The REAL Story Behind the Music

When I was at North Texas I would jot little stories, poems and the like just because it was fun. This is something that I just came up with and ran back across. At some point there were actually illustrations! It's so interesting to re-read something you wrote years ago. It's like simultaneously impressive and embarrassing! Enjoy...

The REAL Story Behind the Music

The beauty of music of ages before
baffles the mind,
and causes one to wonder –
Is there something more?

Here’s the story behind the notes on the page
through which composers live on from age to age…

In the Middle Ages, church music was called chant
the purpose of which was to grant
embellishment to the service of praise,
so monks in this chant their voices did raise.

Into the Renaissance did history then pass
with a five section form built ‘round the mass.
Imitative polyphony began to take shape
and a capella performance was thought really great.

The Baroque period saw the arrival of great
Johann Sebastian Bach whose fate
was to write great music, and of that he did plenty –
he passed his craft on to his children twenty.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was merely a child
when the nobles of Europe simply went wild!
They were astonished by the talent which so naturally came
to Mozart whose music has gained great fame.

Beethoven took music to still new heights.
He must have stayed up many moonlit nights
writing symphonies, sonatas, concerti and such.
His contribution to music is undoubtedly much.

Then came the Romantics – some names to list:
Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Liszt.
And, of course, some other composers of note:
Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn and Berlioz.

The operas of Wagner are complete works of art.
To understand their plots, one must be quite smart.
High adventure makes their great length easier to take,
like when Siegfried’s horn the dragon awakes.


The late romantics Tchaikovsky and Brahms
produced works which are anything but calm.
Lengths of compositions were not getting smaller –
take for example a symphony of Mahler.

Debussy’s sound is different from any other.
He impressively painted with musical colors.
Stravinsky accomplished still another feat –
he was innovative with rhythm and beat.

Richard Strauss was a composer both traditional and modern.
His music has helped him much fame to earn.
The list of his compositions goes on and on…
Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan.

The story behind the greatest music the world has known
is by these great composers shown.
That the making of music is not merely art
but beyond that…

it’s a work of heart.