1.
Musical ensemble
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A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instruments, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra, some music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the instrument family. In jazz ensembles, the instruments typically include wind instruments, one or two chordal comping instruments, an instrument, and a drummer or percussionist. Jazz ensembles may be instrumental, or they may consist of a group of instruments accompanying one or more singers. In rock and pop ensembles, usually called rock bands or pop bands, there are usually guitars and keyboards, one or more singers, Music ensembles typically have a leader. In jazz bands, rock and pop groups and similar ensembles, in classical music, orchestras, concert bands and choirs are led by a conductor. In orchestra, the concertmaster is the instrumentalist leader of the orchestra, in orchestras, the individual sections also have leaders, typically called the principal of the section. Conductors are also used in big bands and in some very large rock or pop ensembles. In Western classical music, smaller ensembles are called chamber music ensembles, the terms duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet and dectet describe groups of two up to ten musicians, respectively. A group of musicians, such as found in The Carnival of the Animals, is called either a hendectet or an undectet. A soloist playing unaccompanied is not an ensemble because it contains one musician. A string quartet consists of two violins, a viola and a cello, there is a vast body of music written for string quartets, as it is seen as an important genre in classical music. A woodwind quartet usually features a flute, an oboe, a clarinet, a brass quartet features two trumpets, a trombone and a tuba. A saxophone quartet consists of a saxophone, an alto saxophone, a tenor saxophone. The string quintet is a type of group. It is similar to the quartet, but with an additional viola, cello, or more rarely. Terms such as piano quintet or clarinet quintet frequently refer to a string quartet plus a fifth instrument
2.
Hendrick ter Brugghen
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Hendrick Jansz ter Brugghen was a painter at the start of Dutch Golden Age painting and a leading member of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio–the so-called Utrecht Caravaggisti. Along with Gerrit van Hondhorst and Dirck van Baburen, Ter Brugghen was one of the most important Dutch painters to have influenced by Caravaggio. No references to Ter Brugghen written during his life have been identified and his father Jan Egbertsz ter Brugghen, originally from Overijssel, had moved to Utrecht, where he was appointed secretary to the Court of Utrecht by the Prince of Orange, William the Silent. He had been married to Sophia Dircx, in 1588 he became bailiff to the Provincial Council of Holland in The Hague, where Hendrick was born. The earliest brief reference to the painter is in Het Gulden Cabinet of Cornelis de Bie, another short account is found in the Teutsche Academie by Joachim von Sandrart, where he is referred to as Verbrug. Here we learn that he studied with Abraham Bloemaert, a Mannerist painter, Sandrart also refers to the painters tiefsinnige, jedoch, schwermütige Gedanken in seinen Werken. From this unsure footing, the artists son Richard ter Brugghen sought to rehabilitate his fathers reputation as a painter in the early 18th century and he secured a letter, dated 15 April 1707, from Adriaen van der Werff in Rotterdam, attesting to his appreciation of Hendricks work. Later that year, on 5 August 1707, Richard presented the government council of Deventer with four paintings of the Evangelists, to be hung in the Town Hall as a permanent memorial to his father. An engraving, in all likelihood commissioned by Richard ter Brugghen from Pieter Bodart and this would certainly mean that he never met Caravaggio in Rome, that artist had fled Rome on a murder charge in 1606. However, it is certain that he was the only Dutch painter in Rome during Caravaggios lifetime, by 1614, Ter Brugghen was in Milan, on his way home. On 1 April 1615, Thyman van Galen and Ter Brugghen are witnesses before the court in Utrecht and he is already listed as a member of the Utrecht painters guild in 1616, and on 15 October of that year he married Jacomijna Verbeeck, his elder brother Jans stepdaughter. Ter Brugghen died in Utrecht on 1 November 1629, possibly a victim of the plague, the family had been living in the Snippenvlucht. Ter Brugghens last child of eight, Hennickgen, was four months later on 14 March 1630. He certainly studied Caravaggios work, as well as that of his followers–the Italian Caravaggisti–such as Orazio Gentileschi, Caravaggios work had caused quite a sensation in Italy. Other Italian painters who had an influence on Ter Brugghen during his stay in Italy were Annibale Carracci, Domenichino, upon returning to Utrecht, he worked with Gerard van Honthorst, another of the Dutch Caravaggisti. Ter Brugghens favourite subjects were half-length figures of drinkers or musicians and he carried with him Caravaggios influence, and his paintings have a strong dramatic use of light and shadow, as well as emotionally charged subjects. Even though he died young, his work was received and had great influence on others. His treatment of subjects can be seen reflected in the work of Rembrandt
3.
Musical composition
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People who create new compositions are called composers in classical music. In popular music and traditional music, the creators of new songs are usually called songwriters, with songs, Composition is the act or practice of creating a song or other piece of music. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of an outline of the song, called the lead sheet. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, in some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all, and instead compose the song in her mind and then play, sing and/or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music. Although a musical composition often uses musical notation and has a single author, a piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, since the 20th century, with computer programs that explain or notate how the singer or musician should create musical sounds. A more commonly known example of chance-based music is the sound of wind chimes jingling in a breeze, although in the 2000s, composition is considered to consist of the manipulation of each aspect of music, according to Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Composition consists in two things only. The first is the ordering and disposing of several sounds. in such a manner that their succession pleases the ear and this is what the Ancients called melody. The second is the rendering audible of two or more simultaneous sounds in such a manner that their combination is pleasant and this is what we call harmony, and it alone merits the name of composition. In classical music, a piece of music exists in the form of a composition in musical notation or as a live acoustic event. Since the invention of recording, a classical piece or popular song may also exist as a recording. If music is composed before being performed, music can be performed from memory, by reading written musical notation, compositions comprise a huge variety of musical elements, which vary widely from between genres and cultures. Popular music genres after about 1960 make extensive use of electric and electronic instruments, such as electric guitar, electric and electronic instruments are used in contemporary classical music compositions and concerts, albeit to a lesser degree than in popular music. Music from the Baroque music era, for example, used only acoustic and mechanical such as strings, brass, woodwinds, timpani and keyboard instruments such as harpsichord. A 2000s-era pop band may use electric guitar played with electronic effects through a guitar amplifier, different musical styles permit singers or performers to use various amounts of musical improvisation during the performance of a composed song or piece. In free jazz, the performers may play without any sheet music, improvisation is the act of composing musical elements spontaneously during the performance, as opposed to having a composer write down the music beforehand. Improvisation was an important skill during the Baroque music era, instrumentalists and singers were expected to be able to improvise ornaments, during the classical period, solo instrumentalists were expected to be able to improvise virtuostic cadenzas during a concerto. During the Romantic music era, composers began writing out ornaments and cadenzas, in contemporary classical music, some composers began writing pieces which indicate that the performer should improvise during certain sections
4.
Performing arts
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Performing arts are a form of art in which artists use their voices and/or their bodies, often in relation to other objects, to convey artistic expression. It is different from visual arts, which is when artists use paint/canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects, performing arts include several disciplines, each performed in front of a live audience. Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, examples of these include actors, comedians, dancers, magicians, circus artists, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting, choreography. A performer who excels in acting, singing, and dancing is commonly referred to as a triple threat, well-known examples of historical triple threat artists include Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Judy Garland. Performers often adapt their appearance, such as costumes and stage makeup, stage lighting. Performing arts may include dance, music, opera, theatre and musical theatre, magic, illusion, mime, spoken word, puppetry, circus arts, performance art, recitation and public speaking. There is also a form of fine art, in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. Most performance art also involves some form of art, perhaps in the creation of props. Dance was often referred to as an art during the Modern dance era. Theatre is the branch of performing arts, concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience, using a combination of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound, any one or more of these elements is performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative style of plays. In the context of performing arts, dance generally refers to movement, typically rhythmic and to music. Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement to codified, in dance, the connection between the two concepts is stronger than in some other arts, and neither can exist without the other. Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who practices this art is called a choreographer, music is an art form which combines pitch, rhythm, and dynamic in order to create sound. It can be performed using a variety of instruments and styles and is divided into genres, as an art form, music can occur in live or recorded formats, and can be planned or improvised. Starting in the 6th century BC, the Classical period of performing art began in Greece and these poets wrote plays which, in some cases, incorporated dance. The Hellenistic period began the use of comedy
5.
Harmony
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In music, harmony considers the process by which the composition of individual sounds, or superpositions of sounds, is analysed by hearing. Usually, this means simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches, or chords, the study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line. In popular and jazz harmony, chords are named by their root plus various terms, in many types of music, notably baroque, romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with tensions. A tension is an additional member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. Typically, in the common practice period a dissonant chord resolves to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds, in simple words, that occurs when there is a balance between tense and relaxed moments. The term harmony derives from the Greek ἁρμονία, meaning joint, agreement, concord, from the verb ἁρμόζω, to fit together, the term was often used for the whole field of music, while music referred to the arts in general. In Ancient Greece, the term defined the combination of contrasted elements, in the Middle Ages the term was used to describe two pitches sounding in combination, and in the Renaissance the concept was expanded to denote three pitches sounding together. Aristoxenus wrote a work entitled Harmonika Stoicheia, which is thought the first work in European history written on the subject of harmony, the underlying principle behind these texts is that harmony sanctions harmoniousness by conforming to certain pre-established compositional principles. Current dictionary definitions, while attempting to give concise descriptions, often highlight the ambiguity of the term in modern use, ambiguities tend to arise from either aesthetic considerations or from the point of view of musical texture (distinguishing between harmonic and contrapuntal. The view that modern tonal harmony in Western music began in about 1600 is commonplace in music theory and this is usually accounted for by the replacement of horizontal writing, common in the music of the Renaissance, with a new emphasis on the vertical element of composed music. Modern theorists, however, tend to see this as an unsatisfactory generalisation, as Carl Dahlhaus puts it, It was not that counterpoint was supplanted by harmony but that an older type both of counterpoint and of vertical technique was succeeded by a newer type. And harmony comprises not only the structure of chords but also their movement, like music as a whole, harmony is a process. Descriptions and definitions of harmony and harmonic practice may show bias towards European musical traditions, pitch simultaneity in particular is rarely a major consideration. Nevertheless, emphasis on the precomposed in European art music and the written theory surrounding it shows considerable cultural bias, the conception of musics that live in oral traditions as something composed with the use of improvisatory techniques separates them from the higher-standing works that use notation. Yet the evolution of harmonic practice and language itself, in Western art music, is and was facilitated by this process of prior composition, some traditions of Western music performance, composition, and theory have specific rules of harmony. This model provides that the seventh and ninth are not dissonant
6.
Piano duet
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In American usage the former is often referred to as piano four hands. Grove notes that the one-piano duet has the larger repertory, but has come to be regarded as a modest, the latter is more often referred to as a piano duo. The piano duet came to popularity in the half of the 18th century. Jane Bellingham in The Oxford Companion to Music lists other composers who wrote piano duets, including Brahms, Dvořák, Grieg, Debussy, Stravinsky, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries French piano duets included Bizets Jeux denfants, Faurés Dolly Suite and Ravels Ma mère loye
7.
Piano four hands
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Piano four hands is a type of piano duet in which the two players play on a single piano. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is generally referred to as a piano duo, Music written for piano four hands is usually printed so that the part for each player occupies the page which is directly opposite to him. The upper part, for the pianist sitting on the right and with the music on the side of the page, is called primo, while the lower part. By far the greater proportion of music à quatre mains consists of arrangements of orchestral and vocal compositions and of quartets and other groups for stringed instruments. Such arrangements were popular before the development of recording technology. However, before this, Ernst Wilhelm Wolf, the director at Weimar in 1761, had written one or more sonatas for two performers, which were published after his death. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven appear to have had but little inclination for this description of composition, according to Fétis, Haydn wrote but one piece à quatre mains, a divertissement, which was never published. Beethoven left but one sonata, op,45, and two sets of variations, none of which are of any great importance. Among the best-known composers, Schubert made the fullest use of the original effects possible to music à quatre mains. His compositions include the Sonata in C major for piano four-hands, D812, the Divertissement à la hongroise, D818, and Fantasia in F minor for piano four-hands, D940. In addition to these he wrote fourteen marches, six polonaises, four sets of variations, among the German Romantic composers, the four-hand works of Schumann and Brahms are the most interesting. Mendelssohn wrote only one work of the kind, although he himself arranged some of his orchestral works and also his Octet. An analogous idea was carried out by Brahms, who wrote two sets of waltzes for four hands and four voices. Among his instrumental pieces, the best-known is 16 Waltzes. A well-known piece by a French Romantic composer is the Dolly Suite by Fauré, category, Compositions for piano four-hands Piano six hands Piano reduction This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Grove, George, ed. A Dictionary of Music and Musicians
8.
Verb
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A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action, an occurrence, or a state of being. In the usual description of English, the form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive. In many languages, verbs are inflected to encode tense, aspect, mood, a verb may also agree with the person, gender or number of some of its arguments, such as its subject, or object. Verbs have tenses, present, to indicate that an action is being carried out, past, to indicate that an action has been done, future, in languages where the verb is inflected, it often agrees with its primary argument in person, number or gender. With the exception of the verb to be, English shows distinctive agreements only in the person singular, present tense form of verbs. The rest of the persons are not distinguished in the verb, Latin and the Romance languages inflect verbs for tense–aspect–mood, and they agree in person and number with the subject. Verbs vary by type, and each type is determined by the kinds of words that accompany it, classified by the number of their valency arguments, usually three basic types are distinguished, intransitives, transitives, ditransitives and double transitive verbs. In addition, verbs can be nonfinite, namely, not inflected for tense, an intransitive verb is one that does not have a direct object. Intransitive verbs may be followed by an adverb or end a sentence, for example, The woman spoke softly. The athlete ran faster than the official, a transitive verb is followed by a noun or noun phrase. These noun phrases are not called predicate nouns, but are called direct objects because they refer to the object that is being acted upon. For example, My friend read the newspaper, the teenager earned a speeding ticket. A way to identify a verb is to invert the sentence. For example, The newspaper was read by my friend, a speeding ticket was earned by the teenager. Ditransitive verbs precede either two noun phrases or a phrase and then a prepositional phrase often led by to or for. For example, The players gave their teammates high fives, the players gave high fives to their teammates. When two noun phrases follow a transitive verb, the first is an object, that which is receiving something, and the second is a direct object. Indirect objects can be noun phrases or prepositional phrases, double transitive verbs are followed by a noun phrase that serves as a direct object and then a second noun phrase, adjective, or infinitive phrase
9.
Noun
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A noun is a word that functions as the name of some specific thing or set of things, such as living creatures, objects, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas. Linguistically, a noun is a member of a large, open part of whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause. Lexical categories are defined in terms of the ways in which their members combine with other kinds of expressions, the syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns are words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives. Word classes were described by Sanskrit grammarians from at least the 5th century BC, in Yāskas Nirukta, the noun is one of the four main categories of words defined. The Ancient Greek equivalent was ónoma, referred to by Plato in the Cratylus dialog, the term used in Latin grammar was nōmen. All of these terms for noun were also words meaning name, the English word noun is derived from the Latin term, through the Anglo-Norman noun. The word classes were defined partly by the forms that they take. In Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, for example, nouns are categorized by gender and inflected for case, because adjectives share these three grammatical categories, adjectives are placed in the same class as nouns. Similarly, the Latin nōmen includes both nouns and adjectives, as originally did the English word noun, the two types being distinguished as nouns substantive and nouns adjective, many European languages use a cognate of the word substantive as the basic term for noun. Nouns in the dictionaries of languages are demarked by the abbreviation s. or sb. instead of n. which may be used for proper nouns or neuter nouns instead. In English, some authors use the word substantive to refer to a class that includes both nouns and noun phrases. It can also be used as a counterpart to attributive when distinguishing between a noun being used as the head of a phrase and a noun being used as a noun adjunct. For example, the knee can be said to be used substantively in my knee hurts. Nouns have sometimes been defined in terms of the categories to which they are subject. Such definitions tend to be language-specific, since nouns do not have the categories in all languages. Nouns are frequently defined, particularly in contexts, in terms of their semantic properties. Nouns are described as words that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, quantity, however this type of definition has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being uninformative
10.
Trio (music)
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In music, a trio is a method of instrumentation or vocalization by three different sounds or voices to make a melodious music or song. In general, trio denotes a group of three instruments or voices. The term is used to describe a composition for such a group. The most common types of compositions are the piano trio—piano, violin and cello—and the string trio—violin, viola. In vocal music, the term terzet is sometimes preferred to trio, from the 17th century onward the word trio is used to describe a contrasting second or middle dance appearing between two statements of a principal dance, such as a minuet or bourée. This second dance was called a trio from the 17th-century practice of scoring it for three instruments, for example two oboes and bassoon. Later examples continued to be referred to as trios, even when they involved a number of parts. In the 18th century, the trio was also used to describe any instrumental composition for three unaccompanied musical strands, regardless of the number of instruments actually involved. Trios for a keyboard instrument are found in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, for example his organ trios, BWV 525–30. Trio also occurs in the name for the musical form trio sonata, a trio sonata is written for two solo melodic instruments and basso continuo, making three parts in all, hence the name trio sonata. However, because the basso continuo is usually made up of at least two instruments, performances of trio sonatas typically involve at least four musicians, in rock music, bands most typically have four to five members, but there are also many three-person bands. Notable examples of trios following this pattern include Rush, The Police, Motörhead, however, there are other variations, for example Emerson, Lake & Palmer, where the guitar is replaced by a keyboard. Jimi Hendrix, although often remembered as a soloist, often performed as part of a trio, the Bee Gees were a popular trio during the Disco music era. A trio may also rely on a combination of instrumentation and vocal harmonization, crosby, Stills, & Nash began as a trio noted for their vocal congruence. Some trios rely entirely on the skills of the performers working in front of pre-recorded instrumental tracks. These include groups like Destinys Child and TLC, the New Grove Dictionary of Opera,4 vols. ISBN9780935859928, ISBN9780333485521, ISBN9780333734322, ISBN9781561592289, the Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition. Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell
11.
Quartet
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In music, a quartet or quartette is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers, or a musical composition for four voices or instruments. In Classical music, the most important combination of four instruments in music is the string quartet. String quartets most often consist of two violins, a viola, and a cello, the particular choice and number of instruments derives from the registers of the human voice, soprano, alto, tenor and bass. In the string quartet, two play the soprano and alto vocal registers, the viola plays the tenor register. The Italian composer Luigi Boccherini, wrote more than 100 string quartets, less often, string quartets are written for other combinations of the standard string ensemble. These include quartets for one violin, two violas, and one cello, notably by Carl Stamitz and others, and for one violin, one viola, another common standard classical quartet is the piano quartet, consisting of violin, viola, cello, and piano. Romantic composers Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn each wrote three important compositions in this form, and Mozart, Dvořák, and Gabriel Fauré each wrote two. Wind quartets are scored either the same as a quartet with the wind instrument replacing the first violin or are groups of four wind instruments. Among the latter, the SATB format woodwind quartet of flute, oboe, clarinet, an example of a wind quartet featuring four of the same types of wind instruments is the saxophone quartet, consisting of soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone or. Often a second alto may be substituted for the part or a bass saxophone may be substituted for the baritone. Compositions for four singers have been written for quartets a cappella, accompanied by instruments, such as a piano, Brahms and Schubert wrote numerous pieces for four voices that were once popular in private salons, although they are seldom performed today. Vocal quartets also feature within larger classical compositions, such as opera, choral works, the final movement of Beethovens Ninth Symphony and the Verdi Requiem are two examples of renowned concert works that include vocal quartets. The baroque quartet is a form of composition similar to the trio sonata. The solo instruments could be strings or wind instruments, examples of baroque quartets are Telemanns Paris quartets. Quartets are popular in jazz and jazz fusion music, jazz quartet ensembles are often composed of a horn, a chordal instrument, a bass instrument and a drum kit. This configuration is sometimes modified by using a second horn replacing the instrument, such as a trumpet and saxophone with string bass and drum kit. In 20th century Western popular music, the vocal quartet usually refers to ensembles of four singers of the same gender. This is particularly common for barbershop quartets and Gospel quartets, some well-known female US vocal quartets include The Carter Sisters, The Forester Sisters, The Chiffons, The Chordettes, The Lennon Sisters, and En Vogue
12.
Octet (music)
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In music, an octet is a musical ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or a musical composition written for such an ensemble. Octets in classical music are one of the largest groupings of chamber music,12 features the piano, together with clarinet,2 horns,2 violins, and 2 cellos. Later octets with piano were written by Ferdinand Ries, Anton Rubinstein, octets tend to be scored in one of the following arrangements, String octet – This arrangement is made up entirely of strings. Felix Mendelssohns Octet Op.20 is an example, as are the octets of George Enescu, Double quartet – Double quartets are made up of two string quartets, often arranged antiphonally. Louis Spohr composed four such octets between 1823 and 1847, taking as a model a work by Andreas Romberg, later examples in this mode include works by Nikolay Afanasyev and Mario Peragallo, as well as Darius Milhauds paired 14th and 15th String Quartets op. 291, which are composed to be playable simultaneously as an octet, Cello octet – Eight cellos, a combination popularized by Heitor Villa-Lobos in his Bachianas Brasileiras nos.1 and 5, though technically these are for cello orchestra with a minimum of eight players. Villa-Lobos also arranged three of the preludes and four fugues from Johann Sebastian Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier for this ensemble, the octets of Franz Lachner, Theodore Gouvy and Carl Reinecke are scored for flute, oboe,2 clarinets,2 horns and 2 bassoons. Igor Stravinskys Octet for wind instruments has a scoring of flute, clarinet. George Antheils Concerto for Chamber Orchestra is scored for an octet of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, horn, trumpet, Wind and string octet – a combination of forces, popularized by Franz Schubert. A number of ensembles have been formed with this instrumentation, including the Octuor de Paris, by contrast, the Octet by Louis Spohr is scored for clarinet,2 horns, violin,2 violas, cello, and double bass. Paul Hindemith wrote a less well-known piece for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, another important 20th-century octet for winds and strings is Octandre by Edgard Varèse, for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, and double bass. Alec Wilder composed a series of crossover octets between 1938 and 1940 which are scored for a quintet of woodwinds backed by a section of harpsichord, double bass. Jazz ensembles of eight players will frequently be termed an octet, the Jamil Sheriff Octet is an example of a classic octet. Ornette Colemans ensemble for the Free Jazz album is an example of two playing together at the same time. Saxophonist David Murray leads a famous experimental jazz octet, the David Murray Octet, johnson and Kai Winding occasionally featured a trombone octet, most notably on their 1956 record Jay and Kai +6. British pop group the Dooleys were an eight-member group popular in the late 1970s, british rock group Yes were an eight-member group during their Union tour in 1991. A vocal octet is a choir, or performance by a choir, of eight parts, for example. Octet Octet Silesian Guitar Octet Vocal octet OCTAVA Los Angeles Electric 8 Griffiths, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell
13.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
14.
Maria Anna Mozart
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Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, called Marianne and nicknamed Nannerl, was a musician, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and daughter of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart. Maria Anna Mozart was born in Salzburg, when she was seven years old, her father Leopold Mozart started teaching her to play the harpsichord. Leopold took her and Wolfgang on tours of cities, such as Vienna and Paris. In the early days, she received top billing, and she was noted as an excellent harpsichord player. However, given the views of her parents, prevalent in her society at the time, according to New Grove, from 1769 onwards she was no longer permitted to show her artistic talent on travels with her brother, as she had reached a marriageable age. Wolfgang went on during the 1770s to many artistic triumphs while traveling in Italy with Leopold and she likewise stayed home with Leopold when Wolfgang visited Paris and other cities accompanied by his mother. In contrast to her brother, who quarreled with their father and eventually disobeyed his wishes with respect to career path and choice of spouse, Marianne remained entirely subordinate to her father. She fell in love with Franz dIppold, who was a captain and private tutor, Wolfgang attempted, in vain, to get Marianne to stand up for her own preference. Berchtold was twice a widower and had five children from his two marriages, whom Marianne helped raise. She also bore three children of her own, Leopold Alois Pantaleon, Jeanette and Maria Babette, an unusual episode in Mariannes life occurred when she gave birth to her first child, a son who was named Leopold after his grandfather. Marianne had traveled from her home in St. Gilgen to Salzburg for the birth, when she returned to St. Gilgen, she left her infant in the care of her father and his servants. The elder Leopold stated that he would prefer to raise the child for the first few months himself, in 1786, he extended the arrangement to an indefinite term. Leopold continued to care for his grandson, taking delight in his progress, Marianne saw her son on occasional visits, but in general was not involved in his care. The arrangement continued until the death of her father, on 28 May 1787, biographers differ on what was the basis for this arrangement. Little Leopold was ill in his infancy, and perhaps needed to be kept in Salzburg for this reason, another possibility attributes the arrangement to Mariannes delicate health or her need to take care of her stepchildren. Biographer Maynard Solomon attributes the arrangement to Leopolds wish to revive his skills in training a musical genius and he also suggests that giving up her son was indicative of Mariannes total subordination to her fathers wishes. When Mozart was a toddler, Nannerl was his idol, according to Maynard Solomon, at three, Mozart was inspired to study music by observing his fathers instruction of Marianne, he wanted to be like her. The two children were close, and they invented a secret language and an imaginary Kingdom of Back of which they were king
15.
Sonata
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Sonata, in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance, by the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th-, the term sonatina, pl. sonatine, the diminutive form of sonata, is often used for a short or technically easy sonata. In the Baroque period, a sonata was for one or more instruments almost always with continuo, sonatas for a solo instrument other than keyboard have been composed, as have sonatas for other combinations of instruments. Although the four, five, or six movements of the sonata da chiesa are also most often in one key, one or two of the internal movements are sometimes in a contrasting tonality. This scheme, however, was not very defined, until the works of Arcangelo Corelli when it became the essential sonata. The sonata da camera consisted almost entirely of idealized dance-tunes, on the other hand, the features of sonata da chiesa and sonata da camera then tended to be freely intermixed. Although nearly half of Bachs 1,100 surviving compositions, arrangements and they are frequently virtuosic, and use more distant harmonic transitions and modulations than were common for other works of the time. They were admired for their variety and invention. Both the solo and trio sonatas of Vivaldi show parallels with the concerti he was writing at the same time. He composed over 70 sonatas, the majority of which are of the solo type, most of the rest are trio sonatas. The sonatas of Domenico Paradies are mild and elongated works with a graceful and this evolution stretched over fifty years. The term came to both to the structure of individual movements and to the layout of the movements in a multi-movement work. In the transition to the Classical period there were several names given to multimovement works, including divertimento, serenade, the usage of sonata as the standard term for such works began somewhere in the 1770s. Haydn labels his first piano sonata as such in 1771, after which the term divertimento is used sparingly in his output, the term sonata was increasingly applied to either a work for keyboard alone, or for keyboard and one other instrument, often the violin or cello. It was less and less frequently applied to works with more than two instrumentalists, for piano trios were not often labelled sonata for piano, violin. Initially the most common layout of movements was, Allegro, which at the time was understood to not only a tempo
16.
Variation (music)
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In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, Variation forms include ground bass, passacaglia, chaconne, and theme and variations. Ground bass, passacaglia and chaconne are typically based on brief ostinato motifs providing a repetitive harmonic basis and are typically continuous evolving structures. Theme and variation forms are based specifically on melodic variation, in which the fundamental musical idea. This form may in part have derived from the practical inventiveness of musicians, Court dances were long, Variation forms can be written as free-standing pieces for solo instruments or ensembles, or can constitute a movement of a larger piece. Most jazz music is structured on a pattern of theme. 56, Elgars Enigma Variations, Francks Variations Symphoniques, and Richard Strausss Don Quixote, both Schuberts Death and the Maiden Quartet and Trout Quintet take their titles from his songs used as variation movements. Although the first isolated example emerged in the 14th century, works in theme-and-variation form first emerge in the sixteenth century. Possibly the earliest published example is the diferencias for vihuela by Luis de Narváez, a favorite form of variations in Renaissance music was divisions, a type in which the basic rhythmic beat is successively divided into smaller and smaller values. Keyboard works in form were written by a number of 16th-century English composers, including William Byrd, Hugh Aston. Outstanding examples of early Baroque variations are the ciaccone of Claudio Monteverdi, in the Classical era, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a great number of variations, such as the first movement of his Piano Sonata in A, K.331, or the finale of his Clarinet Quintet. 103, the Drumroll, and the Variations in F minor for piano, ludwig van Beethoven wrote many variation sets in his career. Some were independent sets, for instance the Diabelli Variations, Op.120, others form single movements or parts of movements in larger works, such as first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 12, Op.26, or the variations in the movement of the Third Symphony. Variation sets also occur in several of his works, such as the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 12, Op.127, the movement of his final Piano Sonata No. 32, Op.111, and the third movement of the Ninth Symphony. Franz Schubert wrote five variation sets using his own lieder as themes, amongst them is the slow movement of his string quartet Death and the Maiden D.810, an intense set of variations on his somber lied of the same title
17.
Renaissance music
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Renaissance music is vocal and instrumental music written and performed in Europe during the Renaissance era. From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular the style of the Franco-Flemish school. The invention of the press in 1440 made it cheaper and easier to distribute music and musical theory texts on a wider geographic scale. Prior to the invention of printing, songs and music that were written down and music theory texts had to be hand-copied, demand for music as entertainment and as a leisure activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a bourgeois class. These musicians were sought throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, where churches and aristocratic courts hired them as composers, performers. This reversed the situation from a hundred years earlier, opera, a dramatic staged genre in which singers are accompanied by instruments, arose at this time in Florence. Opera was developed as an attempt to resurrect the music of ancient Greece. Music was increasingly freed from constraints, and more variety was permitted in range, rhythm, harmony, form. In the Renaissance, music became a vehicle for personal expression, composers found ways to make vocal music more expressive of the texts they were setting. Secular music absorbed techniques from sacred music, and vice versa, popular secular forms such as the chanson and madrigal spread throughout Europe. Courts employed virtuoso performers, both singers and instrumentalists, Music also became more self-sufficient with its availability in printed form, existing for its own sake. Precursor versions of familiar modern instruments developed into new forms during the Renaissance. These instruments were modified to responding to the evolution of musical ideas, Early forms of modern woodwind and brass instruments like the bassoon and trombone also appeared, extending the range of sonic color and increasing the sound of instrumental ensembles. From the Renaissance era, notated secular and sacred music survives in quantity, including vocal and instrumental works, an enormous diversity of musical styles and genres flourished during the Renaissance. These can be heard on recordings made in the 20th and 21st century, including masses, motets, madrigals, chansons, accompanied songs, instrumental dances, beginning in the late 20th century, numerous early music ensembles were formed. One of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European art music was the reliance on the interval of the third. Polyphony – the use of multiple, independent melodic lines, performed simultaneously – became increasingly elaborate throughout the 14th century, the beginning of the 15th century showed simplification, with the composers often striving for smoothness in the melodic parts. The modal characteristics of Renaissance music began to break down towards the end of the period with the use of root motions of fifths or fourths
18.
Opera
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Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing, recitative, a style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of theatre, such as acting, scenery. The performance is given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his operas in the 1760s. The first third of the 19th century saw the point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer, the mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, the 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism, Neoclassicism, and Minimalism. With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso, since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on these mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. In 2009, an opera company offered a download of a complete performance. The words of an opera are known as the libretto, some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti, others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e. g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action, in some forms of opera, such as singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, the terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below. Over the 18th century, arias were accompanied by the orchestra. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, the changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below
19.
L'Orfeo
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LOrfeo, sometimes called La favola dOrfeo, is a late Renaissance/early Baroque favola in musica, or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and it was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua. While Jacopo Peris Dafne is generally recognised as the first work in the genre. By the early 17th century the traditional intermedio—a musical sequence between the acts of a straight play—was evolving into the form of a musical drama or opera. Monteverdis LOrfeo moved this process out of its era and provided the first fully developed example of the new genre. After its initial performance the work was staged again in Mantua and its score was published by Monteverdi in 1609 and again in 1615. After the Second World War many recordings were issued, and the opera was staged in opera houses. In 2007 the quatercentenary of the premiere was celebrated by performances throughout the world, in his published score Monteverdi lists around 41 instruments to be deployed, with distinct groups of instruments used to depict particular scenes and characters. Thus strings, harpsichords and recorders represent the fields of Thrace with their nymphs and shepherds, while heavy brass illustrates the underworld. Composed at the point of transition from the Renaissance era to the Baroque, LOrfeo employs all the then known within the art of music. The work is not orchestrated as such, in the Renaissance tradition instrumentalists followed the general instructions but were given considerable freedom to improvise. Claudio Monteverdi, born in Cremona in 1567, was a prodigy who studied under MarcAntonio Ingegneri. Through ability and hard work Monteverdi rose to become Gonzagas maestro della musica in 1601, Vincenzo Gonzagas particular passion for musical theatre and spectacle grew from his family connections with the court of Florence. This work combined elements of singing and monody with dancing. These last two works were the first of many representations of the Orpheus myth as recounted in Ovids Metamorphoses. The Gonzaga court had a history of promoting dramatic entertainment. A century before Duke Vincenzos time the court had staged Angelo Polizianos lyrical drama La favola di Orfeo, on 6 October 1600, while visiting Florence for the wedding of Maria de Medici to King Henry IV of France, Duke Vincenzo attended a production of Peris Euridice. It is likely that his musicians, including Monteverdi, were also present at this performance
20.
L'incoronazione di Poppea
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One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times, the original manuscript of the score does not exist, two surviving copies from the 1650s show significant differences from each other, and each differs to some extent from the libretto. How much of the music is actually Monteverdis, and how much the product of others, is a matter of dispute. None of the versions of the libretto, printed or manuscript, can be definitively tied to the first performance at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Details of the original cast are few and largely speculative, despite these uncertainties, the work is generally accepted as part of the Monteverdi operatic canon, his last and perhaps his greatest work. In Busenellos version of the all the major characters are morally compromised. The work helped to redefine the boundaries of music and established Monteverdi as the leading musical dramatist of his time. Opera as a genre originated around the turn from the 16th to the 17th centuries. Precursors of musical drama included pastoral plays with songs and choruses, and these works, LOrfeo and LArianna, deal respectively with the Greek myths of Orpheus and Ariadne. When the first public house in the world opened in Venice in 1637, Monteverdi, by then in his 70th year. He may have influenced by the solicitations of Giacomo Badoaro. For the 1639–40 carnival season, Monteverdi revived LArianna at the Teatro San Moisè, for the following season he wrote Le nozze dEnea in Lavinia, now lost, which was performed at the third of Venices new opera theatres, Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paulo. Another wealthy poet-librettist in the Venice milieu was Giovanni Francesco Busenello and it is unclear how and when Busenello met Monteverdi, though both had served in the Gonzaga court. Ringer speculates that they drew joint inspiration from their experiences of the Gonzaga style of rule, a mixture of artistic cultivation and brutality, the main story is based on real people and events. According to the analyst Magnus Schneider, the character of Drusilla was taken from Girolamo Bargaglis 16th-century comedy The Pilgrim Woman, Busenello condensed historical events from a seven-year period into a single days action, and imposed his own sequence. He was open about his intention to adapt history for his own purposes, the libretto has survived in numerous forms—two printed versions, seven manuscript versions or fragments, and an anonymous scenario, or summary, related to the original production. One of the printed editions relates to the operas 1651 Naples revival, the manuscripts are all from the 17th century, though not all are specifically dated, some are literary versions unrelated to performances. The most significant of the copies is that discovered in Udine, Northern Italy
21.
Close and open harmony
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Close harmony is an arrangement of the notes of chords within a narrow range, usually notes that are no more than an octave apart. It is different from open harmony or voicing in that it uses each part on the closest harmonizing note, close harmony or voicing can refer to both instrumental and vocal arrangements. It can follow the standard voice-leading rules of harmony, as in string quartets or Bachs Chorales. In jazz, this influence is reflected in George Gershwins work, origins of this style of singing are found in harmonies of the 1800s in America. Early radio quartets continued this tradition, female harmonists, like the Boswell Sisters. The Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce, then became Three X Sisters, both performed and recorded this style in the 1920s, and continued this onto commercial radio of the 1930s. Close harmony singing was popular in the 1940s with Pop. The Andrews Sisters capitalized on a similar style too with Swing music, many gospel and soul groups in the 1950s and 60s also used this technique, usually 3- or 4-part SSAA or TTBB harmony with one person doing a call-and-response type lead. Examples of this are The Blind Boys of Alabama, a group that is still recording today, the folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel used close harmony, echoing their chosen role-models, The Everly Brothers. The Louvin Brothers were a duo that used close harmony in the genre of country music, barbershop can be sung by males or females. Public domain pieces, such as Sweet Adeline, and newer pieces are abundant, national organizations promote the music with local chapters in many communities. Soul and gospel groups flourished in America in the years after World War II, building on the foundation of blues, 1930s gospel songs and big band music. As noted above, they used the more traditional TTBB or SSAA 4-part structure, but with heavy use of solos and call-and-response. These groups sometimes sang a cappella but also used more instrumental backing, Pop music and doo-wop can be seen as a commercialization of this genre. In music, block harmony is close position harmonization, and contrasted with open harmony
22.
Gioachino Rossini
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Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote operas, as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music and piano pieces. A precocious composer of operas, he made his debut at the age of eighteen. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia, Litaliana in Algeri and he also wrote a string of serious operas in Italian, including works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. The semi-serious opera La Gazza Ladra has one of Rossinis most celebrated overtures, after moving to Paris in 1824, he eventually started to write in French. His last opera, the epic Guillaume Tell, replete with its iconic overture, after composing thirty-nine significant operas in nineteen years Rossini retired from the theatre in 1829. Later, he was affected by physical and mental illnesses and for decades wrote relatively little apart from a setting of the Stabat Mater. A return to Paris from Italy in 1855 was followed by better health, during these, he presented salon music in the form of songs, piano pieces and small chamber ensembles that he called Sins of Old Age. He considered the last of these Sins to be the unusually scored Petite messe solennelle that he wrote in 1863, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history, and he was one of the most renowned public figures of his time. A rapid and prolific composer, he was quoted as joking, Give me the laundress bill, a tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, earning him the nickname The Italian Mozart. Use of a build up of orchestral sound over a repeated phrase—commonly known as a Rossini crescendo—also prompted the nickname Signor Crescendo. Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro and his father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a bakers daughter, Rossinis father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleons troops when they arrived in northern Italy. When Austria restored the old regime, Rossinis father was sent to prison in 1799, Rossinis mother took him to Bologna, making a living as leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region. Her husband would ultimately join her in Bologna, during this time, Rossini was frequently left in the care of his aging grandmother, who had difficulty supervising the boy. He remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher while his father played the horn in the orchestras of the theatres at which his wife sang and these qualities made him a subject for ridicule in the eyes of the young Rossini. He was eventually taken from Prinetti and apprenticed to a blacksmith, in Angelo Tesei, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important products of this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, the original scores, dating from 1804 when the composer was twelve, were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D. C. In 1805, he appeared at the theatre of the Commune in Ferdinando Paers Camilla and he was also a capable horn player, treading in the footsteps of his father
23.
Vincenzo Bellini
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Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named the Swan of Catania. Other sources of information come from correspondence saved by other friends, C Bellini was the quintessential composer of the Italian bel canto era of the early 19th century, and his work has been summed up by the London critic Tim Ashley as. Also hugely influential, as much admired by composers as he was by the public. Verdi raved about his long, long, long melodies, wagner, who rarely liked anyone but himself, was spellbound by Bellinis almost uncanny ability to match music with text and psychology. Liszt and Chopin professed themselves fans, of the 19th-century giants, only Berlioz demurred. Those musicologists who consider Bellini to be merely a melancholic tunesmith are now in the minority, the genuine triumph of I puritani in January 1835 in Paris capped a significant career. Certainly, Capuleti, La sonnambula, Norma, and I puritani are regularly performed today, only nine months later, Bellini died in Puteaux, France at the age of 33. Born in Catania, at the part of the Kingdom of Sicily. His grandfather, Vincenzo Tobia Bellini, had studied at the conservatory in Naples and, in Catania from 1767 forward, had been an organist and teacher, as had Vincenzos father, by the age of five, he could apparently play marvelously. The document states that Bellinis first five pieces were composed when he was just six years old and at seven he was taught Latin, modern languages, rhetoric, and philosophy. Author Herbert Weinstock regards some of these accounts as no more than myths, not being supported from other, additionally, he makes the point in regard to Bellinis apparent knowledge of languages and philosophy, Bellini never became a well-educated man. After 1816, Bellini began living with his grandfather, from whom he received his first music lessons, soon after, the young composer began to write compositions. Among them were the nine Versetti da cantarsi il Venerdi Santo, by 1818, Bellini had independently completed several additional orchestral pieces. He was ready for further study, for well-off students, this would include moving to Naples. While his family wasnt wealthy enough to support that lifestyle, Bellinis growing reputation could not be overlooked and his break came when Stefano Notabartolo, the duca di San Martino e Montalbo and his duchess, became the new intendente of the province of Catania. They encouraged the man to petition the city fathers for a stipend to support his musical studies. This was successfully achieved in May 1819 with unanimous agreement for a pension to allow him to study at the Real Collegio di Musica di San Sebastiano in Naples. The young Bellini was to live in Naples for the eight years
24.
Gaetano Donizetti
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Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, Donizetti was a composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century. Donizettis close association with the bel canto style was undoubtedly an influence on composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy, there he received detailed training in the arts of fugue and counterpoint. Over the course of his career, Donizetti wrote almost 70 operas, in all, Naples presented 51 of Donizettis operas. Before 1830, success came primarily with his operas, the serious ones failing to attract significant audiences. However, his first notable success came with an opera seria, Zoraida di Granata, significant historical dramas did appear and became successful, they included Lucia di Lammermoor given in Naples in 1835, and one of the most successful Neapolitan operas, Roberto Devereux in 1837. Up to that point, all of his operas had been set to Italian libretti, Donizetti found himself increasingly chafing against the censorial limitations which existed in Italy. From about 1836, he interested in working in Paris. The first opera was a French version of the then-unperformed Poliuto which, two new operas were also given in Paris at that time. As the 1840s progressed, Donizetti moved regularly between Naples, Rome, Paris, and Vienna continuing to compose and stage his own operas as well as those of other composers, but from around 1843, severe illness began to take hold and to limit his activities. Eventually, by early 1846 he was obliged to be confined to an institution for the ill and, by late 1847, friends had him moved back to Bergamo. The youngest of three sons, Donizetti was born in 1797 in Bergamos Borgo Canale quarter located just outside the city walls and his family was very poor and had no tradition of music, his father Andrea being the caretaker of the town pawnshop. Simone Mayr, a German composer of internationally successful operas, had become maestro di cappella at Bergamos principal church in 1802, in 1807, Andrea Donizetti attempted to enroll both his sons, but the elder, Giuseppe, was considered too old. He remained there for nine years, until 1815, however, as Donizetti scholar William Ashbrook notes, in 1809 he was threatened with having to leave because his voice was changing. In 1810 he applied for and was accepted by the art school, the Academia Carrara. Then, in 1811, Mayr once again intervened, as Ashbrook states, this was nothing less than Mayrs argument that Donizetti be allowed to continue his musical studies. The piece was performed on 13 September 1811 and included the character stating the following, Ah, by Bacchus
25.
Giuseppe Verdi
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Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian opera composer. Verdi was born near Busseto to a family of moderate means. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini, whose works influenced him. In his early operas Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy and he also participated briefly as an elected politician. He surprised the world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida. The baptismal register, prepared on 11 October 1813, lists his parents Carlo, additionally, it lists Verdi as being born yesterday, but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. Verdi himself, following his mother, always celebrated his birthday on 9 October, Verdi had a younger sister, Giuseppa, who died aged 17 in 1833. From the age of four, Verdi was given lessons in Latin and Italian by the village schoolmaster, Baistrocchi. After learning to play the organ, he showed so much interest in music that his parents provided him with a spinet. Verdis gift for music was apparent by 1820–21 when he began his association with the local church, serving in the choir, acting as an altar boy for a while. After Baistrocchis death, Verdi, at the age of eight, Carlo Verdi was energetic in furthering his sons education. something which Verdi tended to hide in later life. He picture emerges of youthful precocity eagerly nurtured by a father and of a sustained, sophisticated. Verdi returned to Busseto regularly to play the organ on Sundays, at age 11, Verdi received schooling in Italian, Latin, the humanities, and rhetoric. By the time he was 12, he began lessons with Ferdinando Provesi, maestro di cappella at San Bartolomeo, director of the music school. This information comes from the Autobiographical Sketch which Verdi dictated to the publisher Giulio Ricordi late in life, in 1879, written, understandably, with the benefit of hindsight, it is not always reliable when dealing with issues more contentious than those of his childhood. The other director of the Philharmonic Society was Antonio Barezzi, a grocer and distiller. The young Verdi did not immediately become involved with the Philharmonic, by June 1827, he had graduated with honours from the Ginnasio and was able to focus solely on music under Provesi. By 1829–30, Verdi had established himself as a leader of the Philharmonic, none of us could rival him reported the secretary of the organisation, Giuseppe Demaldè
26.
Arrigo Boito
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Along with Emilio Praga, and his own brother Camillo Boito he is regarded as one of the prominent representatives of the Scapigliatura artistic movement. His older brother, Camillo Boito, was an Italian architect and engineer, in 1866 he fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Seven Weeks War in which the Kingdom of Italy and Prussia fought against Austria, after which Venice was ceded to Italy. Between 1887 and 1894, he had an affair with celebrated actress Eleonora Duse and their relationship was carried out in a highly clandestine manner, presumably because of Boitos many aristocratic friends and acquaintances. The two remained on good terms until his death, towards the end of his musical career, Boito succeeded Giovanni Bottesini as director of the Parma Conservatory after the latters death in 1889 and held the post until 1897. He received the degree of doctor of music from the University of Cambridge in 1893, and when he died in Milan. A memorial concert was given in his honor at La Scala in 1948, the orchestra was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Recorded in very primitive sound, the concert has been issued on CD. Boito wrote very little music, but completed the opera, Ero e Leandro, and left incomplete a further opera, Nerone, which he had been working at, on and off, between 1877 and 1915. Excluding its last act, for which Boito left only a few sketches, Nerone was finished after his death by Arturo Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini and he also left a Symphony in A minor in manuscript. Mefistofele His only finished opera, Mefistofele, based on Goethes Faust, was given its first performance on 5 March 1868, at La Scala, Milan. The premiere, which he conducted himself, was received, provoking riots and duels over its supposed Wagnerism. Boitos revised and drastically cut version also changed Faust from a baritone to a tenor, Mefistofele is the only work of his performed with any regularity today, and Enrico Caruso included its two tenor arias in his first recording session. The Prologue to the opera, set in Heaven, is a favorite concert excerpt, librettos Boitos literary powers never dried up. As well as writing the libretti for his own operas, he wrote them for other composers, as Tobia Gorrio he provided the libretto for Amilcare Ponchiellis La Gioconda. The revised Boccanegra premiered to acclaim in 1881. With that, their friendship and respect blossomed. After their years of association, when Verdi died in 1901. The years given are those of the premieres, Boito also provided the text to Verdis cantata Inno delle Nazioni which was first given on 24 May 1862 at Her Majestys Theatre, London
27.
Giacomo Puccini
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Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian opera composer who has been called the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi. Puccinis early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera, later, he successfully developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. Puccinis most renowned works are La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca in Tuscany, in 1858. He was one of nine children of Michele Puccini and Albina Magi, the Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musical dynasty by Puccinis great-great grandfather – also named Giacomo. This first Giacomo Puccini was maestro di cappella of the Cattedrale di San Martino in Lucca and he was succeeded in this position by his son, Antonio Puccini, and then by Antonios son Domenico, and Domenicos son Michele. Each of these men studied music at Bologna, and some additional musical studies elsewhere. Domenico Puccini studied for a time under Giovanni Paisiello, each composed music for the church. In addition, Domenico composed several operas, and Michele composed one opera, Puccinis father Michele enjoyed a reputation throughout northern Italy, and his funeral was an occasion of public mourning, at which the then-famed composer Giovanni Pacini conducted a Requiem. However, when Michele Puccini died in 1864, his son Giacomo was only six years old, as a child, he nevertheless participated in the musical life of the Cattedrale di San Martino, as a member of the boys choir and later as a substitute organist. Puccini was given an education at the seminary of San Michele in Lucca. One of Puccinis uncles, Fortunato Magi, supervised his musical education, Puccini got a diploma from the Pacini School of Music in Lucca in 1880, having studied there with his uncle Fortunato, and later with Carlo Angeloni, who had also instructed Alfredo Catalani. Puccini studied at the conservatory for three years, sharing a room with Pietro Mascagni, in 1880, at the age of 21, Puccini composed his Mass, which marks the culmination of his familys long association with church music in his native Lucca. Puccini wrote a piece called the Capriccio sinfonica as a thesis composition for the Milan Conservatory. Puccinis teachers Ponchielli and Bazzini were impressed by the work, and it was performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883, conducted by Franco Faccio. Puccinis work was reviewed in the Milanese publication Perseveranza. After the premiere of the Capriccio sinfonica, Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccinis next work might be an opera, Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa, where Puccini was introduced to another young man named Fernando Fontana. Puccini and Fontana agreed to collaborate on an opera, for which Fontana would provide the libretto, the work, Le Villi, was entered into a competition sponsored by the Sozogno music publishing company in 1883. Although it did not win, Le Villi was later staged at the Teatro Dal Verme, G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers assisted with the premier by printing the libretto without charge
28.
Pietro Mascagni
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Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria Rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history, Mascagni said that at one point, Iris was performed in Italy more often than Cavalleria. Mascagni wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, as well as songs and he enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, both as a composer and conductor of his own and other peoples music. Mascagni was born in Livorno, Tuscany, the son of Domenico. His father owned and operated a bakery, giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti was born the same year in the same city and became Mascagnis lifelong friend and collaborator. In 1876, at the age of 13, Mascagni began musical studies with Alfredo Soffredini, the older man had just completed his musical studies in Milan. Also a native of Livorno, Soffredini was a composer, teacher, the youth started composing rapidly, and between 1879 and 1880, he composed several works, Sinfonia in do minore, Prima sinfonia in fa maggiore, Elegia, Kyrie, Gloria and Ave Maria. The premiere of Mascagnis first cantata, In Filanda, took place at the Istituto Cherubini on 9 February 1881, performed at a musical contest in Milan, the cantata won the first prize. In the same year Mascagni met the musicians Arrigo Boito and Amilcare Ponchielli in Milan, in 1882, he composed his Cantata alla gioia from a text by Gustav Schiller, followed by La stella di Garibaldi for voice and piano, and La tua stella. On 6 May Mascagni left Livorno for Milan and he passed the admission examination of the Milan Conservatory on 12 October. In Milan, Mascagni met the noted composer Giacomo Puccini, on 9 January 1883, Mascagnis sister, Maria, died. The cantata In Filanda became Pinotta, and was proposed for the musical contest of the Conservatorio, in 1884, he composed Ballata for tenor and piano, Mama non mama, scherzo for soprano and piano, Messagio damore, and Alla luna. In 1885, Mascagni composed Il Re a Napoli in Cremona and he left Milan without completing his studies. That year, he began touring as a conductor in the companies of Vittorio Forlì, Alfonso and Ciro Scognamiglio, and, in Genova. Mascagni met the impresario Luigi Maresca in 1886 and started working with him and that December, Mascagni arrived in Cerignola with Marescas company. He was accompanied by Argenide Marcellina Carbognani, his future wife, helped by the mayor Giuseppe Cannone, Mascagni soon left the company of Maresca, not without problems. He was appointed as the master of music and singing of the new philharmonia of Cerignola, in February 1888, he began work on the Messa di Gloria. In July, Casa Sonzogno announced in the Teatro Illustrato its second competition for a one-act opera, the following year, Mascagni completed his composition of Cavalleria rusticana on 27 May and sent the manuscript to Milan
29.
Johnny Cash
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Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He is widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and one of the music artists of all time. Although primarily remembered as an music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll and he traditionally began his concerts with the simple Hello, Im Johnny Cash, followed by his signature Folsom Prison Blues. Much of Cashs music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption and his signature songs include I Walk the Line, Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, Get Rhythm, and Man in Black. During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late 20th-century rock artists, notably Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, Cash was born on February 26,1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas, one of seven children born to Ray Cash and Carrie Cloveree. He was mostly of Scottish and English ancestry, and as an adult traced his surname to 11th-century Fife, Scotland, after meeting with the then-laird of Falkland, Fife, Cash Loch and other locations in Fife bear the name of his family. At birth, Cash was named J. R. Cash, when Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force, he was not permitted to use initials as a first name, so he changed his name to John R. Cash. In 1955, when signing with Sun Records, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name, the Cash children were, Roy, Margaret Louise, Jack, J. R. Reba, Joanne, and Tommy. Tommy Cash also became a country artist. In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family settled in Dyess, Arkansas and he started working in cotton fields at age five, singing along with his family while working. The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which inspired him to write the song Five Feet High and Rising. His familys economic and personal struggles during the Great Depression inspired many of his songs, Cash was very close to his older brother, Jack. In May 1944, Jack was pulled into a head saw in the mill where he worked and was almost cut in two. He suffered for over a week before he died on May 20,1944, Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident. Jack insisted on working, as the family needed the money, on his deathbed, Jack said he had visions of Heaven and angels. Decades later, Cash spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in Heaven, Cashs early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught guitar by his mother and a friend, Cash began playing and writing songs at the age of twelve
30.
June Carter Cash
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Valerie June Carter Cash was an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, comedian, and author who was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Prior to her marriage to Cash, she was known as June Carter. She played the guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, Carter Cash won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2009. She was ranked number 31 in CMTs 40 Greatest Women in Country Music in 2003, June Carter Cash was born Valerie June Carter in Maces Spring, Virginia, to Maybelle Carter and Ezra Carter. She was born into country music and performed with the Carter Family from the age of 10, the new group first aired on radio station WRNL in Richmond, Virginia, on June 1. Doc and Carl —Maybelles brother and cousin, respectively, known as The Virginia Boys, joined them in late 1945. June, then 16, was a co-announcer with Ken Allyn and did the commercials on the shows for Red Star Flour, Martha White. For the next year, the Carters and Doc and Carl did show dates within driving range of Richmond, through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, June later said she had to work harder at her music than her sisters, but she had her own special talent—comedy. A highlight of the shows was her Aunt Polly comedy routine. Carl McConnell wrote in his memoirs that June was a natural-born clown and she attended John Marshall High School during this period. After Doc and Carl dropped out of the business in late 1946, Maybelle. After a while there, they moved to WNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1949, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, with their lead guitarist, Atkins, were living in Springfield, Missouri, and performing regularly at KWTO. Atkins reputation as a player had begun to spread. Finally, in 1950, Opry management relented and the group, along with Atkins, here the family befriended Hank Williams and Elvis Presley, and June met Johnny Cash. June and her sisters, with mother Maybelle and aunt Sara joining in time to time. With her thin and lanky frame, June Carter often played a comedic foil during the groups performances alongside other Opry stars Faron Young and Webb Pierce. While June Carter Cash may be best known for singing and songwriting, she was also an author, dancer, actress, comedian, philanthropist, director Elia Kazan saw her perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and encouraged her to study acting. She studied with Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, June was also Momma James in The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James
31.
Baby, It's Cold Outside
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Baby, Its Cold Outside is a song written by Frank Loesser in 1944. Originally recorded for the film Neptunes Daughter, it has been recorded by artists since its original release, including Ray Charles, Dolly Parton. Loesser would introduce himself as the Evil of Two Loessers, a play on the theme of the song, trying to keep the girl from leaving and this was a period when the Hollywood elites chief entertainment was throwing parties and inviting guests who were expected to perform. Garland wrote that after the first performance, We become instant parlor room stars and we got invited to all the best parties for years on the basis of Baby. It was our ticket to caviar and truffles, parties were built around our being the closing act. Garland considered it their song and was furious when Loesser told her he was selling the song, garland wrote, I felt as betrayed as if Id caught him in bed with another woman. The mouse wants to stay and enjoy herself, but feels obligated to return home, worried what family, every line in the song features a statement from the mouse followed by a response from the wolf, which is musically known as a call and response song. Although some critical analyses of the song have highlighted parts of the such as Whats in this drink. Was a common idiom of the used to rebuke social expectations by blaming ones actions on the influence of alcohol. In 1948, after years of performing the song at various parties, Loesser sold the rights to MGM. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song, in at least one published version the tempo of the song is given as Loesserando, a humorous reference to the composers name. The following versions were recorded in 1949, The recording by Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark was recorded on March 17 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6,1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.4. The recording by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer was recorded on March 18 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6,1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.4. The recording by Don Cornell and Laura Leslie with the Sammy Kaye orchestra was recorded on April 12 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on June 24,1949, and lasted 10 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.13. The recording by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan was recorded on April 28 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on June 17,1949, and lasted seven weeks on the chart, peaking at No.17. A parody recording was made by Homer and Jethro with June Carter, it went to No.9 on the country charts, Baby, Its Cold Outside has been recorded by numerous other artists over the years. At least five different versions of the song have made at least one singles chart in the United States,120 on the Billboard 2002013, Jimmy Fallon and Cecily Strong on Saturday Night Live. The song begins in the manner, but after sex, roles reverse
32.
Esther Williams
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Esther Jane Williams was an American competitive swimmer and actress. Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team. While in the city, she spent five months swimming alongside Olympic gold medal winner and Tarzan star, Williams caught the attention of MGM scouts at the Aquacade. From 1945 to 1949, Williams had at least one listed among the 20 highest-grossing films of the year. In 1952, Williams appeared in her only role, as Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman in Million Dollar Mermaid. Williams was also a successful businesswoman, even before retiring as an actress, she invested in a service station, a metal products plant, a manufacturer of bathing suits, various properties and a successful restaurant chain known as Trails. Born in Inglewood, California, on August 8,1921, Williams was the fifth and youngest child of Louis Stanton Williams, Louis was a sign painter and Bula was a psychologist. The two lived on neighboring farms in Kansas and carried on a nine-year courtship until June 1,1908, however, they ran out of money in Salt Lake City, Utah, and settled there. Esthers brother, Stanton was discovered by actress Marjorie Rambeau, which led to the moving to the Los Angeles area to be near the studios. Louis Williams purchased a piece of land in the southwest area of town. Esther was born in the room, which was also where the family slept. In 1929, Stanton Williams died after his colon burst, in 1935, Bula Myrtle Williams invited 16-year-old Buddy McClure to live with her family. McClure had recently lost his mother and Bula was still grieving over the death of her son, Esther recounted in her autobiography that one night, when the rest of the family was visiting relatives in Alhambra, McClure raped her. She was terrified to tell anyone about the incident and waited two years before revealing the truth to her parents. Williams mother seemed unsure about her story, claiming McClure was sensitive and was sympathetic towards him when he admitted his guilt, Bula Williams then banished him from her home, McClure joined the Coast Guard, and Williams never saw him again. Williams was enthusiastic about swimming in her youth and her older sister, Maurine, took her to Manhattan Beach and to the local pool. She took a job counting towels at the pool to pay the five cent entry fee, from them, she learned the male only swimming strokes, including the butterfly, with which she would later break records.0 seconds. By age 16, Williams had won three US national championships in breaststroke and freestyle swimming, Williams graduated from Washington High School in Los Angeles,1939, where she served as class Vice President, and later President
33.
Red Skelton
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Richard Bernard Red Skelton was an American entertainer. He was best known for his radio and television acts between 1937 and 1971, and as host of the television program The Red Skelton Show. Skelton began developing his comedic and pantomime skills from the age of 10 and he then spent time on a showboat, worked the burlesque circuit, then entered into vaudeville in 1934. The Doughnut Dunkers, a sketch of how different people ate doughnuts written by Skelton and his wife launched a career for him in vaudeville, in radio. Skeltons radio career began in 1937 with a guest appearance on The Fleischmanns Yeast Hour which led to his becoming the host of Avalon Time in 1938. He became the host of The Raleigh Cigarette Program in 1941 where many of his characters were created and had a regularly scheduled radio program until 1957. Skelton made his debut in 1938 alongside Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks. He was most eager to work in television, even when the medium was in its infancy, the Red Skelton Show made its television premiere on September 30,1951, on NBC. By 1954, Skeltons program moved to CBS, where it was expanded to one hour, despite high ratings, his television show was cancelled by CBS in 1970 as the network believed more youth-oriented programs were needed to attract younger viewers and their spending power. Skelton moved his program to NBC, where he completed his last year with a regularly scheduled show in 1971. After he no longer had a program, Skeltons time was spent making up to 125 personal appearances a year. Skeltons artwork of clowns remained a hobby until 1964 when his wife, Georgia, sales of his originals were successful and Skelton also sold prints and lithographs of them, earning $2.5 million yearly on lithograph sales. At the time of his death, his art dealer believed that Skelton had earned money through his paintings than from his television work. Skelton believed his lifes work was to make people laugh, he wanted to be known as a clown because he defined it as being able to do everything and he had a 70-year career as a performer and entertained three generations of Americans during this time. Born on July 18,1913, in Vincennes, Indiana, Richard Skelton was the fourth and youngest son of Ida Mae, Joseph, a grocer, died two months before Richard was born, he had once been a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. During Skeltons lifetime there was some dispute about the year of his birth, author Wesley Hyatt suggests that since he began working at such an early age, Skelton may have claimed he was older than he actually was in order to gain employment. Because of the loss of his father, Skelton went to work as early as the age of seven, selling newspapers and doing odd jobs to help his family. He quickly learned the newsboys patter and would keep it up until a prospective buyer bought a copy of the paper just to quiet him, when the man asked Skelton what events were going on in town, Skelton suggested he see the new show in town
34.
Betty Garrett
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Elizabeth Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedian, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While there, she appeared in musical films before returning to Broadway. Later, she became known for the roles she played in two prominent 1970s sitcoms, Archie Bunkers liberal neighbor Irene Lorenzo in All in the Family and landlady Edna Babish in Laverne & Shirley. In later years, Garrett appeared in series such as Greys Anatomy, Boston Public and Becker as well as in several Broadway plays. Garrett was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the daughter of Elizabeth Octavia, shortly after her birth, her parents relocated to Seattle, Washington, where her mother managed the sheet music department at Sherman Clay, and her father worked as a traveling salesman. His alcoholism and inability to handle finances eventually led to their divorce, when Garrett was eight years old, her mother married the fiancé she had jilted in order to marry Curtis. They settled in Regina, Saskatchewan, where her new stepfather worked in the packing industry. A year later her mother discovered her new husband was involved in a relationship with his male assistant. After graduating from grammar school, Garrett enrolled at the Annie Wright School in Tacoma. There was no drama department there, and she frequently organized musical productions, following her senior year performance in Twelfth Night, the bishop urged her to pursue a career on the stage. Garrett and her mother arrived in Manhattan in the summer of 1936 and she felt she was destined to be a dramatic actress and shied away from playing comedic roles. It was during this period she joined the Communist Party and began performing at fundraisers for progressive causes. Garrett made her Broadway debut in 1942 in the revue Of V We Sing and it closed after only eight performances, but producer Mike Todd saw it and signed her to understudy Ethel Merman and play a small role in the 1943 Cole Porter musical Something for the Boys. Merman became ill during the run, allowing Garrett to play the lead for a week, during this time she was seen by producer Vinton Freedley, who cast her in Jackpot, a Vernon Duke/Howard Dietz musical also starring Nanette Fabray and Allan Jones. The show closed quickly, and Garrett began touring the country with her nightclub act, after appearing on Broadway in Laffing Room Only, which closed there, Garrett traveled with the show as it played extended runs in Detroit and Chicago. After that she returned to New York and was cast in Call Me Mister, which reunited her with Harold Rome, Lehman Engel and she won critical acclaim and the Donaldson Award for her performance, which prompted Al Hirschfeld to caricature her in the New York Times. It led to her being signed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer renewed her contract and she appeared in the musicals Words and Music, On the Town, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and Neptunes Daughter in quick succession
35.
Dream a Little Dream of Me
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Dream a Little Dream of Me is a song, from circa 1931, with music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt and lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was first recorded in February 1931 by Ozzie Nelson and also by Wayne King and His Orchestra, with vocal by Ernie Birchill. A popular standard, it has more than 60 other versions recorded. Dream a Little Dream of Me was recorded by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra, two days later, Wayne King and His Orchestra, with vocal by Ernie Birchill, recorded the song for Victor Records. Dream a Little Dream of Me was also a signature tune of Kate Smith. Other traditional pop acts to record Dream a Little Dream of Me include Louis Armstrong, Barbara Carroll, Nat King Cole, Doris Day, Joni James, and Dean Martin. The song was recorded in 1968 by Mama Cass Elliot with The Mamas & the Papas. More than 40 other versions followed, including by the Mills Brothers, Sylvie Vartan, Henry Mancini, The Beautiful South, Anne Murray, Erasure, Michael Bublé, and Italian vocal group Blue Penguin. Dream a Little Dream of Me was recorded for the Mamas & the Papas April 1968 album release The Papas & The Mamas, Mama Cass Elliot suggested to group leader John Phillips that the group record Dream a Little Dream of Me. According to him she was unhappy while recording the song, objecting to its campiness, however, Elliot herself would later tell Melody Maker, I tried to sing it like it was 1943 and somebody had just come in and said, Heres a new song. I tried to sing it as if it were the first time, in the album version, recorded with the Mamas and the Papas, a spoken introduction from an engineer is heard mentioning a drink, and then concluding with the words, And now introducing, Mama Cass. Only the last part was heard on the version of the song. Cass did her own whistling, which is heard before the songs fade, by the time of the albums release, there were strong indications that the Mamas & the Papas were set to disband, a perception strengthened by the failure of the lead single Safe in My Garden. The Billboard Easy Listening chart ranked the single as high as #2, in the UK Dream a Little Dream of Me reached #11 that September, the track also afforded Mama Cass a hit in Ireland and South Africa. In Australia the Go-Set Top 40 chart ranked Dream a Little Dream of Me at #1 for the weeks of 4 &11 September 1968, in Australia the song spent two weeks at #1, and was the 16th biggest hit of 1968. A slightly different version of Dream a Little Dream of Me was included on Elliots solo debut album, Both Casss and Harriss versions of the song have an inaccurate rendering of the middle eight bars. English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams recorded Dream a Little Dream of Me for his studio and second swing album. While the album version is a duet with Lily Allen, she was omitted from the single version, the video features Williams singing the song whilst presenting a Christmas show in the style of The Dean Martin Show
36.
Louis Armstrong
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Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo or Satch, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s and he was also skilled at scat singing. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to cross over and he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were restricted for black men of his era. Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4,1900, although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date, August 4,1901, was discovered by the researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He spent his youth in poverty, in a neighborhood known as the Battlefield. His father, William Armstrong, abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and his mother, Mary Mayann Albert, then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins, in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times his uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother, her relatives and he attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille, after dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble, Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong to play by ear at Dago Tonys Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. It has given me something to live for and he also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk-hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family, knowing he lived without a father and he later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La. the Year of 1907. Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them, how to live—real life, professor Peter Davis instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader, the home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new stepmother, Gertrude, Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponces, where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night, later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as going to the University, in 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Orys band, Armstrong replaced him
37.
Ella Fitzgerald
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Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, Fitzgeralds rendition of the nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. Taking over the band after Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start a career that would last effectively the rest of her life. With Verve she recorded some of her more noted works. These partnerships produced recognizable songs like Dream a Little Dream of Me, Cheek to Cheek, Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall, in 1993, Fitzgerald capped off her sixty-year career with her last public performance. Three years later, she died at the age of 79, Fitzgerald was born on April 25,1917, in Newport News, Virginia, the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance Tempie Fitzgerald. Her parents were unmarried but lived together for at least two and a years after she was born. Initially living in a room, her mother and Da Silva soon found jobs. Her half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923, by 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to nearby School Street, then a predominantly poor Italian area. She began her education at the age of six and proved to be an outstanding student. Fitzgerald had been passionate about dancing from third grade, being a fan of Earl Snakehips Tucker in particular, Fitzgerald and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday school. The church provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in music making. During this period Fitzgerald listened to recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby. Fitzgerald idolized the Boswell Sisters lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, My mother brought home one of her records, in 1932, her mother died from serious injuries she received in a car accident when Fitzgerald was 15 years of age. This left her at first in the care of her stepfather but before the end of April 1933, following these traumas, Fitzgerald began skipping school and letting her grades suffer. During this period she worked at times as a lookout at a bordello, Ella Fitzgerald never talked publicly about this time in her life. When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, in the Bronx. However, when the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, eventually she escaped and for a time she was homeless
38.
I Got You Babe
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I Got You Babe is a song written by Sonny Bono. It was the first single taken from the studio album Look at Us. In August 1965, their single spent three weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States where it more than 1 million copies and was certified Gold. It also reached number 1 in the United Kingdom and Canada, a 1993 version by Cher with Beavis and Butt-Head bubbled under the Hot 100 chart. Sonny Bono, a songwriter and record producer for Phil Spector, wrote the lyrics to and composed the music of the song for himself and his then-wife, Cher, session drummer Hal Blaine played drums for the song with other members of The Wrecking Crew supplying instrumental support. I Got You Babe became the duos biggest single, their song. AllMusic critic William Ruhmann praised the song, Recalling Dylans bitter 1964 song It Aint Me Babe, Bono wrote his own opposite sentiment, set to waltz time, the tune retained a light feel despite the sometimes busy instrumentation, led by a prominent oboe. These effects are part of the instrumental arrangement by African-American musician Harold Battiste. The alternating vocals alternate between the two singers and if neither were interesting singers, their plodding, matter-of-fact performances gave the song a common-man appeal, bruce Eder highlighted the song on their 1965 Look at Us album. In the United States, the song has more than 1 million copies in 1965 and was certified Gold by the RIAA. As of November 2011, Billboard reported the sales of I Got You Babe to be 372,000 in the US. In 2011, the song was named as one of the greatest duets of all times by both Billboard and Rolling Stone magazine and it was also listed at #444 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004. In early 2017 the song has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Sonny and Cher last performed the song together during an impromptu reunion on NBCs Late Night with David Letterman on November 13,1987. Cher performed the song with R. E. M. on February 14,2002 and it was her first performance of the song without Sonny. During Chers 2014 Dressed to Kill Tour using left behind vocals, I Got You Babe has been frequently featured in film and television, including Sonny and Chers own The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. The song made a bit of a comeback when it was used repeatedly as Phil Connors alarm clock wake-up music in the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, on re-release, the single re-charted in the UK, reaching number 66. Other films have used the song including Good Times which stars Sonny & Cher, Buster, Look Whos Talking Too, Just Visiting, Me Without You, Riding in Cars with Boys, and Jack and Jill
39.
Sonny & Cher
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Sonny & Cher were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple started their career in the mid-1960s as R&B backing singers for record producer Phil Spector, the pair first achieved fame with two hit songs in 1965, Baby Dont Go and I Got You Babe. Signing with Atco/Atlantic Records, they released three albums in the late 1960s, as well as the soundtrack recording for an unsuccessful movie. In 1972, after four years of silence, the returned to the studio. In the 1970s, they positioned themselves as media personalities with two top ten TV shows in the US, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Sonny & Cher Show. The couples career as a duo ended in 1975 following their divorce, in the decade they spent together, Sonny and Cher sold over 40 million records worldwide. Performing under her first name, Cher went on to a successful career as a solo singer and actress. The two performers were inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998, following Sonnys death in a skiing accident, cherilyn Sarkisian first met Salvatore Bono in a Los Angeles coffee shop in November 1962, when she was sixteen. Eleven years her senior, Bono was working for record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, the two became best friends, eventual lovers, and were supposedly married in 1964, but Bono says in his autobiography that it was not an official marriage. In the composition by Darlene Love, the listener can clearly hear Cher, with Bono continuing to write, arrange and produce the songs, the couples first incarnation was as the duo Caesar and Cleo. They received little attention, despite releasing some singles in 1964, The Letter, with Vault Records, in September 1964, they released Baby Dont Go under the name of Sonny & Cher, which became their first regional hit. The song was included on the 1965 Reprise compilation Baby Dont Go – Sonny & Cher and Friends. The duo released their first album Look at Us in the summer of 1965, the album contained the eventual number-one single I Got You Babe. Look at Us sold briskly, peaking at two on the Billboard chart for eight weeks in the later part of 1965. Ready Steady Go. and Top of the Pops and they also appeared as themselves in the film Wild on the Beach, singing Its Gonna Rain. On their first album Bono also displayed his political interest long before running for Congress in the lyrics of the song, The Revolution Kind. As the followup to the success of Look at Us, they released their studio album in April 1966, The Wondrous World of Sonny & Chér. The couple also traveled and performed around the world, and tickets were some of the hottest at the time, fans lined up to buy Sonny and Cher tickets for their first tour, the Wondrous World Tour
40.
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
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Aint No Mountain High Enough is an R&B/soul song written by Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson in 1966 for the Tamla label, a division of Motown. The composition was first successful as a 1967 hit single recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, the song became Ross first solo number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award. The song was written by Ashford and Simpson prior to joining Motown, british soul singer Dusty Springfield wanted to record the song but the duo declined, hoping it would give them access to the Detroit-based label. As Valerie Simpson later recalled, We played that song for her but wouldnt give it to her and we felt like that could be our entry to Motown. Nick called it the golden egg, Dusty recorded a similar verse melody in Im Gonna Leave You on Dusty. The original 1967 version of Aint No Mountain High Enough was a top twenty hit, according to record producers, Terrell was a little nervous and intimidated during recording because she did not rehearse the lyrics. Terrell recorded her vocals alone with producers Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, Aint No Mountain peaked at number nineteen on the Billboard pop charts, and went to number three on the R&B charts. This original version of Aint No Mountain, produced by Fuqua and Bristol, was a care-free, danceable and its success led to a string of more Ashford/Simpson penned duets. The Gaye/Terrell version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, Diana Ross & The Supremes recorded a version of Aint No Mountain High Enough which was more faithful to the Terrell-Gaye original version as a duet with The Temptations. That song was a cut from a joint LP released by Motown Records in 1968 on the two superstar groups, titled the Supremes Join The Temptations. In late 1969, after the Top 20 success of her first solo single, Reach Out and Touch, Ashford, initially, Ross was apprehensive, but was convinced to make the recording. Motown chief Berry Gordy did not like the record upon first hearing it and he hated the spoken-word passages and wanted the song to begin with the climactic chorus/bridge. Ross version of Aint No Mountain High Enough rose up to one on both the pop and R&B singles charts. Ross received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and this version is in the key of C minor. Hugh Masekela included the song in his 1968 album The Promise of a Future, in 1981, American Disco band Inner Life from Salsoul Records released their version, which topped #20 on US Dance Chart. The Boys Town Gang formed a medley of the two songs Remember Me and Aint No Mountain High Enough in 1981, the single was a club hit. Australian singer Jimmy Barnes released an album of covers titled Soul Deep in 1991. This cover reached #28 in Australia in 1992, the song is performed over the credits to the 1993 film Sister Act 2, Back in the Habit
41.
Tammi Terrell
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Tammi Terrell was an American recording artist, best known as a star singer for Motown Records during the 1960s, most notably for a series of duets with singer Marvin Gaye. Terrells career began as a teenager, first recording for Scepter/Wand Records, after a period attending college, Terrell recorded briefly for Checker Records, before signing with Motown in 1965. With Gaye, Terrell scored seven Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including Aint No Mountain High Enough, Aint Nothing Like the Real Thing and she had eight unsuccessful surgeries before succumbing to the illness on March 16,1970 at the age of 24. Terrell was born as Thomasina Winifred Montgomery in Philadelphia, to Jennie, Jennie was an actress and Thomas was a barbershop owner and local politician. Tammi was the elder of two siblings, according to the Unsung documentary, her younger sister Ludie said that they had thought Terrell would be a boy and therefore she would be named after her father. However, when she was born, the settled on the name Thomasina. She later changed it to Tammy after seeing the film, Tammy and the Bachelor, starting around this time, Terrell started to have migraine headaches. While it was not thought to be of significance at the time, according to her sister, Terrells mother suffered from mental illness. After another single, Terrell left the label and, after being introduced to James Brown, signed a contract with him, in 1963, she recorded the song I Cried. Released on Browns Try Me Records, it became her first charting single, after this tenure ended, Terrell signed with Checker Records and released the Bert Berns produced duet, If I Would Marry You with Jimmy Radcliffe, which Terrell co-composed. In the middle of this, Terrell was asked by Jerry Butler to sing with him in a series of shows in nightclubs, after an arrangement was made by Butler to assure Terrell that she could continue her schooling, she began touring with Butler. In April 1965, during a performance at the Twenty Grand Club in Detroit, she was spotted by Motown CEO Berry Gordy, Terrell agreed and signed with the label on April 29, her 20th birthday. Before releasing her first single with Motowns Tamla subsidiary, I Cant Believe You Love Me, figuring Tammy Montgomery was too long of a name to put on a single, Gordy changed it to Tammi Terrell. He felt this name screamed sex appeal, I Cant Believe You Love Me became Terrells first R&B top forty single, followed almost immediately by Come On and See Me. In 1966, Terrell recorded two future classics, Stevie Wonders All I Do and The Isley Brothers This Old Heart of Mine, Terrell joined the Motortown Revue after the release of her first single. During a tour in which she opened for The Temptations, Terrell met the lead singer David Ruffin. In early 1967, Motown hired Terrell to sing duets with Marvin Gaye, during recording sessions, Gaye would recall later that he did not know how gifted Terrell was until they began singing together. At first the duets were recorded separately, for sessions of their first recording, the Ashford & Simpson composition, Aint No Mountain High Enough, both Gaye and Terrell recorded separate versions
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Duet". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
The dictionary definition of duet at Wiktionary
