignon.
Births: Feruccio Busoni
When Gabriel Faure, Jules Massenet & Arthur Sullivan were 25: (1867-68)
World Events: US purchases Alaska from Russians (this becomes known as "Seward's Folly"); puppet Emperor Maximilian executed after Napoleon III withdraws French troops from Mexico City.
Music: Bizet - Fair Maid of Perth; Gounod - Romeo & Juliet; Verdi - Don Carlos; Strauss, Jr. - Blue Danube Waltz; Mussorgsky - A Night on Bald Mountain
Births: Arturo Toscanini
When Edvard Grieg was 25: (1868-69)
World Events: In Japan, shogunate form of government is abolished; impeachment trial in US Senate of President Johnson (he was acquitted).
Music: Strauss, Jr. - Tales from the Vienna Woods; Saint-Saens - Piano Concerto #2; Brahms - Lullaby, Ein Deutsches Requiem; Grieg - Piano Concerto in A Minor; Wagner - Die Meistersinger; Bruch - Violin Concerto #1.
Deaths: Gioacchino Rossini
When Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Charles Marie Widor & Pablo de Sarasate were 25: (1869-70)
World Events: US Grant becomes 18th US President; opening of Suez Canal; First Vatican Council deems Pope to be infallible.
Music: Brahms - Liebeslieder Waltzes, Set 1; Delibes - Coppelia; Tchaikovsky - Romeo & Juliet Overture; Balakirev - Islamey; Wagner - Die Walkure, Das Rheingold, Siegfried Idyll
Births: Siegfried Wagner
Deaths: Hector Berlioz
When Zdenek Fibich was 25: (1875-76)
World Events: Cuban rebellion; beginning of Scientology movement.
Music: Bizet - Carmen; Grieg - Peer Gynt Incidental Music; Dvorak - Serenade for Strings; Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto #1; Gilbert & Sullivan - Trial by Jury.
Births: Maurice Ravel, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Deaths: Georges Bizet
When Vincent D'Indy was 25: (1876-77)
World Events: Invention of the telephone and phonograph; tightly contested US Presidential race involving 20 electoral votes - eventually decided in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes, who becomes 19th President.
Music: Brahms - Symphony #1 and #2; Bruckner - Symphony #5; Borodin - Symphony #2; Dvorak - Symphonic Variations, Stabat Mater; Delibes - Sylvia; Goldmark - Rustic Wedding Symphony; Ponchielli - Dance of the Hours; Saint-Saens - Samson & Delilah; Wagner - Siegfried, Gotterdammerung
Births: Pablo Casals, Manuel de Falla, Bruno Walter, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Ernst von Dohnanyi
When Leos Janacek & John Philip Sousa were 25: (1879-80)
World Events: British-Zulu war; discovery of saccharin as sugar substitute
Music: Borodin - String Quartet #1; Franck - The Beatitudes; Gilbert & Sullivan - Pirates of Penzance; Suppe - Boccaccio; Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin
When Ernest Chausson & Anatol Liadov were 25: (1880-81)
World Events: France claims island of Tahiti; Chile at war with Peru and Bolivia; Thomas Edison greatly improves use of practical electric light.
Music: Brahms - Academic Festival Overture; Borodin - In the Steppes of Central Asia; Dvorak - Violin Concerto in A Minor; Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture, Serenade for Strings, Capriccio Italien; Widor - Organ Symphony #5
Births: Ernest Bloch
Deaths: Jacques Offenbach
When Giuseppe Martucci & Alexander Taneyev were 25: (1881-82)
World Events: James Garfield (20th US President) assassinated and succeeded by Chester Arthur; practice of flogging abolished in British armed services; Booker T. Washington founds Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Music: Borodin - String Quartet #2; Liszt - Mephisto Waltz #2; Offenbach - The Tales of Hoffmann; Saint-Saens - Violin Concerto #3
When Cecile Chaminade & Ruggiero Leoncavallo were 25: (1882-83)
World Events: British troops occupy Cairo; US bans Chinese immigration for a decade.
Music: Debussy - Le Printemps; Franck - The Accursed Huntsman; Brahms - Piano Concerto #2; Gilbert & Sullivan - Iolanthe; Waldteufel - Les Patineurs; Wagner - Parsifal; founding of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra.
Births: Igor Stravinsky
When Giacomo Puccini was 25: (1883-84)
World Events: Chicago is first American city to have a skyscraper (10 stories); Northern Pacific Railroad completed; the Orient Express makes its first run.
Music: Brahms - Symphony #3; Delibes - Lakme; Bruckner - Symphony #7; Chabrier - Espana; opening of Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
Deaths: Friedrich von Flotow, Richard Wagner, Anton von Webern
When Victor Herbert & Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov were 25: (1884-85)
World Events: Tetanus bacteria discovered and isolated; London gets world's first underground railroad.
Music: Grieg - Holberg Suite; Bruckner - Te Deum; Massenet - Manon.
When Isaac Albeniz, Gustav Mahler, Edward MacDowell & Ignace Jan Paderewski were 25: (1885-86)
World Events: Congo is claimed by Belgium; Grover Cleveland begins first of two non-consecutive Presidential terms; game of golf takes hold in US; invention of rabies vaccine; invention of coated photography paper; fingerprints proven unique.
Music: Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado; Brahms - Symphony #4; Mahler - Songs of a Wayfarer; Gounod - Petite Symphony; Strauss, Jr. - The Gypsy Baron
Births: Alban Berg
When Anton Arensky was 25: (1886-87)
World Events: France banishes descendents of Napoleon Bonaparte; France makes a present of the Statue of Liberty to the United States; England passes Irish Home Rule bill
Music: Albeniz - Suite Espanola; D'Indy - Symphony on a French Mountain Air; Dvorak - Slavonic Dances, Op. 72; Faure - Piano Quartet #2; Saint-Saens - Symphony #3 (Organ); invention of the celeste.
Births: Wilhelm Furtwangler
Deaths: Franz Liszt
When Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius & Edward German were 25: (1887-88)
World Events: Development of Esperanto language; Queen Victoria celebrates Golden Jubilee; celluloid film invented; Jack the Ripper makes grisly headlines in London; Tesla constructs first electric motor; George Eastman invents Kodak box camera; invention of pneumatic (inflatable) tire.
Music: Delius - Florida Suite; Wolf - Italian Serenade; Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio Espagnol; Bruckner - Symphony #8; Saint-Saens - Havanaise; Dvorak - Piano Quintet in A; Brahms - Double Concerto; Verdi - Otello; Grieg - Norwegian Dances; Borodin - Prince Igor; Chabrier - Le Roi Malgre Lui; Faure - Pavane; Stainer - The Crucifixion; Gilbert & Sullivan - Ruddigore, Yeoman of the Guard; Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade; Richard Strauss - Don Juan; Tchaikovsky - Sytmphony #5; Mahler - Symphony #1; Franck - Symphony in D Minor; Satie - 3 Gymnopedies.
Deaths: Alexander Borodin
When Richard Strauss was 25: (1889-90)
World Events: Benjamin Harrison elected 23rd US President; discovery of insulin creation by pancreas; Eiffel Tower built in Paris.
Music: Richard Strauss - Death and Transfiguration; Dvorak - Symphony #8; Sousa - Washington Post March; Gilbert & Sullivan - The Gondoliers
When Alexander Glazunov, Alberic Magnard & Karl Neilsen were 25: (1890-91)
World Events: Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck from official duties; worldwide influenza pandemics; Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland is place of first systemic use of rubber gloves in surgery.
Music: Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana; Debussy - Suite Bergamasque; Dvorak - Requiem; Tchaikovsky - Sleeping Beauty, Pique Dame.
Deaths: Cesar Franck
When Erik Satie was 25: (1891-92)
World Events: Wireless telegraphy begins; Russian famine; Japanese earthquake claims more than 10,000 victims; invention of metal zipper for clothing.
Music: Dvorak - Carnival Overture, Piano Trio in E Minor; Brahms - Clarinet Quintet in B Minor; Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto #1
Births: Arthur Bliss, Sergei Prokofiev
Deaths: Leo Delibes
When Enrique Granados was 25: (1892-93)
World Events: Diesel engine is patented; First automatic telephone switchboard.
Music: Dvorak takes job at New York National Music Conservatory, composes the "American" String Quartet and the "New World" Symphony; Sibelius - En Saga;
Tchaikovsky - Nutcracker, Symphony #6; Leoncavallo - I, Pagliacci; Rachmaninov - Prelude in C Sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2; Puccini - Manon Lescaut; Debussy - String Quartet in G Minor; Verdi - Falstaff; Humperdinck - Hansel und Gretel
Deaths: Charles Gounod, P. I. Tchaikovsky
When Franz Lehar was 25: (1895-96)
World Events: Rontgen discovers x-ray process; Marconi invents radio telegraphy; discovery of helium gas; first Modern Olympics games held in Athens, Greece; establishment of Nobel Prizes; Paris is site of first public movie house.
Music: Richard Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also Sprach Zarathustra; Dvorak - Cello Concerto; Puccini - La Boheme; Amy Beach - Gaelic Symphony; Gilbert & Sullivan - The Grande Duke
Deaths: Anton Bruckner; Clara Schumann
When Hugo Alfven & Julius Fucik were 25: (1897-98)
World Events: William McKinley becomes 25th US President; Pierre & Marie Curie discover radium; L'Affaire Dreyfus takes a surprising turn when Emile Zola publishes J'Accuse and the lead prosecutor admits using forged trial documents.
Music: Grieg - Symphonic Dances; Richard Strauss - Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben; Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice; Sousa - Stars & Stripes Forever; Glazunov - Raymonda; Faure - Pelleas et Melisande; Arturo Toscanini first takes conductor's podium at La Scala Opera House.
Births: Erich Korngold
Deaths: Johannes Brahms
When Gustav Holst, Charles Ives & Arnold Schoenberg were 25: (1899-1900)
World Events: Alfred Dreyfus is finally pardoned by the French President; first magnetic sound recording; discovery of alpha/beta rays.
Music: Debussy - Nocturnes; Elgar - Enigma Variations; Ravel - Pavanne for a Dead Princes; Sibelius - Symphony #1
Births: Francis Poulenc
Deaths: Johann Strauss, Jr.
Next: Ravel, Stravinsky & Copland at 25...
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