Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer. Despite his acknowledged genius as an organist and composer, his income and employment were unstable and he died in poverty. Wilhelm Friedemann was born in Weimar, where his father was employed as organist and chamber musician to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. In July 1720, when Friedemann was nine, his mother Maria Barbara Bach died suddenly. J. S. Bach supervised Friedemann's musical career with great attention; the graded course of keyboard studies and composition that J. S. Bach provided is documented in the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, with entries by both father and son; this education included the French Suites, Sinfonias, the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, the six Trio Sonatas for organ. At the age of 16 he went to Merseburg to learn the violin with his teacher Johann Gottlieb Graun. In addition to his musical training, Friedemann received formal schooling beginning in Weimar.
When J. S. Bach took the post of Cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, he enrolled Friedemann in the associated Thomasschule.. On graduating in 1729, Friedemann enrolled as a law student in Leipzig University, a renowned institution at the time, but moved on to study law and mathematics at the University of Halle, he maintained a lifelong interest in mathematics, continued to study it during his first job in Dresden. Friedemann was appointed in 1733 to the position of organist of the St. Sophia's Church at Dresden. In competing for the post he played a new version of his father's Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541; the judge described Friedemann as superior to the other two candidates. He remained a renowned organist throughout his life. Among his many pupils in Dresden was Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, the keyboardist whose name is erroneously enshrined in the popular nickname given to J. S. Bach's 1742 publication, "Aria with Diverse Variations"—that is, "The Goldberg Variations." The scholar Peter Williams has discredited the story which links the work to Goldberg stating that J. S. Bach wrote the work for the Russian Ambassador Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, who would ask his employee, Goldberg, to play variations for him to ward off insomnia.
Williams instead has argued that J. S. Bach wrote the variations to provide a display piece for Friedemann. In 1746 Friedemann became organist of the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle. In 1751, Friedemann married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi, 11 years his junior and who outlived him by seven years. Dorothea was the daughter of a tax collector; the landed estates she inherited caused the family to be placed in a high tax bracket by Halle authorities, who were raising taxes to meet the revenue demands of the Seven Years' War. To raise cash for these payments, she sold part of her property in 1770; the couple produced two sons and a daughter, Friederica Sophia, the only one of their offspring to live past infancy. The descendents of Friederica Sophia migrated to Oklahoma. Friedemann was unhappy in Halle from the beginning of his tenure. In 1749 he was involved in a conflict with the Cantor of the Liebfrauenkirche, Gottfried Mittag, who had misappropriated funds that were due to Friedemann. In 1750 the church authorities reprimanded Friedemann for overstaying a leave of absence.
In 1753 he made his first documented attempt to find another post, thereafter made several others. All these attempts failed. Bach had Friedrich Wilhelm Rust and Johann Samuel Petri. In 1762, he negotiated for the post of Kapellmeister to the court of Darmstadt. In June 1764, Friedemann left the job in Halle without any employment secured elsewhere, his financial situation deteriorated so much that in 1768 he re-applied for his old job in Halle, without success. He thereafter supported himself by teaching. After leaving Halle in 1770, he lived for several years in Braunschweig where he applied in vain for the post of an organist at the St. Catherine's church, he moved to Berlin, where he was welcomed by the princess Anna Amalia. No longer in favor at court, he gave harpsichord lessons to Sarah Itzig Levy, the daughter of a prominent Jewish family in Berlin and an avid collector of Bach and other early 18th century music, a "patron" of Friedemann's brother CPE Bach. Friedemann died in Berlin. Earlier biographers have concluded that his "wayward" and difficult personality reduced his ability to gain and hold secure employment, but the scholar David Schulenberg writes that "he may have been affected by changing social conditions that made it difficult for a self-possessed virtuoso to succeed in a church- or court-related position".
Schulenberg adds, "he was evidently less willing than most younger contemporaries to compose fashionable accessible music". Friedemann Bach was renowned f
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration, his best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of folk subjects. Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow-composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov; this style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871, he undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five.
Rimsky-Korsakov's techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner. For much of his life, Rimsky-Korsakov combined his composition and teaching with a career in the Russian military—at first as an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy as the civilian Inspector of Naval Bands, he wrote that he developed a passion for the ocean in childhood from reading books and hearing of his older brother's exploits in the navy. This love of the sea may have influenced him to write two of his best-known orchestral works, the musical tableau Sadko and Scheherazade; as Inspector of Naval Bands, Rimsky-Korsakov expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing, which enhanced his abilities in orchestration. He passed this knowledge to his students, posthumously through a textbook on orchestration, completed by his son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg. Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions, he prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire, shaped a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator.
Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered "the main architect" of what the classical-music public considers the "Russian style" of composition. His influence on younger composers was important, as he served as a transitional figure between the autodidactism which exemplified Glinka and The Five and professionally trained composers which would become the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century. While Rimsky-Korsakov's style was based on those of Glinka, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt and, for a brief period, Wagner, he "transmitted this style directly to two generations of Russian composers" and influenced non-Russian composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, Ottorino Respighi. Rimsky-Korsakov was born in Tikhvin, 200 kilometers east of Saint Petersburg, into a Russian noble family; the Rimsky-Korsakov dynasty traced their roots to Zhigimunt Korsak, a Czech who arrived in Lithuania from the Holy Roman Empire and founded the Polish-Lithuanian Korsak coat of arms.
In 1390, his sons Vyacheslav and Miloslav escorted Sophia of Lithuania a wife of Vasily I Dmitriyevich, to Moscow and took Russian citizenship under the Korsakov and Miloslavsky surnames, respectively. Some of Vyacheslav's descendants were granted permission to add "Rimsky" to their surnames in 1677 to celebrate their so-called Roman roots. Throughout history, members of the family served in Russian government and took various positions as governors and war generals. Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov was famously a lover of Catherine the Great; the father of the composer, Andrei Petrovich Rimsky-Korsakov, was one of the six illegitimate sons of Avdotya Yakovlevna, daughter of a simple Orthodox priest from Pskov, lieutenant general Peter Voinovich Rimsky-Korsakov who had to adopt his own children as he couldn't marry their mother because of her lower social status. Using his friendship with Aleksey Arakcheyev, he managed to grant them all the privileges of the noble family. Andrei went on to serve in the Interior Ministry of the Russian Empire as the vice-governor of Novgorod, in the Volhynian Governorate.
The composer's mother, Sofya Vasilievna Rimskaya-Korsakova, was born as an illegitimate daughter of a peasant serf and Vasily Fedorovich Skaryatin, a wealthy landlord who belonged to the noble Russian family that originated during the 16th century. She was raised by her father in full comfort, yet under an improvised surname Vasilieva and with no legal status. By the time Andrei Petrovich met her, he was a widower: his first wife, knyazna Ekaterina Meshcherskaya, died just nine months after their marriage, they fell in love with each other at first sight. Since Skaryatin found him unsuitable for his daughter, Andrei secretly "stole" his bride from the father's house and brought her to Saint Petersburg where they got married; the Rimsky-Korsakov family had a long line of naval service. Nikolai's older brother Voin, 22 years his senior, became a well-known navigator and explorer and had a powerful influence on Nikolai's life, he recall
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but settled on a career in music, he held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of that city's five main churches. While Telemann's career prospered, his personal life was always troubled: his first wife died only a few months after their marriage, his second wife had extramarital affairs and accumulated a large gambling debt before leaving him. Telemann is one of the most prolific composers in history and was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time—he was compared favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann knew personally.
As part of his duties, he wrote a considerable amount of music for educating organists under his direction. This includes 48 chorale preludes and 20 small fugues to accompany his chorale harmonizations for 500 hymns, his music incorporates French and German national styles, he was at times influenced by Polish popular music. He remained at the forefront of all new musical tendencies, his music stands as an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles; the Telemann Museum is Hamburg. Telemann was born in Magdeburg the capital of the Duchy of Magdeburg, Brandenburg-Prussia, his father Heinrich, deacon at the Church of the Holy Spirit, died. The future composer received his first music lessons at 10, from a local organist, became immensely interested in music in general, composition in particular. Despite opposition from his mother and relatives, who forbade any musical activities, Telemann found it possible to study and compose in secret creating an opera at age 12. In 1697, after studies at the Domschule in Magdeburg and at a school in Zellerfeld, Telemann was sent to the famous Gymnasium Andreanum at Hildesheim, where his musical talent flourished, supported by school authorities, including the rector himself.
Telemann was becoming adept both at composing and performing, teaching himself flute, violin, double bass, other instruments. In 1701 he graduated from the Gymnasium and went to Leipzig to become a student at the Leipzig University, where he intended to study law, he ended up becoming a professional musician composing works for Nikolaikirche and St. Thomas. In 1702 he became director of the municipal opera house Opernhaus auf dem Brühl, music director at the Neukirche. Prodigiously productive, Telemann supplied a wealth of new music for Leipzig, including several operas, one of, his first major opera, Germanicus. However, he became engaged in a conflict with the cantor of Johann Kuhnau; the conflict intensified when Telemann started employing numerous students for his projects, including those who were Kuhnau's, from the Thomasschule. Telemann left Leipzig in 1705 at the age of 24, after receiving an invitation to become Kapellmeister for the court of Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau, his career there was cut short in early 1706 by the hostilities of the Great Northern War, after a short period of travels he entered the service of Duke Johann Wilhelm, in Eisenach where Johann Sebastian Bach was born.
He became Konzertmeister on 24 December 1708 and Secretary and Kapellmeister in August 1709. During his tenure at Eisenach, Telemann wrote a great deal of music: at least four annual cycles of church cantatas, dozens of sonatas and concertos, other works. In 1709, he married Amalie Louise Juliane Eberlin, lady-in-waiting to the Countess of Promnitz and daughter of the musician Daniel Eberlin, their daughter was born in January 1711. The mother died soon afterwards, leaving Telemann distraught. After less than a year he sought another position, moved to Frankfurt on 18 March 1712 at the age of 31 to become city music director and Kapellmeister at the Barfüßerkirche and St. Catherine's Church. In Frankfurt, he gained his mature personal style. Here, as in Leipzig, he was a powerful force in the city's musical life, creating music for two major churches, civic ceremonies, various ensembles and musicians. By 1720 he had adopted the use of the da capo aria, adopted by composers such as Domenico Scarlatti.
Operas such as Narciso, brought to Frankfurt in 1719, written in the Italian idiom of composition, made a mark on Telemann's output. On 28 August 1714, three years after his first wife had died, Telemann married his second wife, Maria Catharina Textor, daughter of a Frankfurt council clerk, they had nine children together. This was a source of much personal happiness, helped him produce compositions. Telemann continued to be extraordinarily productive and successful augmenting his income by working for Eisenach employers as a Kapellmeister von Haus aus, sending new music while not living in Eisenach. Telemann's first published works appeared during the Frankfurt period, his output increased for he fervently composed overture-suites and chamber music, most of, unappreciated. In the latter half of the Frankfurt period, he composed an innovative work, his Viola Concerto in G major, twice
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in classical music, he remains one of the most recognised and influential of all composers, his best-known compositions include 9 symphonies. His career as a composer is conventionally divided into early and late periods. Beethoven was born in Bonn the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, he displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist, he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate and by the last decade of his life he was completely deaf. In 1811 he continued to compose. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Austrian Duchy of Brabant who had moved to Bonn at the age of 21.
Ludwig was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne rising to become, in 1761, Kapellmeister and thereafter the pre-eminent musician in Bonn. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained displayed in his grandson's rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, who worked as a tenor in the same musical establishment and gave keyboard and violin lessons to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767. Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no authentic record of the date of his birth; as children of that era were traditionally baptised the day after birth in the Catholic Rhine country, it is known that Beethoven's family and his teacher Johann Albrechtsberger celebrated his birthday on 16 December, most scholars accept 16 December 1770 as his date of birth. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, two younger brothers survived infancy. Kaspar Anton Karl was born on 8 April 1774, Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776.
Beethoven's first music teacher was his father. He had other local teachers: the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, Franz Rovantini. From the outset his tuition regime, which began in his fifth year, was harsh and intensive reducing him to tears, his musical talent was obvious at a young age. Johann, aware of Leopold Mozart's successes in this area, attempted to promote his son as a child prodigy, claiming that Beethoven was six on the posters for his first public performance in March 1778; some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, appointed the Court's Organist in that year. Neefe taught him composition, by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition: a set of keyboard variations. Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi, his first three piano sonatas, named "Kurfürst" for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783.
Maximilian Frederick noticed his talent early, subsidised and encouraged the young man's musical studies. Maximilian Frederick's successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, he brought notable changes to Bonn. Echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts; the teenage Beethoven was certainly influenced by these changes. He may have been influenced at this time by ideas prominent in freemasonry, as Neefe and others around Beethoven were members of the local chapter of the Order of the Illuminati. In December 1786, Beethoven travelled to Vienna, at his employer's expense, for the first time in the hope of studying with Mozart; the details of their relationship are uncertain, including whether they met. Having learned that his mother was ill, Beethoven returned to Bonn in May 1787, his mother died shortly thereafter, his father lapsed deeper into alcoholism.
As a result, he became responsible for the care of his two younger brothers, spent the next five years in Bonn. He was introduced in these years to several people. Franz Wegeler, a young medical student, intro
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five". He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period, he strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music. Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, other national themes; such works include the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. For many years Mussorgsky's works were known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have posthumously come into their own in their original forms, some of the original scores are now available; the spelling and pronunciation of the composer's name has caused some confusion. The family name derives from a 15th- or 16th-century ancestor, Roman Vasilyevich Monastyryov, who appears in the Velvet Book, the 17th-century genealogy of Russian boyars.
Roman Vasilyevich bore the nickname "Musorga", was the grandfather of the first Mussorgsky. The composer could trace his lineage to Rurik, the legendary 9th-century founder of the Russian state. In Mussorgsky family documents the spelling of the name varies: "Musarskiy", "Muserskiy", "Muserskoy", "Musirskoy", "Musorskiy", "Musurskiy"; the baptismal record gives the composer's name as "Muserskiy". In early letters to Mily Balakirev, the composer signed his name "Musorskiy"; the "g" made its first appearance in a letter to Balakirev in 1863. Mussorgsky used this new spelling to the end of his life, but reverted to the earlier "Musorskiy"; the addition of the "g" to the name was initiated by the composer's elder brother Filaret to obscure the resemblance of the name's root to an unsavory Russian word: мусoр — n. m. debris, refuseMussorgsky did not take the new spelling and played on the "rubbish" connection in letters to Vladimir Stasov and to Stasov's family signing his name Musoryanin "garbage-dweller".
The first syllable of the name received the stress, does so to this day in Russia and in the composer's home district. The mutability of the second-syllable vowel in the versions of the name mentioned above gives evidence that this syllable did not receive the stress; the addition of the "g" and the accompanying shift in stress to the second syllable, sometimes described as a Polish variant, was supported by Filaret Mussorgsky's descendants until his line ended in the 20th century. Their example was followed by many influential Russians, such as Fyodor Shalyapin, Nikolay Golovanov, Tikhon Khrennikov, who dismayed that the great composer's name was "reminiscent of garbage", supported the erroneous second-syllable stress that has become entrenched in the West; the Western convention of doubling the first "s", not observed in scholarly literature arose because in many Western European languages a single intervocalic /s/ becomes voiced to /z/, unlike in Slavic languages where it can be both voiced and unvoiced.
Doubling the consonant thus reinforces its voiceless sibilant /s/ sound.'Modest' is the Russian form of the name'Modestus' which means'moderate' or'restrained' in Late Latin. Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Toropets Uyezd, Pskov Governorate, Russian Empire, 400 km south of Saint Petersburg, his wealthy and land-owning family, the noble family of Mussorgsky, is reputedly descended from the first Ruthenian ruler, through the sovereign princes of Smolensk. At age six, Mussorgsky began herself a trained pianist, his progress was sufficiently rapid that three years he was able to perform a John Field concerto and works by Franz Liszt for family and friends. At 10, he and his brother were taken to Saint Petersburg to study at the elite German language Petrischule. While there, Modest studied the piano with the noted Anton Gerke. In 1852, the 12-year-old Mussorgsky published a piano piece titled "Porte-enseigne Polka" at his father's expense. Mussorgsky's parents planned the move to Saint Petersburg so that both their sons would renew the family tradition of military service.
To this end, Mussorgsky entered the Cadet School of the Guards at age 13. Sharp controversy had arisen over the educational attitudes at the time of both this institute and its director, a General Sutgof. All agreed the Cadet School could be a brutal place for new recruits. More tellingly for Mussorgsky, it was where he began his eventual path to alcoholism. According to a former student and composer Nikolai Kompaneisky, Sutgof "was proud when a cadet returned from leave drunk with champagne."Music remained important to him, however. Sutgof's daughter was a pupil of Gerke, Mussorgsky was allowed to attend lessons with her, his skills as a pianist made him much in demand by fellow-cadets. In 1856 Mussorgsky – who had developed a strong interest in history and studied German philosophy – graduated from the Cadet School. Following family tradition he received a commission with the Preobrazhensky Regiment, the foremost regiment of the Russian Imperial Guard. In October 1856 the 17-year-old Mussorgsky met the 22-year-old Alexander Borodin while both men served at a military hospital in Saint Petersburg.
The two were soon
Sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, Arabic or other languages – the medium of sheet music is paper, although the access to musical notation since the 1980s has included the presentation of musical notation on computer screens and the development of scorewriter computer programs that can notate a song or piece electronically, and, in some cases, "play back" the notated music using a synthesizer or virtual instruments. Use of the term "sheet" is intended to differentiate written or printed forms of music from sound recordings, radio or TV broadcasts or recorded live performances, which may capture film or video footage of the performance as well as the audio component. In everyday use, "sheet music" can refer to the print publication of commercial sheet music in conjunction with the release of a new film, TV show, record album, or other special or popular event which involves music.
The first printed sheet music made with a printing press was made in 1473. Sheet music is the basic form in which Western classical music is notated so that it can be learned and performed by solo singers or instrumentalists or musical ensembles. Many forms of traditional and popular Western music are learned by singers and musicians "by ear", rather than by using sheet music; the term score is a common alternative term for sheet music, there are several types of scores, as discussed below. The term score can refer to theatre music, orchestral music or songs written for a play, opera or ballet, or to music or songs written for a television programme or film. Sheet music from the 20th and 21st century indicates the title of the song or composition on a title page or cover, or on the top of the first page, if there is no title page or cover. If the song or piece is from a movie, Broadway musical, or opera, the title of the main work from which the song/piece is taken may be indicated. If the songwriter or composer is known, her or his name is indicated along with the title.
The sheet music may indicate the name of the lyric-writer, if the lyrics are by a person other than one of the songwriters or composers. It may the name of the arranger, if the song or piece has been arranged for the publication. No songwriter or composer name may be indicated for old folk music, traditional songs in genres such as blues and bluegrass, old traditional hymns and spirituals, because for this music, the authors are unknown; the type of musical notation varies a great deal by style of music. In most classical music, the melody and accompaniment parts are notated on the lines of a staff using round note heads. In classical sheet music, the staff contains: a clef, such as bass clef or treble clef a key signature indicating the key—for instance, a key signature with three sharps is used for the key of either A major or F♯ minor a time signature, which has two numbers aligned vertically with the bottom number indicating the note value that represents one beat and the top number indicating how many beats are in a bar—for instance, a time signature of 24 indicates that there are two quarter notes per bar.
Most songs and pieces from the Classical period onward indicate the piece's tempo using an expression—often in Italian—such as Allegro or Grave as well as its dynamics. The lyrics, if present, are written near the melody notes. However, music from the Baroque era or earlier eras may have neither a tempo marking nor a dynamic indication; the singers and musicians of that era were expected to know what tempo and loudness to play or sing a given song or piece due to their musical experience and knowledge. In the contemporary classical music era, in some cases before, composers used their native language for tempo indications, rather than Italian or added metronome markings; these conventions of classical music notation, in particular the use of English tempo instructions, are used for sheet music versions of 20th and 21st century popular music songs. Popular music songs indicate both the tempo and genre: "slow blues" or "uptempo rock". Pop songs contain chord names above the staff using letter names, so that an acoustic guitarist or pianist can improvise a chordal accompaniment.
In other styles of music, different musical notation methods may be used. In jazz, while most professional performers can read "classical"-style notation, many jazz tunes are notated using chord charts, which indicate the chord progression of a song and its form. Members of a jazz rhythm section use the chord chart to guide their improvised accompaniment parts, while the "lead instruments" in a jazz group, such as a saxophone player or trumpeter, use the chord changes to guide their solo improvisation. Like popular music songs, jazz tunes indicate both the tempo and genre: "slow blues" or "fast bop". Professional country music session musicians use music notated in the Nashville Number System, which indicates th
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, pianist and critic, was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. Weber's operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon influenced the development of the Romantische Oper in Germany. Der Freischütz came to be regarded as the first German "nationalist" opera, Euryanthe developed the Leitmotif technique to an unprecedented degree, while Oberon may have influenced Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream and, at the same time, revealed Weber's lifelong interest in the music of non-Western cultures; this interest was first manifested in Weber's incidental music for Schiller's translation of Gozzi's Turandot, for which he used a Chinese melody, making him the first Western composer to use an Asian tune, not of the pseudo-Turkish kind popularized by Mozart and others. A brilliant pianist himself, Weber composed four sonatas, two concertos and the Konzertstück in F minor, which influenced composers such as Chopin and Mendelssohn.
The Konzertstück provided a new model for the one-movement concerto in several contrasting sections, was acknowledged by Stravinsky as the model for his Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. Weber's shorter piano pieces, such as the Invitation to the Dance, were orchestrated by Berlioz, while his Polacca Brillante was set for piano and orchestra by Liszt. Weber's compositions for clarinet and horn occupy an important place in the musical repertoire, his compositions for the clarinet, which include two concertos, a concertino, a quintet, a duo concertante, variations on a theme from his opera Silvana, are performed today. His Concertino for Horn and Orchestra requires the performer to produce two notes by humming while playing—a technique known as "multiphonics", his bassoon concerto and the Andante e Rondo ungarese are popular with bassoonists. Weber's contribution to vocal and choral music is significant, his body of Catholic religious music was popular in 19th-century Germany, he composed one of the earliest song cycles, Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten.
Weber was notable as one of the first conductors to conduct without a piano or violin. Weber's orchestration has been praised and emulated by generations of composers – Berlioz referred to him several times in his Treatise on Instrumentation while Debussy remarked that the sound of the Weber orchestra was obtained through the scrutiny of the soul of each instrument, his operas influenced the work of opera composers in Germany, such as Marschner and Wagner, as well as several nationalist 19th-century composers such as Glinka. Homage has been paid to Weber by 20th-century composers such as Debussy, Stravinsky and Hindemith. Weber wrote music journalism and was interested in folksong, learned lithography to engrave his own works. Weber was born in Eutin, Bishopric of Lübeck, the eldest of the three children of Franz Anton von Weber and his second wife, Genovefa Weber, a Viennese singer; the "von" was an affectation. Both his parents were Catholic and came from the far south of Germany. Franz Anton began his career as a military officer in the service of the Duchy of Holstein, after being fired, went on to hold a number of musical directorships.
In 1787 Franz Anton went on to Hamburg. Franz Anton's half-brother, married Cäcilia Stamm and had four musical daughters, Aloysia and Sophie, all of whom became notable singers. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart attempted composing several pieces for her, but after she rejected his advances, Mozart went on to marry Constanze. A gifted violinist, Franz Anton had ambitions of turning Carl into a child prodigy like Franz's nephew-by-marriage, Mozart. Carl did not begin to walk until he was four, but by he was a capable singer and pianist. Weber's father gave him a comprehensive education, however interrupted by the family's constant moves. In 1796, Weber continued his musical education in Hildburghausen, where he was instructed by the oboist Johann Peter Heuschkel. On 13 March 1798, Weber's mother died of tuberculosis; that same year, Weber went to Salzburg to study with Michael Haydn, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn, who agreed to teach Carl free of charge. That year, Weber traveled to Munich to study with the singer Johann Evangelist Wallishauser and organist Johann Nepomuk Kalcher.
1798 saw the twelve-year-old Weber's first published work, six fughettas for piano, published in Leipzig. Other compositions of that period, among them a mass, his first opera, Die Macht der Liebe und des Weins, are lost. In 1800, the family moved to Freiberg in Saxony, where Weber 14 years old, wrote an opera called Das stumme Waldmädchen, produced at the Freiberg theatre, it was performed in Vienna and Saint Petersburg. The young Weber began to publish articles as a music critic, for example in the Leipziger Neue Zeitung in 1801. In 1801, the fa
