1.
Szczecin
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Szczecin is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea, it is a major seaport, as of June 2011, the population was 407,811. Szczecin is located on the Oder, south of the Szczecin Lagoon, the city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. The citys recorded history began in the 8th century as a Slavic Pomeranian stronghold, in the 12th century, when Szczecin had become one of Pomeranias main urban centres, it lost its independence to Piast Poland, the Duchy of Saxony, the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. At the same time, the House of Griffins established themselves as rulers, the population was Christianized. The native Slavic population was subjected to discrimination and Germanization in the following centuries, between 1237 and 1243, the town was rebuilt, granted extensive autonomy rights and eventually joined the Hanseatic League. After the Treaty of Stettin in 1630, the town came under the control of the Swedish Empire, in the late-19th century Stettin became an industrial town, vastly increasing in size and population, and served as a major port for Berlin. During the Nazi era, opposition groups and minorities were persecuted and treated as enemies, by the end of World War II Stettins status was in doubt, and the Soviet occupation authorities at first appointed officials from the citys almost entirely German pre-war population. In July 1945, however, Polish authorities were permitted to take power, Stettin was renamed Szczecin and became part of the newly established the Polish Peoples Republic, and from 1989 the Republic of Poland. From 1999 onwards, Szczecin has served as the site of the headquarters of NATOs Multinational Corps Northeast, the names Szczecin and Stettin are of Slavic origin, though the exact etymology is the subject of ongoing research. Other medieval names for the town are Burstaborg and Burstenburgh and these names, which literally mean brush burgh, are likely derived from the translation of the citys Slavic name. The recorded history of Szczecin began in the century, when West Slavs settled Pomerania. Since the 9th century, the stronghold was fortified and expanded toward the Oder bank, Mieszko I of Poland took control of Pomerania between 960 and 967, and the region with the city of Szczecin became part of Poland in 967. Subsequent Polish rulers, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Liutician federation all aimed to control the territory, after the decline of the neighbouring regional centre Wolin in the 12th century, the city became one of the more important and powerful seaports of the Baltic Sea. In a campaign in the winter of 1121–1122, Bolesław III Wrymouth, the inhabitants were Christianized by two missions of Bishop Otto of Bamberg in 1124 and 1128. At this time, the first Christian church of Saints Peter, Polish minted coins were commonly used in trade in this period. The population of the city at that time is estimated to be at around 5, Polish rule ended with Boleslaws death in 1138. There, a Polish contingent supplied by Mieszko III the Old joined the crusaders, however, the citizens had placed crosses around the fortifications, indicating they already had been Christianised
2.
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
3.
Classical music
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Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
4.
String instrument
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String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord or piano, with bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates a wheel that rubs the strings. Bowed instruments include the string instruments of the Classical music orchestra. All of the string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp, in the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, in most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with the air inside it, the vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, the development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. During the medieval era, instrument development varied from country to country, Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four stringed precursor to the guitar and these instruments typically used catgut and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design refined during the Renaissance and into the Baroque period of musical history, violins and guitars became more consistent in design, and were roughly similar to what we use in the 2000s. At the same time, the 19th century guitar became more associated with six string models. In big bands of the 1920s, the guitar played backing chords. The development of guitar amplifiers, which contained a power amplifier, the development of the electric guitar provided guitarists with an instrument that was built to connect to guitar amplifiers. Electric guitars have magnetic pickups, volume control knobs and an output jack, in the 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called stacks
5.
Violin
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The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use, smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused in the 2010s. The violin typically has four strings tuned in fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. Violins are important instruments in a variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition and in varieties of folk music. They are also used in genres of folk including country music and bluegrass music. Electric violins are used in forms of rock music, further. The violin is sometimes called a fiddle, particularly in Irish traditional music and bluegrass. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Europe it served as the basis for stringed instruments used in classical music, the viola. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker, the parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood and on the use of a pickup and an amplifier and speaker). Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira. These included the rebec, the Arabic rebab, the vielle, the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words violino and vyollon are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, by this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560, one of these noble instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The Messiah or Le Messie made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine and it is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford
6.
Viola
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The viola is a string instrument that is bowed or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century it has been the middle or alto voice of the family, between the violin and the cello. The strings from low to high are generally tuned to C3, G3, D4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style as did its names, the Italians often used the term, viola da braccio meaning literally, of the arm. Brazzo was another Italian word referring to the viola which the Germans adopted in the form, the French had their own names, Cinquiesme was a small viola, Haute Contre was a large viola and Taile meant Tenor. In the modern era, the French use the term Alto, the viola had enjoyed popularity in the heyday of five-part harmony up until the eighteenth century, taking three lines of the harmony and occasionally playing the melody line. Music that is written for the viola differs from that of most other instruments in that it uses the alto clef. Viola music switches to the treble clef when there are sections of music written in a higher register to make the notes easier to read. The viola often plays the voices in string quartets and symphonic writing. The viola occasionally plays a major, soloistic role in orchestral music, examples include Don Quixote by Richard Strauss and Harold en Italie by Hector Berlioz. In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. English composers Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote substantial chamber, many of these pieces were commissioned by, or written for Lionel Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů, Toru Takemitsu, Tibor Serly, Alfred Schnittke, Paul Hindemith wrote a substantial amount of music for viola, including the concerto Der Schwanendreher. The concerti by Paul Hindemith, Béla Bartók, and William Walton are the big three of viola repertoire, the viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size violas body is between 25 mm and 100 mm longer than the body of a violin, with an average length of 41 cm. Small violas typically made for children typically start at 30 cm, for a child who needs a smaller size, a fractional-sized violin is often strung with the strings of a viola. Unlike the violin, the viola does not have a full size. The body of a viola would need to measure about 51 cm long to match the acoustics of a violin, there have been several experiments intended to increase the size of the viola, in the interest of improving the instruments sound
7.
Cello
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The cello or violoncello is a bowed or plucked string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. The strings from low to high are generally tuned to C2, G2, D3 and A3 and it is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin and viola and the double bass. The cello is used as a musical instrument, as well as in chamber music ensembles, string orchestras, as a member of the string section of symphony orchestras. It is the second-largest and second lowest bowed string instrument in the symphony orchestra. Cello parts are written in the bass clef, but both tenor clef and treble clefs are used for higher-range parts, both in orchestral/chamber music parts and in solo cello works. A person who plays the cello is called a cellist or violoncellist, in a small Classical ensemble, such as a string quartet, the cello typically plays the bass part, the lowest-pitched musical line of the piece. In orchestra, in Baroque era and Classical music period, the cello plays the bass part. In Baroque era music, the cello is used to play the basso continuo bassline, in a Baroque performance, the cello player might be joined by other bass instruments, playing double bass, viol or other low-register instruments. The name cello is a contraction of the Italian violoncello, which means little violone, in modern symphony orchestras, it is the second largest stringed instrument. Thus, the name contained both the augmentative -one and the diminutive -cello. By the turn of the 20th century, it had become common to shorten the name to cello and it is now customary to use cello without apostrophe as the full designation. Viol is derived from the viola, which was derived from Medieval Latin vitula. Cellos are tuned in fifths, starting with C2, followed by G2, D3 and it is tuned in the same intervals as the viola, but an octave lower. Unlike the violin or viola but similar to the double bass, the cello is most closely associated with European classical music, and has been described as the closest sounding instrument to the human voice. The instrument is a part of the orchestra, as part of the string section. A large number of concertos and sonatas have been written for the cello, among the most well-known Baroque works for the cello are Johann Sebastian Bachs six unaccompanied Suites. The Prelude from the First Suite is particularly famous, romantic era repertoire includes the Robert Schumann Concerto, the Antonín Dvořák Concerto as well as the two sonatas and the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms. The cello is increasingly common in traditional music, especially Scottish fiddle music
8.
Double bass
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The double bass, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. It is an instrument and is typically notated one octave higher than sounding to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff. The double bass is the modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths, rather than fifths, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2. The instruments exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, the double bass is a standard member of the orchestras string section, as well as the concert band, and is featured in concertos, solo and chamber music in Western classical music. The bass is used in a range of genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango. The double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings, in orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed. In jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, Classical music uses just the natural sound produced acoustically by the instrument, so does traditional bluegrass. In jazz, blues, and related genres, the bass is typically amplified with an amplifier and speaker, the double bass stands around 180 cm from scroll to endpin. However, other sizes are available, such as a 1⁄2 or 3⁄4 and these sizes do not reflect the size relative to a full size, or 4⁄4 bass, a 1⁄2 bass is not half the size of a bass but is only slightly smaller. It is typically constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top and it is uncertain whether the instrument is a descendant of the viola da gamba or of the violin, but it is traditionally aligned with the violin family. While the double bass is nearly identical in construction to other violin family instruments, like other violin and viol-family string instruments, the double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed, in jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, except for some solos and also occasional written parts in modern jazz that call for bowing. In classical pedagogy, almost all of the focus is on performing with the bow and producing a good bowed tone, some of these articulations can be combined, for example, the combination of sul ponticello and tremolo can produce eerie, ghostly sounds. Classical bass players do play pizzicato parts in orchestra, but these parts generally require simple notes, vibrato is used to add expression to string playing. In general, very loud, low-register passages are played with little or no vibrato, mid- and higher-register melodies are typically played with more vibrato. The speed and intensity of the vibrato is varied by the performer for an emotional and musical effect, in jazz, rockabilly and other related genres, much or all of the focus is on playing pizzicato. In jazz and jump blues, bassists are required to play extremely rapid pizzicato walking basslines for extended periods, as well, jazz and rockabilly bassists develop virtuoso pizzicato techniques that enable them to play rapid solos that incorporate fast-moving triplet and sixteenth note figures. In jazz and related styles, bassists often add semi-percussive ghost notes into basslines, to add to the rhythmic feel and to add fills to a bassline
9.
Brass instrument
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A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the players lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning lip-vibrated instruments, there are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. The view of most scholars is that the brass instrument should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornett, the serpent, as valved instruments are predominant among the brasses today, a more thorough discussion of their workings can be found below. The valves are usually piston valves, but can be rotary valves, slide brass instruments use a slide to change the length of tubing. The main instruments in this category are the family, though valve trombones are occasionally used. The trombone familys ancestor, the sackbut, and the folk instrument bazooka are also in the slide family, there are two other families that have, in general, become functionally obsolete for practical purposes. Instruments of both types, however, are used for period-instrument performances of Baroque or Classical pieces. In more modern compositions, they are used for their intonation or tone color. Natural brass instruments only play notes in the harmonic series. These include the bugle and older variants of the trumpet and horn, the trumpet was a natural brass instrument prior to about 1795, and the horn before about 1820. In the 18th century, makers developed interchangeable crooks of different lengths, natural instruments are still played for period performances and some ceremonial functions, and are occasionally found in more modern scores, such as those by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Keyed or Fingered brass instruments used holes along the body of the instrument and these included the cornett, serpent, ophicleide, keyed bugle and keyed trumpet. They are more difficult to play than valved instruments, Brass instruments may also be characterised by two generalizations about geometry of the bore, that is, the tubing between the mouthpiece and the flaring of the tubing into the bell. Those two generalizations are with regard to the degree of taper or conicity of the bore and the diameter of the bore with respect to its length, cylindrical bore brass instruments are generally perceived as having a brighter, more penetrating tone quality compared to conical bore brass instruments. The trumpet, baritone horn and all trombones are cylindrical bore, in particular, the slide design of the trombone necessitates this. Conical bore brass instruments are those in which tubing of constantly increasing diameter predominates, conical bore instruments are generally perceived as having a more mellow tone quality than the cylindrical bore brass instruments. The British brass band group of instruments fall into this category and this includes the flugelhorn, cornet, tenor horn, horn, euphonium and tuba
10.
Woodwind instrument
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Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the more general category of wind instruments. There are two types of woodwind instruments, flutes and reed instruments. What differentiates these instruments from other instruments is the way in which they produce their sound. Examples are a saxophone, a bassoon and a piccolo, flutes produce sound by directing a focused stream of air below the edge of a hole in a cylindrical tube. The flute family can be divided into two sub-families, open flutes and closed flutes, to produce a sound with an open flute, the player is required to blow a stream of air across a sharp edge that then splits the airstream. This split airstream then acts upon the air contained within the flutes hollow causing it to vibrate. Examples of open flutes are the flute, panpipes and shakuhachi. Ancient flutes of this variety were often made from sections of plants such as grasses, reeds. Later, flutes were made of such as tin, copper. Modern concert flutes are made of high-grade metal alloys, usually containing nickel, silver, copper. To produce a sound with a flute, the player is required to blow air into a duct. This duct acts as a channel bringing the air to a sharp edge, as with the open flutes, the air is then split, this causes the column of air within the closed flute to vibrate and produce sound. Examples of this type of include the recorder, ocarina. Reed instruments produce sound by focusing air into a mouthpiece which then causes a reed, or reeds, similar to flutes, Reed pipes are also further divided into two types, single reed and double reed. Single-reed woodwinds produce sound by placing a reed onto the opening of a mouthpiece, when air is forced between the reed and the mouthpiece, the reed causes the air column in the instrument to vibrate and produce its unique sound. Single reed instruments include the clarinet, saxophone, and others such as the chalumeau, double-reed instruments use two precisely cut, small pieces of cane bound together at the base. This form of production has been estimated to have originated in the middle to late Neolithic period. The finished, bound reed is inserted into the instrument and vibrates as air is forced between the two pieces and this family of reed pipes is subdivided further into another two sub-families, exposed double reed, and capped double reed instruments
11.
Percussion instrument
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A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater, struck, scraped or rubbed by hand, or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, the percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, percussive techniques can also be applied to the human body, as in body percussion. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, Percussion instruments may play not only rhythm, but also melody and harmony. Percussion is commonly referred to as the backbone or the heartbeat of an ensemble, often working in close collaboration with bass instruments. In jazz and other popular ensembles, the pianist, bassist, drummer. Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings, woodwinds, however, often at least one pair of timpani is included, though they rarely play continuously. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents when needed, in the 18th and 19th centuries, other percussion instruments have been used, again generally sparingly. The use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the 20th century classical music, in almost every style of music, percussion plays a pivotal role. In classic jazz, one almost immediately thinks of the rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word swing is spoken. Because of the diversity of instruments, it is not uncommon to find large musical ensembles composed entirely of percussion. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are all represented in these ensembles, music for pitched percussion instruments can be notated on a staff with the same treble and bass clefs used by many non-percussive instruments. Music for percussive instruments without a pitch can be notated with a specialist rhythm or percussion-clef. The word percussion has evolved from Latin terms, percussio, as a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as the collision of two bodies to produce a sound. Hornbostel–Sachs has no high-level section for percussion, Most percussion instruments are classified as idiophones and membranophones.1 Concussion idiophones or clappers, played in pairs and beaten against each other, such as zills and clapsticks. 111.2 Percussion idiophones, includes many percussion instruments played with the hand or by a mallet, such as the hang, gongs and the xylophone. 21 Struck drums, includes most types of drum, such as the timpani, snare drum, (Included in most drum sets or 412. Stringed instruments played with such as the hammered dulcimer
12.
Piano
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The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a sound and smaller dynamic range. An acoustic piano usually has a wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings. Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard causes a padded hammer to strike the strings. The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air, when the key is released, a damper stops the strings vibration, ending the sound. Notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released by the fingers and thumbs and this means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, going from the deepest bass range to the highest treble. The black keys are for the accidentals, which are needed to play in all twelve keys, more rarely, some pianos have additional keys. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass that graduates from one to two, the strings are sounded when keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by dampers when the hands are lifted from the keyboard. There are two types of piano, the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical solos, chamber music and art song and it is used in jazz. The upright piano, which is compact, is the most popular type, as they are a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making. During the nineteenth century, music publishers produced many works in arrangements for piano, so that music lovers could play. The piano is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo and ensemble performances, accompaniment, with technological advances, amplified electric pianos, electronic pianos, and digital pianos have also been developed. The electric piano became an instrument in the 1960s and 1970s genres of jazz fusion, funk music. The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments, pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches
13.
Celesta
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The celesta /sᵻˈlɛstə/ or celeste /sᵻˈlɛst/ is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to a piano, albeit with smaller keys. The keys connect to hammers that strike a set of metal plates or bars suspended over wooden resonators. Four- or five-octave models usually have a pedal that sustains or damps the sound. The three-octave instruments do not have a pedal because of their small table-top design, one of the best-known works that uses the celesta is Tchaikovskys Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker. The sound of the celesta is similar to that of the glockenspiel and this quality gave the instrument its name, celeste meaning heavenly in French. The celesta is used to enhance a melody line played by another instrument or section. The delicate, bell-like sound is not loud enough to be used in full ensemble sections, as well, the celesta is a transposing instrument, it sounds one octave higher than the written pitch. Its sounding range is considered to be C4 to C8. The original French instrument had a range, but because the lowest octave was considered somewhat unsatisfactory. The standard French four-octave instrument is now gradually being replaced in symphony orchestras by a larger, although it is a member of the percussion family, in orchestral terms it is more properly considered a member of the keyboard section and usually played by a keyboardist. The celesta part is written on two braced staves, called a grand staff. The celesta was invented in 1886 by Parisian harmonium builder Auguste Mustel and his father, Victor Mustel, had developed the forerunner of the celesta, the typophone, in 1860. This instrument produced sound by striking tuning forks instead of the plates that would be used in the celesta. The dulcitone functioned identically to the typophone and was developed concurrently in Scotland, the typophone/dulcitones uses were limited by its low volume, too quiet to be heard in a full orchestra. Pyotr Tchaikovsky is usually cited as the first major composer to use this instrument in a work for symphony orchestra. He first used it in his symphonic poem The Voyevoda, Op. posth. The following year, he used the celesta in passages in his ballet The Nutcracker, most notably in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, which also appears in the derived Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a
14.
Pedal harp
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The pedal harp is a large and technically modern harp, designed primarily for classical music and played either solo, as part of a chamber ensemble, or in an orchestra. The pedal harp is a descendant of ancient harps. It typically has a range of six and a half octaves, weighs about 36 kilograms, is about 1.85 metres high, has a depth of 1 metre, and is 55 centimetres wide at the bass end of the soundboard. The notes range from three octaves below middle C♭ to three and a half octaves above, usually ending on G♯, using octave designations, the range is C♭1 to G♯7. At least one manufacturer gives the harp a 48th string, a high A♭ giving the instrument a range of C♭1 to A♯7, the two lowest strings, C♭1 and D♭1, are not affected by the pedal mechanism. Their pitch must be adjusted in advance for the whole piece and it cant be changed while playing. A pedal harp typically has six and a half octaves, weighs about 36 kg, is about 1.8 m high, has a depth of 1.2 m, and is 55 cm wide at the bass end of the soundboard. The notes range from three octaves below middle C to three and a half octaves above, usually ending on G, the tension of the strings on the soundboard is roughly equal to a ton. The lowest strings are made of copper or steel-wound nylon, the strings of gut. The D, E, G, A, B strings are colored white while the C strings are colored red. The strings are tuned to all flat pitches, that is. The concert harp is a pedal harp, pedals were first used in 1697. Pedal harps use the action of pedals to change the pitches of the strings. There are seven pedals, each affecting the tuning of all strings of one pitch-class, the pedals, in order from left to right, are D, C, B and E, F, G, A. Each pedal is attached to a rod or cable within the column of the harp, when a pedal is moved with the foot, small discs at the top of the harp rotate. The discs are studded with two pegs that pinch the string as they turn, shortening the length of the string. In the top position no pegs are in contact with the string and all notes are flat, thus the harps native tuning is to the scale of C♭ major. In the middle position the top disc presses its pins against the string, resulting in a natural, giving the scale of C♮ major if all pedals are set in the middle position
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Electronic musical instrument
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An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronics. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical signal that ultimately drives a loudspeaker. An electronic instrument might include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch, frequency, all electronic musical instruments can be viewed as a subset of audio signal processing applications. Simple electronic musical instruments are called sound effects, the border between sound effects and actual musical instruments is often hazy. Electronic musical instruments are now used in most styles of music. Development of new musical instruments, controllers, and synthesizers continues to be a highly active. In the 18th-century, musicians and composers adapted a number of instruments to exploit the novelty of electricity. The former instrument consisted of an instrument of over 700 strings. The latter was an instrument with plectra activated electrically. However, neither instrument used electricity as a sound-source, the first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray. The Musical Telegraph used steel reeds oscillated by electromagnets and transmitted over a telephone line, Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, which consisted of a diaphragm vibrating in a magnetic field. A significant invention, which later had an effect on electronic music, was the audion in 1906. This was the first thermionic valve, or vacuum tube and which led to the generation and amplification of signals, radio broadcasting. Other early synthesizers included the Telharmonium, the Theremin, Jörg Magers Spharophon and Partiturophone, Taubmanns similar Electronde, Maurice Martenots ondes Martenot, only two models of this latter were built and the only surviving example is currently stored at the Lomonosov University in Moscow. It has been used in many Russian movies—like Solaris—to produce unusual, Hugh Le Caine, John Hanert, Raymond Scott, composer Percy Grainger, and others built a variety of automated electronic-music controllers during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959 Daphne Oram produced a method of synthesis, her Oramics technique, driven by drawings on a 35 mm film strip. In 1897 Thaddeus Cahill patented an instrument called the Telharmonium, using tonewheels to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by additive synthesis, it was capable of producing any combination of notes and overtones, at any dynamic level. This technology was used to design the Hammond organ
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Baroque music
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Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key, during the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite, while the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate ornamentation, made changes in musical notation. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such as toccata, fugue, dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously, was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. The word baroque comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl, the term Baroque is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. The systematic application by historians of the baroque to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflins theory of the Baroque systematically to music, all of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer, nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding and following periods of musical history, the Baroque period is divided into three major phases, early, middle, and late. Although they overlap in time, they are dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical musical drama that valued discourse, the early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peris Dafne and LEuridice, marked the beginning of opera, which were a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the widespread use of figured bass represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as players or pipe organists. The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the player what intervals she should play above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note and this led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality
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Johann Sebastian Bach
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Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bachs compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor and his music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. He is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Bach was born in Eisenach, in the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father probably taught him to play the violin and harpsichord, apparently at his own initiative, Bach attended St. Michaels School in Lüneburg for two years. He received the title of Royal Court Composer from Augustus III in 1736, Bachs health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany and he was the son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius, who taught him violin. His uncles were all musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, introduced him to the organ, Bachs mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, there he studied, performed, and copied music, including his own brothers, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and blank ledger paper of that type was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord, also during this time he was taught theology, Latin, Greek, French and Italian at the local gymnasium. By 3 April 1700 Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmann–who was two years Bachs elder–were enrolled in the prestigious St. Michaels School in Lüneburg, some two weeks travel north of Ohrdruf and their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the Schools three-manual organ and he came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany, sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in other disciplines. While in Lüneburg, Bach had access to St. Johns Church and possibly used the famous organ from 1553. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties, despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir and he called one of them a Zippel Fagottist
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George Frideric Handel
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George Frideric Handel was a German, later British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712 and he was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera, musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that Handel was not only a great composer, he was a dramatic genius of the first order. As Alexanders Feast was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works, after his success with Messiah he never composed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759 and his funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Handel was born in 1685 in Halle-on-Saal, Duchy of Magdeburg, to Georg Händel and his father,63 when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Georg Händel was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching and they were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Hapsburg possession as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War. Halle was a prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry. Even the smaller churches all had able organists and fair choirs, and humanities, the Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. But since the middle of the war the city was under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, the arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata, which did not describe Handels family. Handel was the child of this marriage, the first son died still born. Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric, Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687 and Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690. Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the gymnasium in Halle, Mainwaring is the source for almost all information of Handels childhood, and much of that information came from J. C. Smith, Jr. Handels confidant and copyist. Whether they came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation and it is from Mainwaring that the portrait of Handels father as implacably opposed to any musical education comes. This did nothing to dampen young Handels inclination, in fact, Mainwaring tells the story of Handels secret attic spinnet, Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately conveyd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep, but Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training. Somehow Handel made his way to the organ, where he surprised everyone with his playing. Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction, Handels father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel
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Classical period (music)
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The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about the year 1730 and the year 1820. This article is about the period in most of the 18th century to the early 19th century, though overlapping with the Baroque. The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods, Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music and is less complex. It is mainly homophonic, using a melody line over a subordinate chordal accompaniment. It also makes use of style galant which emphasized light elegance in place of the Baroques dignified seriousness, variety and contrast within a piece became more pronounced than before and the orchestra increased in size, range, and power. The harpsichord was replaced as the keyboard instrument by the piano. Instrumental music was considered important by Classical period composers, vocal music, such as songs for a singer and piano, choral works, and opera were also important during this period. Ludwig van Beethoven is regarded either as a Romantic composer or a Classical period composer who was part of the transition to the Romantic era, Franz Schubert is also a transitional figure, as were Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Luigi Cherubini, and Carl Maria von Weber. The period is referred to as the era of Viennese Classic or Classicism, since Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, Salieri. In the middle of the 18th century, Europe began to move toward a new style in architecture, literature, and this style sought to emulate the ideals of Classical antiquity, especially those of Classical Greece. Classical music was still linked to aristocratic Court culture and supported by absolute monarchies. Classical music used formality and emphasis on order and hierarchy, in contrast with the richly layered music of the Baroque era, Classical music moved towards simplicity rather than complexity. In addition, the size of orchestras began to increase. The remarkable development of ideas in natural philosophy had already established itself in the public consciousness, in particular, Newtons physics was taken as a paradigm, structures should be well-founded in axioms and be both well-articulated and orderly. This move meant that chords became a more prevalent feature of music. As a result, the structure of a piece of music became more audible. The new style was encouraged by changes in the economic order. As the 18th century progressed, the nobility became the patrons of instrumental music, while public taste increasingly preferred lighter
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Joseph Haydn
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Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. Haydn spent much of his career as a musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, a village that at that time stood on the border with Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who served as Marktrichter. Haydns mother Maria, née Koller, had worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach. Neither parent could read music, however, Mathias was a folk musician. According to Haydns later reminiscences, his family was extremely musical. Haydns parents had noticed that their son was musically gifted and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain serious musical training, Haydn therefore went off with Frankh to Hainburg 12 kilometres away, he never again lived with his parents. Life in the Frankh household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry and he began his musical training there, and could soon play both harpsichord and violin. The people of Hainburg heard him sing treble parts in the church choir, Haydn passed his audition with Reutter, and after several months of further training moved to Vienna, where he worked for the next nine years as a chorister. Haydn lived in the Kapellhaus next to the cathedral, along with Reutter, Reutters family, and the other four choirboys, the choirboys were instructed in Latin and other school subjects as well as voice, violin, and keyboard. Reutter was of help to Haydn in the areas of music theory and composition. However, since St. Stephens was one of the musical centres in Europe. Like Frankh before him, Reutter did not always bother to make sure Haydn was properly fed, by 1749, Haydn had matured physically to the point that he was no longer able to sing high choral parts. Empress Maria Theresa herself complained to Reutter about his singing, calling it crowing, one day, Haydn carried out a prank, snipping off the pigtail of a fellow chorister. This was enough for Reutter, Haydn was first caned, then summarily dismissed and he had the good fortune to be taken in by a friend, Johann Michael Spangler, who shared his familys crowded garret room with Haydn for a few months. Haydn immediately began his pursuit of a career as a freelance musician and he was also briefly in Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitzs employ, playing the organ in the Bohemian Chancellery chapel at the Judenplatz
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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
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Romantic music
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Romantic music is an era of Western classical music that began in the late 18th or early 19th century. In the Romantic period, music became more expressive and emotional, expanding to encompass literary, artistic, famous early Romantic composers include Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Bellini, and Berlioz. The late 19th century saw an expansion in the size of the orchestra and in the dynamic range. Also, public concerts became a key part of middle class society, in contrast to earlier periods. Famous composers from the half of the century include Johann Strauss II, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Verdi. A prominent mark of late 19th century music is its nationalistic fervor, as exemplified by such figures as Dvořák, Sibelius, other prominent late-century figures include Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Rachmaninoff and Franck. The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the half of the 18th century in Europe. In part, it was a revolt against social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography and education. One of the first significant applications of the term to music was in 1789, in the Mémoires by the Frenchman André Grétry, in the first of these essays Hoffmann traced the beginnings of musical Romanticism to the later works of Haydn and Mozart. It was also through the writings of Hoffmann and other German authors that German music was brought to the centre of musical Romanticism, the attributes have also been criticized for being too vague. For example, features of the ghostly and supernatural could apply equally to Mozarts Don Giovanni from 1787, events and changes that happen in society such as ideas, attitudes, discoveries, inventions, and historical events always affect music. For example, the Industrial Revolution was in effect by the late 18th century. This event had a profound effect on music, there were major improvements in the mechanical valves. The new and innovative instruments could be played with greater ease, another development that had an effect on music was the rise of the middle class. Composers before this period lived on the patronage of the aristocracy, many times their audience was small, composed mostly of the upper class and individuals who were knowledgeable about music. The Romantic composers, on the hand, often wrote for public concerts and festivals, with large audiences of paying customers. Composers of the Romantic Era, like Elgar, showed the world that there should be no segregation of musical tastes, during the Romantic period, music often took on a much more nationalistic purpose
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Symphony
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A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often written by composers for orchestra. Symphonies are scored for string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30–100 musicians, Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the music for their instrument. A small number of symphonies also contain vocal parts, the word symphony is derived from the Greek word συμφωνία, meaning agreement or concord of sound, concert of vocal or instrumental music, from σύμφωνος, harmonious. The word referred to a variety of different things, before ultimately settling on its current meaning designating a musical form. In late Greek and medieval theory, the word was used for consonance, as opposed to διαφωνία, in the Middle Ages and later, the Latin form symphonia was used to describe various instruments, especially those capable of producing more than one sound simultaneously. Isidore of Seville was the first to use the word symphonia as the name of a two-headed drum, in late medieval England, symphony was used in both of these senses, whereas by the 16th century it was equated with the dulcimer. In German, Symphonie was a term for spinets and virginals from the late 16th century to the 18th century. 16, published in 1607, Lodovico Grossi da Viadanas Sinfonie musicali,18, published in 1610, and Heinrich Schützs Symphoniae sacrae, op. 6, and Symphoniarum sacrarum secunda pars, op,10, published in 1629 and 1647, respectively. Except for Viadanas collection, which contained purely instrumental and secular music, the opera sinfonia, or Italian overture had, by the 18th century, a standard structure of three contrasting movements, fast, slow, fast and dance-like. It is this form that is considered as the direct forerunner of the orchestral symphony. The terms overture, symphony and sinfonia were widely regarded as interchangeable for much of the 18th century, when composers from the 17th century wrote pieces, they expected that these works would be performed by whatever group of musicians were available. A performance of the piece might be done with a basso continuo group as small as a single cello, during the 18th century, the symphony was cultivated with extraordinary intensity. It played a role in areas of public life, including church services. Since the normal size of the orchestra at the time was quite small, laRue, Bonds, Walsh, and Wilson trace the gradual expansion of the symphonic orchestra through the 18th century. At first, symphonies were string symphonies, written in just four parts, first violin, second violin, viola, occasionally the early symphonists even dispensed with the viola part, thus creating three-part symphonies. A basso continuo part including a bassoon together with a harpsichord or other chording instrument was also possible, the first additions to this simple ensemble were a pair of horns, occasionally a pair of oboes, and then both horns and oboes together
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Johannes Brahms
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Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his life in Vienna. Brahms composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works and he worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished, Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg, the diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahmss works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within his meticulous structures, however, are deeply romantic motifs, Brahmss father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was from the town of Heide in Holstein. The family name was sometimes spelt Brahmst or Brams, and derives from Bram. Against the familys will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg in 1826, where he work as a jobbing musician. In 1830, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen, a seamstress 17 years older than he was, in the same year he was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia. Eventually he became a player in the Hamburg Stadttheater and the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. As Johann Jakob prospered, the family moved over the years to better accommodation in Hamburg. Johannes Brahms was born in 1833, his sister Elisabeth had been born in 1831, Fritz also became a pianist, overshadowed by his brother he emigrated to Caracas in 1867, and later returned to Hamburg as a teacher. Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training, Johannes also learnt to play the violin, from 1840 he studied piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Cossel complained in 1842 that Brahms could be such a good player, at the age of 10, Brahms made his debut as a performer in a private concert including Beethovens quintet for piano and winds Op.16 and a piano quartet by Mozart. He also played as a solo work an étude of Henri Herz, by 1845 he had written a piano sonata in G minor
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Richard Wagner
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Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and his advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music, Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, until his final years, Wagners life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century, his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, where his family lived at No. 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter and he was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine. Wagners father Carl died of typhus six months after Richards birth, afterwards his mother Johanna lived with Carls friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has found in the Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyers residence in Dresden, until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father, Geyers love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel, in late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzels school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyers death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, at the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Webers opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright and his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare
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Gustav Mahler
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Gustav Mahler was an Austrian late-Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century, born in Bohemia as a German-speaking Jew of humble circumstances, Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler—who had converted to Catholicism to secure the regular opposition. Late in his life he was director of New Yorks Metropolitan Opera. Mahlers œuvre is relatively limited, for much of his composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Some of Mahlers immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School, notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Institute was established in 1955 to honour the composers life, the Mahler family came from eastern Bohemia and were of humble circumstances, the composers grandmother had been a street pedlar. Bohemia was then part of the Austrian Empire, the Mahler family belonged to a German-speaking minority among Bohemians, from this background the future composer developed early on a permanent sense of exile, always an intruder, never welcomed. Bernhard Mahler, the son and the composers father, elevated himself to the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie by becoming a coachman. He bought a modest house in the village of Kalischt, halfway between Prague in Bohemia and Brno in Moravia, in the center of todays Czech Republic. Bernhards wife, Marie, gave birth to the first of the couples 14 children, a son Isidor, two years later, on 7 July 1860, their second son, Gustav, was born. In December 1860, Bernhard Mahler moved with his wife and infant son, Gustav, to the town of Iglau,25 km to the south-east, the family grew rapidly, but of the 12 children born to the family in Iglau only six survived infancy. All of these elements would later contribute to his musical vocabulary. When he was four years old, Gustav discovered his grandparents piano and he developed his performing skills sufficiently to be considered a local Wunderkind and gave his first public performance at the town theatre when he was ten years old. Although Gustav loved making music, his reports from the Iglau Gymnasium portrayed him as absent-minded. In 1871, in the hope of improving the results, his father sent him to the New Town Gymnasium in Prague. In 1874 he suffered a personal loss when his younger brother Ernst died after a long illness. Mahler sought to express his feelings in music, with the help of a friend, Josef Steiner, he work on an opera
27.
Conducting
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Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or choral concert. A conductors directions will almost invariably be supplemented or reinforced by verbal instructions or suggestions to their musicians in rehearsal prior to a performance. The conductor typically stands on a podium with a large music stand for the full score. Conducting while playing a piano or synthesizer may also be done with musical theatre pit orchestras, communication is typically non-verbal during a performance. However, in rehearsals, frequent interruptions allow the conductor to give verbal directions as to how the music should be played or sung, Conductors act as guides to the orchestras or choirs they conduct. They choose the works to be performed and study their scores, to which they may make adjustments, work out their interpretation. They may also attend to matters, such as scheduling rehearsals, planning a concert season, hearing auditions and selecting members. Orchestras, choirs, concert bands and other musical ensembles such as big bands are usually led by conductors. The principal conductor of an orchestra or opera company is referred to as a music director or chief conductor, or by the German words Kapellmeister or Dirigent. Conductors of choirs or choruses are sometimes referred to as director, chorus master, or choirmaster. Conductors of concert bands, military bands, marching bands and other bands may hold the title of director, bandmaster. Respected senior conductors are sometimes referred to by the Italian word, an early form of conducting is cheironomy, the use of hand gestures to indicate melodic shape. This has been practiced at least as far back as the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, other devices to indicate the passing of time came into use. Rolled up sheets of paper, smaller sticks and unadorned hands are all shown in pictures from this period, the large staff was responsible for the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who injured his foot with one while conducting a Te Deum for the Kings recovery from illness. The wound became gangrenous and Lully refused amputation, whereupon the gangrene spread to his leg, in instrumental music throughout the 18th century, a member of the ensemble usually acted as the conductor. This was sometimes the concertmaster, who could use his bow as a baton and it was common to conduct from the harpsichord in pieces that had a basso continuo part. In opera performances, there were sometimes two conductors – the keyboard player was in charge of the singers, and the principal violinist or leader was in charge of the orchestra. By the early 19th century, it became the norm to have a dedicated conductor, the size of the usual orchestra expanded during this period, and the use of a baton became more common, as it was easier to see than bare hands or rolled-up paper
28.
Baton (conducting)
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A baton is a stick that is used by conductors primarily to enlarge and enhance the manual and bodily movements associated with directing an ensemble of musicians. Professional conductors often have personal specifications for a baton based on their own physical demands and the nature of the performance, Sir Henry Wood and Herbert von Karajan are some examples. Batons have normally varied in length from about 10 to 24 inches though a range of between 12 and 26 inches is more used, Henry Wood once requested the use of a 24-inch baton. When Gaspare Spontini arrived in Dresden in 1844, Wagner had a made from a thick ebony staff with ivory knobs at either end. Spontini purportedly held the baton in the center with a fist, using it like a marshalls staff— not for beating time, conductors view their gestures as the primary means to communicate musical ideas, whether or not they choose to use batons. The usual way of holding the baton is between the thumb and the first two fingers with the grip in against the palm of the hand, the baton is usually held in the right hand though some left-handed conductors hold it in the left. Young left-handed conductors are, however, sometimes encouraged to learn right-handed conducting, some conductors like Pierre Boulez, Georges Prêtre, Leopold Stokowski and Dimitri Mitropoulos, however, choose not to hold a baton, preferring to conduct only with their hands. This method is common with smaller groups and choral conductors, if the conductor does not use a baton, their hands must do the job with equal clarity, and the gestures must be first and always meaningful in terms of the music. Before the use of the baton, orchestral ensembles were conducted from the harpsichord or the first violin lead, conductors first began to use violin bows or rolled pieces of paper before the modern baton was introduced. On 8 January 1687, Jean-Baptiste Lully was conducting a Te Deum to celebrate Louis XIV of Frances recent recovery from illness, as was the common practice, he was beating time by banging a long staff against the floor when he struck his toe, creating an abscess. The wound turned gangrenous, but Lully refused to have his toe amputated, the baton began to gain in popularity between 1820 and 1840. The first batons were narrow and conical wooden wands that had an engraving of three rings near the bottom indicated the handle. The Hallé Orchestra reported that Daniel Turk used a baton in 1810, with motions so exuberant that he hit the chandelier above his head. Louis Spohr claimed to have introduced the baton to England on 10 April 1820, witnesses noted that the conductor sits there and turns over the leaves of the score but after all, he cannot, without. His baton, lead on his musical army and it is more likely that he used his baton in rehearsal than in concert. It was 1825 when George Smart reported that he beat time in front with a short stick. When Felix Mendelssohn returned to London in 1832, despite objections from violin leaders, despite the initial disagreement, the baton was in regular use at the Philharmonic a year later. In the early 1940s, while big band music was on the rise
29.
Concertmaster
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The Concertmaster is the second-most significant person in an orchestra, symphonic band or other musical ensemble after the conductor or director. Another common term in the U. S. is First Chair, in the U. K. the term commonly used is leader. In an orchestra, the concertmaster is the leader of the first violin section, there is another violin section, the second violins, led by the principal second violin. Any violin solo in a work is played by the concertmaster. The concertmaster sits to the left, closest to the audience, in what is called the first chair. The concertmaster makes decisions regarding bowing and other details of violin playing for the violins. He or she leads the orchestra in tuning before concerts and rehearsals, leading the orchestral tuning is not just a mere formality, if the concertmaster believes that a section is not adequately tuned, he or she will signal to the oboe player to play another A. Several larger orchestras have one or more assistant concertmasters, who lead the orchestra in the concertmasters absence, the concertmaster, along with the conductor and section principals, will normally participate in the auditions of important musicians in the orchestra. The concertmaster in a concert band is the principal clarinet, oboe, flute or saxophone. The first-chair clarinet concertmaster will, in practice, play all solos for their instrument. Often the lead flautist will receive similar responsibilities to the concertmaster, depending on several factors such as age, skill. The concertmaster will, in orchestral and wind band settings, also coordinate with other principals and section leaders, in most cases being their senior in terms of group pecking order. In brass bands, the role of concertmaster is often filled by the solo cornet or trumpet. The duties and tasks of the concertmaster are myriad, primarily, he or she acts as the conduit between conductor and orchestra and is accountable to both parties. One of the tasks of the concertmaster is to provide bowings for the 1st violins prior to rehearsal. This entails a great knowledge of playing styles in addition to complete idiomatic understanding of the mechanics of string playing. Ensemble cohesion emanates directly from the contact and connection between these vital front desk positions, the concertmaster assumes responsibility for the tone and execution of the entire section of 1st violins, in addition to performing any solo passages that occur in a given piece. Another primary duty of the concertmaster is to translate instructions from the conductor into specific technical language for the strings, full-time professional orchestras work with several conductors through the course of a regular season
30.
Figured bass
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Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era, provided the harmonic structure of the music. The phrase is shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part are called the continuo group. The titles of many Baroque works make mention of the section, such as J. S. Bachs Concerto for Two Violins, Strings. The makeup of the group is often left to the discretion of the performers. At least one instrument capable of playing chords must be included, such as a harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, regal, or harp. In addition, any number of instruments play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol. The most common combination, at least in modern performances, is harpsichord and cello for instrumental works and secular works, such as operas. Harps, lutes, and other instruments are more typical of early 17th-century music. The keyboard player realizes a continuo part by playing, in addition to the bass line, notes above it to complete chords. The figured bass notation, described below, is a guide, but performers are expected to use their musical judgment. Experienced players sometimes incorporate motives found in the instrumental parts into their improvised chordal accompaniment. Modern editions of music usually supply a realized keyboard part, fully written out in staff notation for a player. With the rise in historically informed performance, however, the number of performers who are able to improvise their parts from the figures, as Baroque players would have done, has increased. Basso continuo, though a structural and identifying element of the Baroque period, continued to be used in many works, mostly sacred choral works. An example is C. P. E. Bachs Concerto in D minor for flute, strings and basso continuo. Examples of its use in the 19th century are rarer, but they do exist, masses by Anton Bruckner, Beethoven, the phrase tasto solo indicates that only the bass line is to be played for a short period, usually until the next figure is encountered. This instructs the chord-playing instrumentalist not to play any improvised chords for a period, composers were inconsistent in the usages described below. Especially in the 17th century, the numbers were omitted whenever the composer thought the chord was obvious, early composers such as Claudio Monteverdi often specified the octave by the use of compound intervals such as 10,11, and 15
31.
Harpsichord
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A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed, Harpsichord designates the whole family of similar plucked keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet. The harpsichord was used in Renaissance and Baroque music. During the late 18th century, it disappeared from the musical scene with the rise of the piano. In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used in historically informed performances of music, in compositions. Harpsichords vary in size and shape, but all have the basic functional arrangement. The player depresses a key that rocks over a pivot in the middle of its length, the other end of the key lifts a jack that holds a small plectrum, which plucks the string. When the player releases the key, the far end returns to its rest position, the plectrum, mounted on a tongue that can swivel backwards away from the string, passes the string without plucking it again. As the key reaches its rest position, a felt damper atop the jack stops the strings vibrations and these basic principles are explained in detail below. The keylever is a pivot, which rocks on a balance pin that passes through a hole drilled through the keylever. The jack is a thin, rectangular piece of wood that sits upright on the end of the keylever, the jacks are held in place by the registers. These are two strips of wood, which run in the gap between pinblock and bellyrail. The registers have rectangular mortises through which the pass as they can move up. The registers hold the jacks in the location needed to pluck the string. In the jack, a plectrum juts out almost horizontally and passes just under the string, historically, plectra were made of bird quill or leather, many modern harpsichords have plastic plectra. When the front of the key is pressed, the back of the key rises, the jack is lifted, the vertical motion of the jack is then stopped by the jackrail, which is covered with soft felt to muffle the impact. When the key is released, the falls back down under its own weight. This is made possible by having the plectrum held in a tongue attached with a pivot and a spring to the body of the jack
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Pipe organ
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The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through organ pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre. Most organs have multiple ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, a pipe organ has one or more keyboards played by the hands, and a pedalboard played by the feet, each keyboard has its own group of stops. The keyboard, pedalboard, and stops are housed in the organs console, the smallest portable pipe organs may have only one or two dozen pipes and one manual, the largest may have over 20,000 pipes and seven manuals. A list of some of the most notable and largest pipe organs in the world can be viewed at List of pipe organs. The origins of the organ can be traced back to the water organ in Ancient Greece, in the 3rd century BC. By the 6th or 7th century AD, bellows were used to supply organs with wind, beginning in the 12th century, the organ began to evolve into a complex instrument capable of producing different timbres. A pipe organ with great leaden pipes was sent to the West by the Byzantine emperor Constantine V as a gift to Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, in 757. Pepins son Charlemagne requested a similar organ for his chapel in Aachen in 812, by the 17th century, most of the sounds available on the modern classical organ had been developed. From that time, the organ was the most complex man-made device - a distinction it retained until it was displaced by the telephone exchange in the late 19th century. Pipe organs are installed in churches, synagogues, concert halls, schools and they are used in the performance of classical music, sacred music, secular music, and popular music. The beginning of the 21st century has seen a resurgence in installations in concert halls, the organ boasts a substantial repertoire, which spans over 500 years. The organ is one of the oldest instruments used in European classical music that has commonly been credited as having derived from Greece. Its earliest predecessors were built in Ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC. The word organ is derived from the Greek όργανον, a term for an instrument or a tool, via the Latin organum. The Greek engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria is credited with inventing the organ in the 3rd century BC and he devised an instrument called the hydraulis, which delivered a wind supply maintained through water pressure to a set of pipes. The hydraulis was played in the arenas of the Roman Empire, the 9th century Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih, in his lexicographical discussion of instruments, cited the urghun as one of the typical instruments of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was often used in the Hippodrome in the capital of Constantinople
33.
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
34.
Ballet
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Ballet /ˈbæleɪ/ is a type of performance dance that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread, highly technical form of dance with its own based on French terminology. It has been influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres. Becoming a ballet dancer requires years of training, Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures to evolve the art. Ballet may also refer to a dance work, which consists of the choreography. A well-known example of this is The Nutcracker, a ballet that was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained artists, the word came into English usage from the French around 1630. Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th and 16th centuries before being spread from Italy to France by an Italian aristocrat, Catherine de Medici, in France, ballet developed even further under her aristocratic influence. The dancers in these early court ballets were mostly noble amateurs, Ballets in this period were lengthy and elaborate and often served a political purpose. Ornamented costumes were meant to impress viewers and restricted freedom of movement. The ballets were performed in large chambers with viewers on three sides, French court ballet reached its height under the reign of King Louis XIV. Known as the Sun King, Louis symbolized the brilliance of France, in 1661 Louis founded the Académie Royale de Danse to establish standards and certify dance instructors. In 1672, Louis XIV made Jean-Baptiste Lully the director of the Académie Royale de Musique from which the first professional ballet company, Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballets de cour and instrumental to the development of the form. Ballet went into decline in France after 1830, though it continued to develop in Denmark, Italy, the arrival in Europe on the eve of First World War of the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, revived interest in the ballet and started the modern era. The Russian choreographer Michel Fokine challenged tradition and called for reforms that reinvigorated ballet as an art form, in the 20th century, ballet had a wide influence on other dance genres, and subgenres of ballet have also evolved. In the United States, choreographer George Balanchine developed what is now known as neoclassical ballet, other developments include contemporary ballet and post-structural ballet. Also in the century, ballet took a turn dividing it from classical ballet to the introduction of modern dance. Stylistic variations have emerged and evolved since the Italian Renaissance, early, classical variations are primarily associated with geographic origin
35.
Concerto
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A concerto is a musical composition, whose characteristics have changed over time. In the 17th century, sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos, J. S. Bach was thus reflecting a long-standing tradition when he used the title concerto for many of the works that we know as cantatas. But in recent centuries, up to the present, a concerto is a piece composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. The popularity of the concerto grosso form declined after the Baroque period, the solo concerto, however, has remained a vital musical force from its inception to this day. Examples of this form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrielis In Ecclesiis or Heinrich Schützs Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich. The concerto began to take its shape in the late Baroque period. Corellis concertino group was two violins and a cello, in J. S. Bachs Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, for example, the concertino is a flute, a violin, and a harpsichord, the harpsichord sometimes plays with the ripieno. Later the concerto approached its modern form in which the concertino usually reduces to a solo instrument playing with/against an orchestra. The concerto was intended as a typical of the Italian style of the time. The baroque concerto was mainly for an instrument or a wind instrument. Bach also wrote a concerto for two violins and orchestra, during the baroque period, before the invention of the piano, keyboard concertos were comparatively rare, with the exception of the organ and some harpsichord concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. Cello concertos have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier, among the works from that period, those by Antonio Vivaldi and Giuseppe Tartini are still part of the standard repertoire today. The concerti of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as CPE Bach, are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of the Classical era. It is conventional to state that the first movements of concerti from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form, final movements are often in rondo form, as in J. S. Mozart wrote five violin concertos, all in 1775 and they show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austrian. Several passages have leanings towards folk music, as manifested in Austrian serenades, mozart also wrote the highly regarded Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra. Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto, under-appreciated until revealed as a masterpiece in a performance by violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, Haydn wrote at least two cello concertos which are the most important works in that genre of the classical era. Bachs three cello concertos and Boccherinis are also noteworthy, Bachs keyboard concertos contain some brilliant soloistic writing
36.
Pit orchestra
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A pit orchestra is a type of orchestra that accompanies performers in musicals, operas, ballets and other shows involving music. The terms was used for orchestras accompanying silent movies when more than a piano was used. In performances of operas and ballets, the pit orchestra is typically similar in size to an orchestra, though it may contain smaller string and brass sections. Such orchestras may vary in size from approximately 30 musicians to as many as 90–100 musicians, however, because of financial, space, and volume concerns, the musical theatre pit orchestra in the 2000s is considerably smaller. Typically, pit orchestras play in an area in front of the stage called an orchestra pit. The conductor may also sit at one or more keyboards and conduct as well as play, which often means the use of more head and facial gestures rather than hand gestures. In some cases, theatres do not have a pit, in this case, music parts for pit orchestra woodwind players in musical theatre are normally divided into reed books. Orchestration varies with each show based on the type of music that will be performed, such as jazz, classical, for example, a Reed 1 Book may contain music for piccolo, flute, Eb alto saxophone, Bb clarinet, and/or oboe. A musician handed a reed book would be expected to each part. Because the musician plays so many different instruments, he or she is referred to as a doubler, the orchestration for a musical is written in a key best suited to range of the singer. Some keys are difficult to play in than others because of the increased attention that greater amounts of sharps. Musicals also tend to have a number of styles which can range from a ballad to a syncopated funk tune to a driving hard rock song. Many musicians have been trained to play in a style, such as classical music. As with any orchestra or similar ensemble, a pit orchestra rehearses with the singers and dancers before the public performances commence, the rehearsals are led by the conductor/music director, who sets the tempos, starts the songs and musical interludes and indicates pauses and endings of sections. Before the first rehearsal, ensemble musicians individually practice their parts, particularly difficult sections, performers may also listen to a recording of the show to learn the tempos and playing styles. Pit orchestras can range from large orchestras to small rock combos, while a pit orchestra usually plays in the orchestra pit, there are times when they are on stage in the background. In some cases, one or more members of the pit orchestra may have to appear in costume on stage with their instrument and these show the varying sizes of pit orchestras. Note that string parts are written with the intent of having two musicians play a specific part, especially in older musicals
37.
Musical theatre
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Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement, since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan. Musicals are performed around the world and they may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions, musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the three main components of a book musical are its music, lyrics and book. The interpretation of a musical is the responsibility of its team, which includes a director. A musicals production is also characterized by technical aspects, such as set design, costumes, stage properties, lighting. The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from the production, for example. There is no fixed length for a musical, while it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length, most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one intermission, and the first act is frequently longer than the second. A book musical is usually built four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in the show. Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in the West End have been presented in one act in recent decades, moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing, typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters, the material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels, plays, classic legends, historical events or films. On the other hand, many musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver
38.
Gilbert and Sullivan
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Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H. M. S, Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known. Sullivan, six years Gilberts junior, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies that could convey both humour and pathos and their operas have enjoyed broad and enduring international success and are still performed frequently throughout the English-speaking world. Gilbert and Sullivan introduced innovations in content and form that influenced the development of musical theatre through the 20th century. The operas have influenced political discourse, literature, film. Producer Richard DOyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together and nurtured their collaboration and he built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to present their joint works and founded the DOyly Carte Opera Company, which performed and promoted Gilbert and Sullivans works for over a century. Gilbert was born in London on 18 November 1836 and his father, William, was a naval surgeon who later wrote novels and short stories, some of which included illustrations by his son. Director and playwright Mike Leigh described the Gilbertian style as follows, With great fluidity and freedom, First, within the framework of the story, he makes bizarre things happen, and turns the world on its head. Thus the Learned Judge marries the Plaintiff, the soldiers metamorphose into aesthetes, and so on and his genius is to fuse opposites with an imperceptible sleight of hand, to blend the surreal with the real, and the caricature with the natural. In other words, to tell a perfectly outrageous story in a deadpan way. Gilbert developed his theories on the art of stage direction. At the time Gilbert began writing, theatre in Britain was in disrepute, Gilbert helped to reform and elevate the respectability of the theatre, especially beginning with his six short family-friendly comic operas, or entertainments, for Thomas German Reed. At a rehearsal for one of these entertainments, Ages Ago, the composer Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to his friend, two years later, Gilbert and Sullivan would write their first work together. Those two intervening years continued to shape Gilberts theatrical style, Sullivan was born in London on 13 May 1842. His father was a bandmaster, and by the time Arthur had reached the age of eight. In school he began to compose anthems and songs, in 1856, he received the first Mendelssohn Scholarship and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and then at Leipzig, where he also took up conducting. His graduation piece, completed in 1861, was a suite of music to Shakespeares The Tempest. Revised and expanded, it was performed at the Crystal Palace in 1862 and was an immediate sensation and he began building a reputation as Englands most promising young composer, composing a symphony, a concerto, and several overtures, among them the Overture di Ballo, in 1870
39.
Operetta
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Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. By this time, the part of the genre name had become misleading. With this new connotation, opéra comique had dominated the French operatic stage since the decline of tragédie lyrique, most researchers acknowledge that the credit for creating the operetta form should go to Hervé, a singer, composer, librettist, conductor, and scene painter. In 1842 he wrote the little opérette, LOurs et le pacha, based on the vaudeville show by Scribe. In 1848, Hervé made his first notable appearance on the Parisian stage, with Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, hervés most famous works are the Gounod-parody Le Petit Faust and Mamzelle Nitouche. Jacques Offenbach further developed and popularized operetta, giving it its enormous vogue during the Second Empire, Offenbachs earliest one-act pieces included Les deux aveugles, Le violoneux and Ba-ta-clan, and his first full-length operetta success was Orphée aux enfers. Offenbachs tradition was carried on by Robert Planquette, André Messager. What characterizes Offenbachs operettas is both the way they portray life, and the extremely frivolous way this is done. The character was modeled after Offenbachs female star Hortense Schneider. Considering how Zolas Nana describes an Offenbach-style operetta performance in Paris, it is not surprising that the mostly male, upper-class audiences in other cities like Vienna and Berlin longed to see these shows in their home towns as well, which inspired worldwide performance of Offenbachs works. The highly erotic way Offenbachs operettas were originally played, with stars like Hortense Schneider created a reaction from certain parts of the general public. Operetta was considered an art form. Indeed, together with its grotesque qualities, frivolity is one of the elements of authentic operetta à la Offenbach. It was only later, when audiences widened and became more middle and lower class, the most significant composer of operetta in the German language was the Austrian Johann Strauss II. His first operetta was Indigo und die vierzig Räuber and his third operetta, Die Fledermaus, became the most performed operetta in the world, and remains his most popular stage work. Its libretto was based on a written by Offenbachs librettists. In all, Strauss wrote 16 operettas and one opera, most with great success when first premiered, many of his lesser operettas are now largely forgotten, since his later librettists were less talented and he often composed independently of the plot. Strausss operettas, waltzes, polkas, and marches often have a strongly Viennese style, the Theater an der Wien never failed to draw huge crowds when his stage works were first performed
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Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
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Theatre of ancient Greece
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The ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from c.700 BC. Tragedy, comedy, and the play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies and allies in order to promote a cultural identity. The word τραγῳδία, from which the tragedy is derived, is a compound of two Greek words, τράγος or goat and ᾠδή meaning song, from ἀείδειν, to sing. This etymology indicates a link with the practices of the ancient Dionysian cults and it is impossible, however, to know with certainty how these fertility rituals became the basis for tragedy and comedy. The classical Greeks valued the power of word, and it was their main method of communication. Bahn and Bahn write, To Greeks the spoken word was a living thing, socrates himself believed that once something was written down, it lost its ability for change and growth. For these reasons, among others, oral storytelling flourished in Greece. Greek tragedy as we know it was created in Athens around the time of 532 BC, being a winner of the first theatrical contest held in Athens, he was the exarchon, or leader, of the dithyrambs performed in and around Attica, especially at the rural Dionysia. By Thespis time, the dithyramb had evolved far away from its cult roots, under the influence of heroic epic, Doric choral lyric and the innovations of the poet Arion, it had become a narrative, ballad-like genre. Thus, Thespiss true contribution to drama is unclear at best, the dramatic performances were important to the Athenians – this is made clear by the creation of a tragedy competition and festival in the City Dionysia. This was organized possibly to foster loyalty among the tribes of Attica, the festival was created roughly around 508 BC. While no drama texts exist from the sixth century BC, we do know the names of three competitors besides Thespis, Choerilus, Pratinas, and Phrynichus, each is credited with different innovations in the field. He won his first competition between 511 BC and 508 BC and he produced tragedies on themes and subjects later exploited in the golden age such as the Danaids, Phoenician Women and Alcestis. He was the first poet we know of to use a historical subject – his Fall of Miletus, produced in 493-2 and he is also thought to be the first to use female characters. This century is regarded as the Golden Age of Greek drama. The centre-piece of the annual Dionysia, which took place once in winter, each submitted three tragedies, plus a satyr play. Beginning in a first competition in 486 BC each playwright submitted a comedy, aristotle claimed that Aeschylus added the second actor, and that Sophocles introduced the third
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Greek chorus
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The chorus consisted of between 12 and 50 players, who variously danced, sang or spoke their lines in unison and sometimes wore masks. Historian H. D. F. Kitto argues that the chorus gives us hints about its function in the plays of ancient Greece, The Greek verb choreuo. The word ode means not something recited or declaimed, but a song, the orchestra, in which a chorus had its being, is literally a dancing floor. From this, it can be inferred that the chorus danced, plays of the ancient Greek theatre always included a chorus that offered a variety of background and summary information to help the audience follow the performance. They commented on themes, and, as August Wilhelm Schlegel proposed in the early 19th century to subsequent controversy, demonstrated how the audience might react to the drama. According to Schlegel, the Chorus is the spectator, and conveys to the actual spectator a lyrical and musical expression of his own emotions. In many of these plays, the chorus expressed to the audience what the characters could not say. The chorus often provided other characters with the insight they needed, some historians argue that the chorus was itself considered to be an actor. Scholars have considered Sophocles to be superior to Euripides in his choral writing, of the two, Sophocles also won more dramatic contests. His chorus passages were more relevant to the plot and more integrated in tragedies and they were often the same sex as the main character. In Aeschylus The Eumenides, however, the chorus takes the part of a host of avenging Furies, the lines of choral odes provide evidence that they were sung. Normal syllabic structure has long sounds that are twice the length of short sounds, however, some lyrics in Greek odes have long syllables that are equal to 3,4 and 5 shorter syllables. Spoken words cannot do that, suggesting that this was a danced, the chorus originally consisted of fifty members, but some later playwrights changed the size. Aeschylus likely lowered the number to twelve, and Sophocles raised it again to fifteen, fifteen members were used by Euripides and Sophocles in tragedies. The chorus stood in the orchestra, there were twenty-four members in comedies. The chorus performed using techniques, including singing, dancing, narrating. There is evidence there were strong rhythmic components to their speaking. They often communicated in song form, but sometimes spoke their lines in unison, the chorus had to work in unison to help explain the play as there were only one to three actors on stage who were already playing several parts each
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Orchestra". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "