Faure, Grieg, Rachmaninoff & Scriabin

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) was a French composer that spent some time being taught by the great composer Saint-Saens. He wrote a great deal of organ and church music as well as some piano music. He was never popular as a composer and led a rather bitter life. He was only recognized very late in life for his accomplishments. His Nocturnes are beautiful and melodic pieces with stranger harmonies and a lit bit more exotic in style than something that we may find by Chopin.
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) is very famous as a Norwegian composer for his compositions of the lyric pieces (66 of them) as well as for his piano concerto in a minor. Liszt was able to sightread all of Grieg's compositions. Grieg had heavy influence by the folk tunes he was surrounded by and linked many of his pieces to things or areas of his life.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) was a great legend as a concert pianist and composer. He became one of the top pianists, however he did become a concert pianist until the age of 40. He worked with hypnotherapists often and credited Dr. Nicholas Dall, who he said brought him out of depression and back into his own creative flow. Rachmaninoff lived in Hollywood, and is said to have never smiled. He wrote a great deal of magnificent piano music (including his 2nd and 3rd piano concertos, which are among my favorites in piano literature), and always presented a direct and straight forward method in both his outward appearance and personality as well as in his musical compositions.
Scriabin (1871-1915) was born on Christmas day and thought of himself as a kind of Messiah. He was raised by women and hugely influencedby this. He injured his right hand not too late in his career and during this time spent a lot of time composing pieces for the left hand. He wrote a great deal of piano music, and had the goal of writing the Mysterium, which would bring about the end of the world.