Top 10 clas­si­cal music facts

Piano. Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos. Since the 19th-century Bach he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, but he did not compose a single piece of music for the piano

8 years old. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first symphony in Eb major key when he was only eight years old.

Andrea Amati. The oldest documented violin to have four strings, like the modern violin, is supposed to have been constructed in 1555 by Andrea Amati. Earlier instruments only had three strings and were called violetta. The violin immediately became very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility.

At least two. Playing the organ before electricity required at least one person (called calcant) to operate the bellows. Therefore, organists rarely practiced on the pipe organs, using other instruments such as the clavichord for practice instead.

Richard Wagner. Wagner's music was assimilated with the german domination ethos. The main reason for that is fact that the Third Reich propaganda officially approved it and Hitler himself was a big Wagner fan.

Balalaika. The balalaika is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body and three strings. The instrument generally has a short sustain, necessitating rapid strumming or plucking when it is used to play melodies. Balalaikas are often used for Russian folk music and dancing.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger and organist of the Romantic era. Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz and Robert Schumann,

88. A modern piano has 88 keys. This covers a wide range of seven octaves plus a minor third. Only one instrument spans more octaves: a pipe organ (up to ten).

Every 5 years. The International Chopin Piano Competition often referred to as the Chopin Competition, is a piano competition held in Warsaw, Poland. It was initiated in 1927 and has been held every five years since 1955. It is one of the few competitions devoted entirely to the works of a single composer, in this case, Frédéric Chopin.

German. Beethoven was born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire. He moved to Vienna in his early 20s. His grandfather was of Flemish origin, thus "van" in his family name (not German "von").