1.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
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Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a family with strong moral views. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens and he wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his voice until his late thirties. Vaughan Williams is among the best-known British symphonists, noted for his wide range of moods, from stormy and impassioned to tranquil. Among the most familiar of his concert works are Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. His vocal works include hymns, folk-song arrangements and large-scale choral pieces and he wrote eight works for stage performance between 1919 and 1951. Although none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces, his ballet Job, Two episodes made notably deep impressions in Vaughan Williamss personal life. The First World War, in which he served in the army, had an emotional effect. Twenty years later, though in his sixties and devotedly married, he was reinvigorated by an affair with a much younger woman. He went on composing through his seventies and eighties, producing his last symphony months before his death at the age of eighty-five. His works have continued to be a staple of the British concert repertoire, Vaughan Williams was born at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, the third child and younger son of the vicar, the Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams and his wife, Margaret, née Wedgwood. His paternal forebears were of mixed English and Welsh descent, many of them went into the law or the Church, the judges Sir Edward and Sir Roland Vaughan Williams were respectively Arthurs father and brother. Margaret Vaughan Williams was a great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood and niece of Charles Darwin, Arthur Vaughan Williams died suddenly in February 1875, and his widow took the children to live in her family home, Leith Hill Place, Wotton, Surrey. The children were under the care of a nurse, Sara Wager, such views were consistent with the progressive-minded tradition of both sides of the family. When the young Vaughan Williams asked his mother about Darwins controversial book On the Origin of Species, she answered, great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer, but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way
2.
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
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Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, also known as the Tallis Fantasia, is a work for string orchestra by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was composed in 1910 and performed for the first time on September 10 of that year at Gloucester Cathedral for the Three Choirs Festival, Vaughan Williams himself conducted, and the composition proved to be a major success. He revised the work twice, in 1913 and 1919, performances generally run between 14 and 16 minutes. The work takes its name from the composer of the melody. Many of Vaughan Williams works are associated with or inspired by the music of the English Renaissance. In 1906 Vaughan Williams included Talliss Third Mode Melody in the English Hymnal, the tune is in Double Common Meter. The work is scored for a string orchestra divided into three parts, orchestra I, a full-sized string orchestra, orchestra II, a single desk from each section. Vaughan Williams made this configuration resemble an organ in sound, with the representing the swell division, orchestra II the choir division. The score specifies that the orchestra should be placed apart from the first. This spacing emphasizes the way that the orchestra several times echoes the first orchestra. In structure this piece resembles the Elizabethan-age fantasy, the theme is heard in its entirety three times during the course of the work, but the music grows from the themes constituent motives or fragments, with variations upon them. A secondary melody, based on the original, is first heard on the solo viola about a third of the way into the Fantasia, and this theme forms the climax of the work about five minutes before the end. Talliss original tune is in the Phrygian mode and was one of the nine he contributed to the Psalter of 1567 for the Archbishop of Canterbury, when Vaughan Williams edited the English Hymnal of 1906, he also included this melody. Parkers original words were, Why fumeth in fight, The Gentils spite, why taketh in hond, The people fond, Vayne thinges to bring about. The kinges arise, The lordes devise, In counsayles mett thereto, Agaynst the Lord, With false accord, the piece was used, in part, in the 2003 film Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World directed by Peter Weir. The rising, organ-like melody is used to effect in a concluding scene
3.
Orchestra
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The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theatre reserved for the Greek chorus. A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called an orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played. The term chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer, the typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, the conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The first violin, commonly called the concertmaster, also plays an important role in leading the musicians, the typical symphony orchestra consists of four groups of related musical instruments called the woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings. The orchestra, depending on the size, contains almost all of the instruments in each group. Chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles, a chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty musicians. The term concert orchestra may also be used, as in the BBC Concert Orchestra, the so-called standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Beethoven. The composers instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, the exceptions to this are his Symphony No. 4, Violin Concerto, and Piano Concerto No,4, which each specify a single flute. Beethoven carefully calculated the expansion of this particular timbral palette in Symphonies 3,5,6, the third horn in the Eroica Symphony arrives to provide not only some harmonic flexibility, but also the effect of choral brass in the Trio movement. Piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones add to the finale of his Symphony No.5. A piccolo and a pair of trombones help deliver the effect of storm and sunshine in the Sixth, for several decades after his death, symphonic instrumentation was faithful to Beethovens well-established model, with few exceptions. Apart from the core orchestral complement, various instruments are called for occasionally. These include the guitar, heckelphone, flugelhorn, cornet, harpsichord. Saxophones, for example, appear in some 19th- through 21st-century scores.6 and 9 and William Waltons Belshazzars Feast, and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th-century works, usually playing parts marked tenor tuba, including Gustav Holsts The Planets, cornets appear in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys ballet Swan Lake, Claude Debussys La Mer, and several orchestral works by Hector Berlioz
4.
String section
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The string section is the largest body of a single instrument category in the standard Classical orchestra. It normally consists of the first violins, the violins, the violas, the cellos. The first and second play the same types of instruments. The first violins are generally given the melody or higher-pitch musical lines, the second violins may play a harmony part, a countermelody or an accompaniment passage. In discussions of the instrumentation of a work, the phrase the strings or. An orchestra consisting solely of a section is called a string orchestra. Smaller string sections are used in jazz, pop and rock music arrangements, the most common seating arrangement in the 2000s is with first violins, second violins, violas and cello sections arrayed clockwise around the conductor, with basses behind the cellos on the right. The principal string players sit at the front of their section, closest to the conductor and on the row of performers which is closest to the audience. If space or numbers are limited, cellos and basses can be put in the middle, violins and violas on the left and winds to the right, this is the usual arrangement in orchestra pits. The seating may also be specified by the composer, as in Béla Bartóks Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, in some cases, due to space constraints or other issues, a different layout may be used. The inside player typically turns the pages of the part, while the player continues playing. In cases where a turn occurs during an essential musical part. There are more variations of set-up with the bass section, depending on the size of the section. There are not usually as many basses as cellos, so they are either in one row, or for a larger section, in some orchestras, some or all of the string sections may be placed on wooden risers, which are platforms that elevate the performers. The size of a section may be expressed with a formula of the type 10-10-8-10-6, designating the number of first violins, second violins, violas, cellos. The numbers can vary widely, Wagner in Die Walküre specifies 16-16-12-12-8, in general, music from the Baroque music era and the Classical music period used smaller string sections. During the contemporary era, some composers requested smaller string sections. In some regional orchestras, amateur orchestras and youth orchestras, the sections may be relatively small
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.
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
10.
Gurre-Lieder
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Gurre-Lieder is a large cantata for five vocal soloists, narrator, chorus and large orchestra, composed by Arnold Schönberg, on poems by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen. In 1900, Schönberg began composing the work as a cycle for soprano, tenor. It was written in a lush, late-romantic style heavily influenced by Richard Wagner, according to Schönberg, however, he finished them half a week too late for the contest, and this decided the fate of the work. Later that year, he expanded his original conception, composing links between the first nine songs as well as adding a prelude, the Wood Doves Song. He worked on this version sporadically until around 1903, when he abandoned the task of orchestrating the work. He had also come under the spell of Gustav Mahler, whom he had met in 1903, in Des Sommerwindes wilde Jagd, Schönberg also introduced the first use of Sprechgesang, a technique he would explore more fully in Pierrot Lunaire of 1912. The orchestration was completed in November 1911. Franz Schreker conducted the premiere of the work in Vienna on 23 February 1913, by this time, Schönberg was disenchanted with the style and character of the piece and was even dismissive of its positive reception, saying I was rather indifferent, if not even a little angry. I foresaw that this success would have no influence on the fate of my later works, I had, during these thirteen years, developed my style in such a manner that to the ordinary concertgoer, it would seem to bear no relation to all preceding music. I had to fight for new work, I had been offended in the most outrageous manner by criticism, I had lost friends. And I stood alone against a world of enemies, violinist Francis Aranyi called it the strangest thing that a man in front of that kind of a hysterical, worshipping mob has ever done. It would be wrong to assume that Schoenberg considered Gurre-Lieder a composition of no merit, a few months after the premiere he wrote to Wassily Kandinsky, I certainly do not look down on this work, as the journalists always suppose. For although I have certainly developed very much since those days, I have not improved, I consider it important that people give credence to the elements in this work which I retained later. The Dutch first performance, directed by Schoenberg himself, was in March 1921, clark had tried to have the premiere the previous year, on 14 April 1927, but these plans fell through. Leopold Stokowski conducted the American premiere on 8 April 1932, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, soloists, stokowskis performances on 9 and 11 April 1932 were recorded live by RCA. Bell Laboratories had been recording the Philadelphia Orchestra in high fidelity and stereophonic sound. A performance of Gurre-Lieder without intermission runs over an hour and a half, riccardo Chaillys 1990 Decca recording, for example, lasts more than 100 minutes and takes two compact discs. In 2014 the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam was the first company to stage the Gurre-Lieder, the cantata is divided into three parts
11.
Edward Elgar
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Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello and he also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the Kings Musick in 1924, although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically and he nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British army officer. His later full-length religious choral works were received but have not entered the regular repertory. In his fifties, Elgar composed a symphony and a concerto that were immensely successful. His second symphony and his cello concerto did not gain immediate public popularity, Elgars music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. His stock remained low for a generation after his death and it began to revive significantly in the 1960s, helped by new recordings of his works. Some of his works have, in recent years, been taken up again internationally, Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of recordings of his works. Edward Elgar was born in the village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester. His father, William Henry Elgar, was raised in Dover and had apprenticed to a London music publisher. In 1841 William moved to Worcester, where he worked as a tuner and set up a shop selling sheet music. In 1848 he married Ann Greening, daughter of a farm worker, Edward was the fourth of their seven children. Ann Elgar had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before Edwards birth, William Elgar was a violinist of professional standard and held the post of organist of St. Georges Roman Catholic Church, Worcester, from 1846 to 1885. At his instigation, masses by Cherubini and Hummel were first heard at the Three Choirs Festival by the orchestra in which he played the violin, all the Elgar children received a musical upbringing. Elgars mother was interested in the arts and encouraged his musical development and he inherited from her a discerning taste for literature and a passionate love of the countryside. His friend and biographer W. H, Billy Reed wrote that Elgars early surroundings had an influence that permeated all his work and gave to his whole life that subtle but none the less true and sturdy English quality
12.
United States Army Band
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The United States Army Band, also known as Pershings Own, is the premier musical organization of the United States Army, founded in 1922. Before 2002, the United States Army Band was the only Washington-based military band to have participated in a theater of combat operations. S. Army Herald Trumpets, The Army Strings, and The Army Brass Quintet. The United States Army Band was established on January 25,1922 by General of the Armies John J. Pershing, in its early years, the band was featured on RCA, CBS, the Mutual Broadcasting Network, and other networks. The band also completed four tours between 1928 and 1931 and was noted for its professionalism during a trip to Spain for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. In June 1943, the United States Army Band was called overseas to perform in North Africa, the band received a campaign streamer for their efforts during the Rhineland Campaign. Notable musicians included Metropolitan Opera bass Jerome Hines, composers Paul Hindemith and Percy Grainger, similarly, several well-known entertainers and recording artists were band members during this period. Eddie Fisher, Robert Dini, and Steve Lawrence were very popular during the 1950s, as were harpist Lloyd Lindroth, future Metropolitan Opera tenor George Shirley, throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the United States Army Band continued to perform and serve with distinction. In 1963, the participated in the state funeral of John F. Kennedy with Army Band Bugler Keith Clark performing Taps during final interment at Arlington National Cemetery. Brucker Hall, the training and performance facility, was constructed in the mid-1970s. Also during this era, the Army Blues, the Army Brass Quintet, the Army Chorale, in 1984, the band recorded and participated in the filming of Francis Ford Coppolas movie Gardens of Stone. In November 1997, the United States Army Band culminated its rich 75-year history with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Guest artists included Walter Cronkite, Charles Osgood, and Metropolitan Opera stars Roberta Peters, in April 2000, Colonel Gary F. Lamb returned to the United States Army Band and this was the first time since 1945 that members of the band performed in a theater of foreign operations. Other celebrities that have accompanied recent tours include country singer Mark Wills, comedian Al Franken, Colonel Lamb retired in June 2005 and was succeeded by Colonel Thomas Rotondi, Jr. whose previous assignment was Commander/Conductor of the United States Military Academy Band in West Point, New York. The U. S. Army Band official website The short film A NATION SINGS is available for download at the Internet Archive
13.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
14.
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
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Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K.525, is a 1787 composition for a chamber ensemble by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German title means a little serenade, though it is rendered more literally. The work is written for an ensemble of two violins, viola, and cello with optional double bass, but is performed by string orchestras. The serenade was completed in Vienna on 10 August 1787, around the time Mozart was working on the act of his opera Don Giovanni. It is not known why it was composed, Hildesheimer, noting that most of Mozarts serenades were written on commission, suggests that this serenade, too, was a commission, whose origin and first performance were not recorded. The traditionally used name of the work comes from the entry Mozart made for it in his personal catalog, which begins, Eine kleine Nacht-Musik. As Zaslaw and Cowdery point out, Mozart almost certainly was not giving the piece a special title, the work was not published until about 1827, long after Mozarts death, by Johann André in Offenbach am Main. It had been sold to publisher in 1799 by Mozarts widow Constanze. Today the serenade is widely performed and recorded, indeed both Jacobson and Hildesheimer opine that the serenade is the most popular of all Mozarts works. Of the music, Hildesheimer writes, even if we hear it on street corner, its high quality is undisputed. The work has four movements, This first movement is in sonata-allegro form and it opens with an ascending Mannheim rocket theme. The second theme is more graceful and in D major, the dominant key of G major, the exposition closes in D major and is repeated. The development section begins on D major and touches on D minor, the second movement, with the tempo marked Andante, is a Romanze in the subdominant key of C major. A feeling of intimacy and tenderness prevails throughout this movement and it is in rondo form, taking the shape A–B–A–C–A plus a final coda. The keys of the sections are C major for A and B, C minor for C, the middle appearance of A is truncated, consisting of only the first half of the theme. Heartz describes the movement as evoking gavotte rhythm, each of its sections begins in the middle of the measure, the third movement, marked Allegretto, is a minuet and trio, both in 34 time. The minuet is in the key of G major, the contrasting trio in the dominant key of D major. As is normal in this form, the minuet is played again da capo following the trio, the fourth and last movement is in lively tempo, marked Allegro, the key is again G major
15.
William Boyce (composer)
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William Boyce was an English composer and organist. A house in the present choir school is named after him and his first professional appointment came in 1734 when he was employed as an organist at the Oxford Chapel. He went on to take a number of similar posts before being appointed Master of the Kings Musick in 1755, one of his students was the prodigy Thomas Linley. By the year 1758 his deafness had increased to such an extent that he was unable to continue in his organist posts and he resolved to give up teaching and to retire to Kensington, and devote himself to editing the collection of church music which bears his name. He retired and worked on completing the compilation Cathedral Music that his teacher Greene had left incomplete at his death and this led to Boyce editing works by the likes of William Byrd and Henry Purcell. Many of the pieces in the collection are used in Anglican services today. Boyce is known for his set of eight symphonies, his anthems and he also composed the British and Canadian Naval March Heart of Oak. The lyrics were written by David Garrick for his 1759 play Harlequins Invasion. Boyce also wrote music for masonic rituals, lambert had already launched the early stages of the modern Boyce revival in 1928, when he published the first modern edition of the Eight Symphonies. Boyces portraits were painted by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Hudson and he was drawn and engraved by John Keyse Sherwin, and a vignette made by Drayton after Robert Smirke. His only son, also William Boyce, was a double bass player. On the 7 February 1779 Boyce died from an attack of gout and he was buried under the dome of St Pauls cathedral. Lambert, Finzi and the Anatomy of the Boyce Revival, bartlett, Ian, and Robert J. Bruce. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie, Boyce, William, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Kenyon, Nicholas. William Boyce Music and Musicians 27, no
16.
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
17.
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
18.
String quartet
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A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – two violin players, a viola player and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group. The string quartet is one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in classical music, with most major composers, from the mid to late 18th century onwards, writing string quartets. The string quartet was developed into its current form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, ever since Haydns day the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form and represents one of the true tests of the composers art. With four parts to play with, a composer working in anything like the key system has enough lines to fashion a full argument. The closely related characters of the four instruments, moreover, while they cover in combination an ample compass of pitch, do not lend themselves to indulgence in purely colouristic effects. Thus, in ways the string quartet is pre-eminently the dialectical form of instrumental music. Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, in the 21st century it remains an important and refined musical form. Some quartets play together for years in ensembles which may be named after the first violinist. Well-known string quartets can be found in the list of string quartet ensembles, the early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of Haydns journey with the genre. However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the quartet as a medium. The origins of the quartet can be further traced back to the Baroque trio sonata. A very early example is a sonata for string ensemble by Gregorio Allegri that might be considered an important prototype string quartet. By the early 18th century, composers were often adding a third soloist, thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled Sonata à Quattro per due Violini, Violetta, e Violoncello senza Cembalo, this was a natural evolution from the existing tradition. The string quartet in its now accepted form came about with Haydn, even the composition of Haydns earliest string quartets owed more to chance than artistic imperative. Haydns early biographer Georg August Griesinger tells the story thus, The following purely chance circumstance had led him to try his luck at the composition of quartets. A Baron Fürnberg had a place in Weinzierl, several stages from Vienna, and he invited from time to time his pastor, his manager, Haydn, Fürnberg requested Haydn to compose something that could be performed by these four amateurs. Haydn went on to nine other quartets around this time. These works were published as his Op.1 and Op.2, one quartet went unpublished and they have five movements and take the form, fast movement, minuet and trio I, slow movement, minuet and trio II, and fast finale
19.
Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Stravinskys compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. His Russian phase which continued with such as Renard, The Soldiers Tale. The works from this tended to make use of traditional musical forms, drawing on earlier styles. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures, Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, the Russian imperial capital, and was brought up in Saint Petersburg. It is believed that Stravinsky’s ancestry is traceable back to the 17th and 18th centuries, to the bearers of the Soulima, ivan Sulima, was a famous Ukrainian hetman 1628–1635. Stravinskys family branch most likely came from Stravinskas, polonized Lithuanian land owners and it is still unclear to when exactly the Soulima part of the surname was dropped. Stravinsky recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that I never came across anyone who had any attraction for me. Stravinsky began piano lessons as a boy, studying music theory. In 1890, he saw a performance of Tchaikovskys ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre, despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to study law. Stravinsky enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, Stravinskys father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law. Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music, in 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father. These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakovs death in 1908, in 1905 Stravinsky was betrothed to his cousin Katherine Gavrylivna Nosenko, whom he had known since early childhood. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a ballet score. The early period of Igor Stravinsky’s work would be incomplete without a research of his life while in Ukraine. From approximately 1890 till 1914 the composer was frequently visiting Ustyluh, town in Volyn Oblast and he spent most of his summers there and that’s where he met his cousin, Katherine Nosenko who he married in 1906. In 1907 Stravinsky designed and built his own house in Ustyluh where his own family stayed often during summer times until 1914 and his new Ukrainian home he called “My heavenly place”. In this house Igor Stravinsky worked on his seventeen early compositions, among which were orchestral fantasy Fireworks, ballets Firebird, Petrushka, currently, after its renovation this house is the only composers house-museum opened to the public
20.
Apollo (ballet)
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Apollo is a ballet in two tableaux composed between 1927 and 1928 by Igor Stravinsky. It was choreographed in 1928 by twenty-four-year-old George Balanchine, with the composer contributing the libretto, the scenery and costumes were designed by André Bauchant, with new costumes by Coco Chanel in 1929. The scenery was executed by Alexander Shervashidze, with costumes under the direction of Mme. The story centres on Apollo, the Greek god of music, who is visited by three Muses, Terpsichore, muse of dance and song, Polyhymnia, muse of mime, the ballet takes Classical antiquity as its subject, though its plot suggests a contemporary situation. It is concerned with the reinvention of tradition, since its inspiration is classique or even post-baroque and it uses a chamber orchestra with 34 string instruments. Stravinsky began composing Apollo on 16 July 1927 and completed the score on 9 January 1928. He composed for an instrumental force, a string orchestra of 34 instrumentalists,8 first violins,8 second violins,6 violas,4 first cellos,4 second cellos and 4 double basses. The commission from the Library of Congress and underwritten by Mrs and they were Terpsichore, personifying the rhythm of poetry and the eloquence of gesture as embodied in the dance, Calliope, combining poetry and rhythm, Polyhymnia, representing mime. Stravinsky explained the original title Apollon Musagète to mean Apollo, Leader of the Muses, Stravinsky wrote for a homogeneous ensemble of bowed string instruments, substituting contrasts in dynamics for the contrasts in timbre he employed in Pulcinella. The ballet takes its inspiration from the tradition of French 17th- and 18th-century music, in particular that of Lully. The prologue begins with dotted rhythms in the style of a French overture, the work relies on a basic rhythmic cell, presented at the beginning of the work, which Stravinsky transforms by subdivisions of successive values that become increasingly complex. Stravinsky revised the score slightly in 1947, in 1963, he indicated he intended to make further changes, particularly with respect to double-dotting many of the dotted-rhythm passages in Baroque style. Adolph Bolm put together a company of dancers for the premiere in a country which, at that time, ruth Page, Berenice Holmes, and Elise Reiman were the three Muses and Hans Kindler conducted. Stravinsky took no interest in the U. S. performance, in accordance with Stravinskys wishes, the style of dancing was essentially classical, and Stravinsky thought of Apollon musagète as a ballet blanc, that is, costumed in traditional minimal white. Balanchine later said that when he heard Stravinskys music all he could see was pristine white, the clarity, calm, even serenity of the music makes it seem infinitely remote from the colorful excitement of Stravinskys earlier ballets. Scenery and costumes for Balanchines production were by French artist André Bauchant, Coco Chanel provided new costumes in 1929. Apollo wore a toga with a diagonal cut, a belt. The Muses wore a traditional tutus, the decoration was baroque, two large sets, with some rocks and Apollos chariot
21.
Benjamin Britten
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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten OM CH was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes, the War Requiem, Born in Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge, Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame, over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadlers Wells and Covent Garden, he wrote operas for small forces. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw, recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence. Brittens other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and he took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noyes Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. He often composed with particular performers in mind, Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bachs Brandenburg concertos, Mozart symphonies, in his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage. Britten was born in the port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, on the east coast of England on 22 November 1913. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten and his wife Edith Rhoda, Robert Brittens youthful ambition to become a farmer had been thwarted by lack of capital, and he had instead trained as a dentist, a profession he practised successfully but without pleasure. While studying at Charing Cross Hospital in London he met Edith Hockey and they were married in September 1901 at St Johns, Smith Square, London. The consensus among biographers of Britten is that his father was a loving but somewhat stern, Britten, according to his sister Beth, got on well with him and shared his wry sense of humour, dedication to work and capacity for taking pains. Edith Britten was an amateur musician and secretary of the Lowestoft Musical Society. In the English provinces of the early 20th century, distinctions of class were taken very seriously. Music was the means by which Edith Britten strove to maintain the familys social standing, inviting the pillars of the local community to musical soirées at the house. When Britten was three months old he contracted pneumonia and nearly died, the illness left him with a damaged heart, and doctors warned his parents that he would probably never be able to lead a normal life
22.
Charles Wuorinen
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Charles Peter Wuorinen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. His catalog of more than 260 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, Salman Rushdie and Annie Proulx have collaborated with him. Wuorinens work has described as serialist, but he has come to disparage that term as meaningless. Wuorinen was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City and his mother, Alfhild Kalijarvi, received her M. A. in biology from Smith College. Wuorinen excelled academically, graduating from Trinity School as valedictorian in 1956, he received a B. A. Early supporters included Jacques Barzun and Edgard Varèse, Wuorinen began composing at age 5 and began piano lessons at 6. At 16 he was awarded the New York Philharmonics Young Composers Award, from 1952 to 1956 Wuorinen was President of the Trinity School Glee Club. He was pianist, librarian and General Manager of the Columbia University Orchestra in 1956–57, during the summers of 1955 and 1956 has was the organist at Saint Pauls Church in Gardner, Massachusetts, where his parents stayed during the summer months. He was awarded the Bearns Prize three times, the BMI Student Composers Award four times, and the Lili Boulanger Award and he was a fellow at the Bennington Composers Conference for several years. Many early professional performances of Wuorinens compositions took place on the Music of Our Time series at the 92nd Street Y run by violinist Max Pollikoff, in 1962 Wuorinen and fellow composer-performer Harvey Sollberger formed The Group for Contemporary Music. The ensemble raised the standard of new music performance in New York, championing such composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter and Stefan Wolpe, many of Wuorinens works were premiered by The Group, including Chamber Concerto for Cello and the Chamber Concerto for Flute. The 1970s were a fruitful period for Wuorinen, who taught at the Manhattan School of Music from 1971 to 1979. of Babylon with an original libretto by Renaud Charles Bruce. The ensemble, created by Raymond DesRoches recorded the Percussion Symphony on the Nonesuch record label which was released in 1978, what I wanted to do was to see whether or not these things sounded composed, sounded purposively chosen. They did, at least by my lights, the random sequences were not just any old random sequences but were that of a kind called 1/f randomness. Wuorinen was composer in residence with the San Francisco Symphony from 1984 to 1989, in addition to the Dante texts Wuorinen was influenced by the watercolors of William Blake. In 1985 Wuorinen was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, major chamber works included the Saxophone Quartet for the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, Percussion Quartet, Piano Quintet, and Sonata for Guitar and Piano. Orchestral works included the Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra and Symphony Seven as well as the Dante works for the New York City Ballet, with the start of the 21st century, James Levine became a major champion of Wuorinens music. In honor of Wuorinens 70th birthday Levine conducted two performances of Wuorinens Ashberyana at the Guggenheim Museum, in 2004 the New York City Opera premiered his opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories based on the novel by Salman Rushdie, with a libretto by James Fenton
23.
Malcolm Williamson
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Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson, AO, CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queens Music from 1975 until his death, Williamson was born in Sydney in 1931, his father was an Anglican priest, Rev George Williamson. He studied composition and horn at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, in 1950 he moved to London where he worked as an organist, a proofreader, and a nightclub pianist. In 1952 he converted to Roman Catholicism, from 1953 he studied with Elisabeth Lutyens and Erwin Stein. His first major success was with his Piano Concerto No,1, premiered by Clive Lythgoe at the 1958 Cheltenham Festival to a standing ovation. Williamson was a composer at this time, receiving many commissions and often performing his own works. In 1975, the death of Sir Arthur Bliss left the title of Master of the Queens Music vacant, in addition, Williamson was the first non-Briton to hold the post. He wrote a number of pieces connected to his royal post, including Mass of Christ the King, however, controversy attended his tenure, notably his failure to complete the intended Jubilee Symphony for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. He became less prolific in Royal works during the last twenty years or so of his life and his overall compositional output slowed considerably due to a series of illnesses. He died in 2003 in a hospital in Cambridge and he was widely reported to have been an alcoholic. Williamson married an American, Dolores Dolly Daniel, in 1960 and they had one son and two daughters. Williamson had a number of relationships with both sexes, both before and after his marriage. ”He had a series of strokes left him wheelchair-bound. His funeral was not attended by any representatives of the Royal Family, Williamson was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1976, and an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia in 1987. Honorary awards in the Order of Australia are made only to people who are not citizens of Australia and it is not clear why Williamson did not qualify for a substantive award, as there appears to be nothing on the public record to suggest he ever relinquished his Australian citizenship. The citation for the award read For service to music and the mentally handicapped and he was the first Master of the Queens Music in over a century not to be knighted. Some of Williamsons early works use the twelve tone technique of Arnold Schoenberg and he discovered Messiaens music shortly before converting to Roman Catholicism in 1952. He was also influenced by Benjamin Britten, as well as by jazz, Williamson wrote seven symphonies, four numbered piano concertos, concertos for violin, organ, harp and saxophone, and many other orchestral works. Williamsons music for children includes the operas The Happy Prince and Julius Caesar Jones as well as cassations, the cassation The Valley and the Hill was written for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977 and performed by 18,000 children
24.
Michael Tippett
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Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the 20th century. Among his best-known works are the oratorio A Child of Our Time, the orchestral Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, and he withdrew or destroyed his earliest compositions, and was 30 before any of his works were published. Until the mid-to-late 1950s his music was broadly lyrical in character, before changing to a more astringent, New influences, including those of jazz and blues after his first visit to America in 1965, became increasingly evident in his compositions. While Tippetts stature with the continued to grow, not all critics approved of these changes in style. From around 1976 Tippetts late works began to reflect the works of his youth through a return to lyricism, although he was much honoured in his lifetime, critical judgement on Tippetts legacy has been uneven, the greatest praise being generally reserved for his earlier works. His centenary in 2005 was an affair, apart from the few best-known works. Having briefly embraced communism in the 1930s, Tippett avoided identifying with any political party, a pacifist after 1940, he was imprisoned in 1943 for refusing to carry out war-related duties required by his military exemption. His initial difficulties in accepting his homosexuality led him in 1939 to Jungian psychoanalysis and he was a strong advocate of music education, and was active for much of his life as a radio broadcaster and writer on music. The Tippett family originated in Cornwall, Michael Tippetts grandfather, George Tippett, left the county in 1854 to make his fortune in London through property speculation and other business schemes. A flamboyant character, he had a tenor voice that was a popular feature at Christian revivalist meetings. In later life his business faltered, leading to debts, prosecution for fraud. His son Henry, born in 1858, was Michaels father, a lawyer by training, he was successful in business and was independently wealthy by the time of his marriage in April 1903. Unusually for his background and upbringing, Henry Tippett was a progressive liberal, Henry Tippetts bride was Isabel Kemp, from a large upper-middle class family based in Kent. Among her mothers cousins was Charlotte Despard, a campaigner for womens rights, suffragism. Despard was an influence on the young Isabel, who was herself briefly imprisoned after participating in an illegal suffragette protest in Trafalgar Square. Although neither she nor Henry was musical, she had inherited an artistic talent from her mother, after their marriage the couple settled outside London in Eastcote where two sons were born, the second, Michael, on 2 January 1905. Shortly after Michaels birth, the moved to Wetherden in Suffolk
25.
Serenade
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In music, a serenade is a musical composition, and/or performance, in someones honor. Serenades are typically calm, light music, the word serenade is the translation of the Italian word serenata, derived from the Latin word serenus. In the oldest usage, which survives in form to the present day. The classic serenade usage would be from a lover to his love through a window. It was considered a piece, one to be performed on a quiet and pleasant evening, as opposed to an aubade. The custom of serenading in this manner began in the Medieval era, Music performed followed no one particular form, except that it was typically sung by one person accompanying himself on a portable instrument, most likely a guitar, lute or other plucked instrument. Works of this also appeared in later eras, but usually in a context that referred specifically to a past time. Carl Maria von Weber composed his serenade for voice and guitar, some composers of this type of serenade include Alessandro Stradella, Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Joseph Fux, Johann Mattheson, and Antonio Caldara. Often these were works performed with minimal staging, intermediate between a cantata and an opera. Usually the character of the work is lighter than other multiple-movement works for large ensemble, most of these works are from Italy, Germany, Austria and Bohemia. Among the most famous examples of the serenade from the 18th century are those by Mozart and his serenades were often purely instrumental pieces, written for special occasions such as those commissioned for wedding ceremonies. By the 19th century, the serenade had transformed into a work, less associated with outdoor performance for honorary occasions. The two serenades by Brahms are rather like light symphonies, perhaps more closely related to suites, except that use an ensemble Mozart would have recognized. Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Josef Suk, Edward Elgar and others wrote serenades for strings only, as did Hugo Wolf, who wrote one for string quartet. Other composers to write serenades in a Romantic style include Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Ethel Smyth,24 by Arnold Schoenberg, and the movement entitled Serenade in Shostakovichs last string quartet, No.15. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a Serenade to Music that premiered in 1938 and these modern serenades are freely explored adaptations to the serenades original formal layout and instrumentation. A serenade is commonly of a multi-movement structure, ranging anywhere from four to up to ten movements and they usually are constructed with a fast opening movement, followed by middle slow movements that alternate with fast ones and close with a fast presto or allegro movement. There are strong influences from music, and serenades can be subtly inserted into a chamber music program
26.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
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He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884, by Emperor Alexander III, although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a career in Russia at that time. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovskys training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy, Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. This resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the countrys national identity—an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovskys career, despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovskys life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has also been considered a major factor. Tchaikovskys sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, there is a debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause of death. While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed, some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. Others dismissed Tchaikovskys music as lacking in elevated thought, according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C, schonberg, and derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a town in Vyatka Governorate in the Russian Empire. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines and his grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, served first as a physicians assistant in the army and later as city governor of Glazov in Viatka. His great-grandfather, a Ukrainian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Tchaikovskys mother, Alexandra Andreyevna, was the second of Ilyas three wives,18 years her husbands junior and French on her fathers side. Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music—a necessity as a posting to an area of Russia also meant a need for entertainment. Of Tchaikovskys six siblings, he was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly, alexandras marriage to Lev Davydov would produce seven children and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult, especially during his years of wandering. One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, whom the composer would nickname Bob, in 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess. Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai. By the age of six, he had become fluent in French, Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovskys work from this period, which includes his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes
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Josef Suk (composer)
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Josef Suk was a Czech composer and violinist. He studied under Antonín Dvořák, whose daughter he married, from a young age, Josef Suk was deeply involved and well-trained in music. He learned organ, violin, and piano from his father, Josef Suk senior and his theory studies were conducted with several other composers including Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Karel Knittl, and Karel Stecker. He later focused his writing on chamber works under the teachings of Hanuš Wihan, despite extensive musical training, his musical skill was often said to be largely inherited. Though he continued his lessons with Wihan another year after the completion of his schooling, Suks greatest inspiration came from another of his teachers, known as one of Dvořáks favorite pupils, Suk also became personally close to his mentor. Underlying this was Dvořáks respect for Suk, reflected in Suks 1898 marriage to Dvořáks daughter, Otilie, marking some of the happiest times in the composers life, however, the last portion of Suks life was punctuated with tragedy. Over the span of 14 months around 1905, not only did Suks mentor Dvořák die and these events inspired Suks Asrael Symphony. Because of a shared heritage — and the coincidence of their dying within a few months of one another — Suk has been compared, in works and style. Suk, alongside Vitezslav Novak and Ostrčil, is considered one of the composers in Czech Modernism. Eminent German figures such as composer Johannes Brahms and critic Eduard Hanslick recognized Suks work during his time with the Czech Quartet, over time, well known Austrian composers such as Gustav Mahler and Alban Berg also began to take notice of Suk and his work. Although he wrote mostly instrumental music, Suk occasionally branched out other genres. Orchestral music was his strong suit, notably the Serenade for Strings and his time with the Czech Quartet, though performing successful concerts until his retirement, was not always met with public approval. Several anti-Dvořák campaigns came into prominence, criticism not only being directed at the quartet, the leftist critic Zdeněk Nejedlý accused the Czech Quartet of inappropriately playing concerts in the Czech lands during World War I. While these attacks diminished Suks spirits, they did not hinder his work, Suk retired in 1933, although he continued to be a valuable and inspirational public figure to the Czechs. Josef Suk died on May 29,1935, in Benešov and he is the grandfather of famed Czech violinist Josef Suk. Suks musical style started off with an influence from his mentor. Morbidity was always a factor in Suks music. For instance, he wrote his own funeral march in 1889 and it appears also in a major work
28.
Felix Mendelssohn
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Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family and he was brought up without religion until the age of seven, when he was baptised as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a prodigy, but his parents were cautious. Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, where he revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Leipzig Conservatoire, which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook, Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions and he is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era. Mendelssohns father was the banker Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and his mother was Lea Salomon, a member of the Itzig family and a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy. Mendelssohn was the second of four children, his older sister Fanny also displayed exceptional, the family moved to Berlin in 1811, leaving Hamburg in disguise fearing French revenge for the Mendelssohn banks role in breaking Napoleons Continental System blockade. Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn sought to give their children – Fanny, Felix, Paul, Fanny became a well-known pianist and amateur composer, originally Abraham had thought that she, rather than Felix, would be the more musical. However, at time, it was not considered proper, by either Abraham or Felix, for a woman to have a career in music, so Fanny remained an active. Abraham was also disinclined to allow Felix to follow a career until it became clear that he seriously intended to dedicate himself to it. Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual environment, Sarah Rothenburg wrote of the household that Europe came to their living room. Abraham Mendelssohn renounced the Jewish religion, he and his wife decided not to have Felix circumcised. Felix and his siblings were first brought up without religious education, Abraham and his wife Lea were themselves baptised in 1822, formally adopting the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy for themselves and their children. The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Leas brother, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, in 1829, his sister Fanny wrote to him of Bartholdy this name that we all dislike. Like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart before him, Mendelssohn was regarded as a child prodigy and he began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six, and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris. After the family moved to Berlin, all four Mendelssohn children studied piano with Ludwig Berger, from at least May 1819 Felix studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin. This was an important influence on his future career, Zelter had almost certainly been recommended as a teacher by his aunt Sarah Levy, who had been a pupil of W. F. Bach and a patron of C. P. E. Bach
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Samuel Barber
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Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings has earned a permanent place in the repertory of orchestras. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice, for his opera Vanessa and for the Concerto for Piano, also widely performed is his Knoxville, Summer of 1915, a setting for soprano and orchestra of a prose text by James Agee. At the time of his death, nearly all of his compositions had been recorded, Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite McLeod and Samuel Le Roy Barber. He was born into a comfortable, educated, social, and his father was a physician, his mother, called Daisy, was a pianist of English-Scottish-Irish descent whose family had lived in the United States since the time of the Revolutionary War. His aunt, Louise Homer, was a contralto at the Metropolitan Opera, his uncle. Louise Homer is known to have influenced Barbers interest in voice, through his aunt, Barber had access to many great singers and songs. At a very early age, Barber became profoundly interested in music and he began studying the piano at the age of 6 and at age 7 composed his first work, Sadness, a 23-measure solo piano piece in C minor. At the age of nine he wrote to his mother, Dear Mother, now dont cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense, to begin with I was not meant to be an athlet. I was meant to be a composer, and will be Im sure, ill ask you one more thing. —Dont ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football. —Please—Sometimes Ive been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad. Barber attempted to write his first opera, entitled The Rose Tree, at the age of 12, he became an organist at a local church. He began composing seriously in his teenage years. Around the same time, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Gian Carlo Menotti, at the Curtis Institute, Barber was a triple prodigy in composition, voice, and piano. He soon became a favorite of the founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok. It was through Mrs. Bok that Barber was introduced to his lifelong publisher, at the age of 18, Barber won the Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his violin sonata. From his early to late twenties, Barber wrote a flurry of successful compositions and his first orchestral work, an overture to The School for Scandal, was composed in 1931 when he was 21 years old. It premiered successfully two years later in a given by the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Alexander Smallens
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Adagio for Strings
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Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably his best known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op.11. Barber finished the arrangement in 1936, the year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time on November 5,1938, Toscanini also played the piece on his South American tour with the NBC Symphony in 1940. Its reception was positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that Adagio for Strings is full of pathos and cathartic passion. The music is the setting for Barbers 1967 choral arrangement of Agnus Dei, Adagio for Strings can be heard in many TV shows and movies. The inspiration came from Virgils Georgics, in the quartet the Adagio follows a violently contrasting first movement and is succeeded by music which opens with a brief reprise of the music from the first movement. In January 1938 Barber sent a version of the Adagio for Strings to Arturo Toscanini. The conductor returned the score without comment, which annoyed Barber, Toscanini then sent word through Menotti that he was planning to perform the piece and had returned it simply because he had already memorized it. It was reported that Toscanini did not look at the music again until the day before the premiere, on November 5,1938, a selected audience was invited to Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center to watch Toscanini conduct the first performance, a radio broadcast which was also recorded. Initially, the reception was positive, as seen in the review by The New York Timess Olin Downes. Downes praised the piece, but he was reproached by other critics who claimed that he overrated the piece, Toscanini took Adagio for Strings on tour to South America and Europe, the first performances of the work on both continents. Over April 16–19,1942, the piece had public performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy at Carnegie Hall, like the original 1938 performance, these were broadcast on radio and recorded. Adagio for Strings begins softly with a B-flat played by the first violins, NPR Music said that with a tense melodic line and taut harmonies, the composition is considered by many to be the most popular of all 20th-century orchestral works. Thomas Larson remarked that the piece evokes a deep sadness in those who hear it, many recordings of the piece have a duration of about eight minutes. The work is largely in the key of B-flat minor, the Adagio is an example of arch form and builds on a melody that first ascends, then descends in stepwise fashion. Barber subtly manipulates the basic pulse throughout the work by constantly changing time signatures including 4/2, 5/2, 6/2, after four climactic chords and a long pause, the piece presents the opening theme again, and fades away on an unresolved dominant chord. Music critic Olin Downes wrote that the piece is very simple at climaxes, Alexander J. Morin, author of Classical Music, The Listeners Companion, said that the piece was full of pathos and cathartic passion and that it rarely leaves a dry eye. In 1938, Olin Downes noted that with the piece, Barber achieved something as perfect in mass, in an edition of A conductors analysis of selected works, John William Mueller devoted over 20 pages to Adagio for Strings
31.
Alban Berg
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Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with twelve-tone technique, Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Conrad Berg. His family lived comfortably until the death of his father in 1900 and he was more interested in literature than music as a child and did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music. In late February or early March 1902 he fathered a child with Marie Scheuchl and his daughter, Albine, was born on December 4,1902. Berg had little formal education before he became a student of Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904. With Schoenberg he studied counterpoint, music theory, and harmony, by 1906, he was studying music full-time, by 1907, he began composition lessons. His student compositions included five drafts for piano sonatas and he also wrote songs, including his Seven Early Songs, three of which were Bergs first publicly performed work in a concert that featured the music of Schoenbergs pupils in Vienna that year. The early sonata sketches eventually culminated in Bergs Piano Sonata, Op.1, Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Berg admired him as a composer and mentor, and they remained lifelong friends. Among Schoenbergs teaching was the idea that the unity of a musical composition depends upon all its aspects being derived from a basic idea. The Piano Sonata is a whole composition is derived from the works opening quartal gesture. Berg was a part of Viennas cultural elite during the fin de siècle period. His circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, the painter Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist Karl Kraus, the architect Adolf Loos, and the poet Peter Altenberg. In 1906, Berg met the singer Helene Nahowski, daughter of a family, despite the outward hostility of her family. In 1913, two of Bergs Five Songs on Picture Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg were premièred in Vienna, settings of aphoristic poetic utterances, the songs are accompanied by a very large orchestra. The performance caused a riot, and had to be halted, the full score remained unpublished until 1966. From 1915 to 1918, Berg served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and during a period of leave in 1917 he accelerated work on his first opera, after the end of World War I, he settled again in Vienna, where he taught private pupils. Berg had a particular interest in the number 23, using it to several works
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Arnold Schoenberg
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Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg or Schönberg was an Austrian composer, music theorist, and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, by 1938, with the rise of the Nazi Party, Schoenbergs works were labeled degenerate music, because he was Jewish. He moved to the United States in 1934, Schoenbergs approach, both in terms of harmony and development, has been one of the most influential of 20th-century musical thought. Many European and American composers from at least three generations have consciously extended his thinking, whereas others have reacted against it. Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms, later, his name would come to personify innovations in atonality that would become the most polemical feature of 20th-century art music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed the technique, an influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term developing variation and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs without resorting to the dominance of a melodic idea. Schoenbergs archival legacy is collected at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg was born into a lower middle-class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna, at Obere Donaustraße 5. His father Samuel, a native of Bratislava, was a shopkeeper and he took only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law. In his twenties, Schoenberg earned a living by orchestrating operettas, while composing his own works and he later made an orchestral version of this, which became one of his most popular pieces. Strauss turned to a more conservative idiom in his own work after 1909, Mahler adopted him as a protégé and continued to support him, even after Schoenbergs style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death, Schoenberg, who had initially despised and mocked Mahlers music, was converted by the thunderbolt of Mahlers Third Symphony, which he considered a work of genius. Afterward he spoke of Mahler as a saint, in 1898 Schoenberg converted to Christianity in the Lutheran church. According to MacDonald this was partly to strengthen his attachment to Western European cultural traditions and he would self-identify as a member of the Jewish religion later in life. In October 1901, he married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of the conductor and composer Alexander von Zemlinsky and he and Mathilde had two children, Gertrud and Georg. Gertrud would marry Schoenbergs pupil Felix Greissle in 1921, during the summer of 1908, his wife Mathilde left him for several months for a young Austrian painter, Richard Gerstl. This period marked a change in Schoenbergs work. This was the first composition without any reference at all to a key, also in this year, he completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No
33.
Jean Sibelius
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Jean Sibelius, born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius, was a Finnish composer and violinist of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. The core of his oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies which, like his major works, continue to be performed and recorded in his home country. His other best-known compositions are Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto, the choral symphony Kullervo, throughout his career, the composer found inspiration in nature and Nordic mythology, especially the heroic legends of the national epic, the Kalevala. Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts on an eighth symphony, in later life, he wrote Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works while retaining an active but not always favourable interest in new developments in music. The Finnish 100 mark note featured his image until 2002, when the euro was adopted, since 2011, Finland has celebrated a Flag Day on 8 December, the composers birthday, also known as the Day of Finnish Music. In 2015, the 150th anniversary of the birth, a number of special concerts and events were held. Sibelius was born on 8 December 1865 in Hämeenlinna in the Grand Duchy of Finland and he was the son of the Swedish-speaking medical doctor Christian Gustaf Sibelius and Maria Charlotta Sibelius née Borg. The family name stems from the Sibbe estate in Eastern Uusimaa which was owned by his paternal great-grandfather, Sibeliuss father died of typhoid in July 1868, leaving substantial debts. As a result, his mother—who was again pregnant—had to sell their property and move the family into the home of Katarina Borg, her widowed mother, who also lived in Hämeenlinna. Sibelius was therefore brought up in a decidedly female environment, the only male influence coming from his uncle, Pehr Ferdinand Sibelius and it was he who gave the boy a violin when he was ten years old and later encouraged him to maintain his interest in composition. For Sibelius, Uncle Pehr not only took the place of a father, from an early age, Sibelius showed a strong interest in nature, frequently walking around the countryside when the family moved to Loviisa on the coast for the summer months. In his own words, For me, Loviisa represented sun, Hämeenlinna was where I went to school, Loviisa was freedom. It was in Hämeenlinna, when he was seven, that his aunt Julia was brought in to give him piano lessons on the familys upright instrument and he progressed by improvising on his own, but still learned to read music. He later turned to the violin, which he preferred and he participated in trios with his elder sister Linda on piano, and his younger brother Christian on the cello. Furthermore, Sibelius often played in quartets with neighboring families, adding to his experience in chamber music, fragments survive of his early compositions of the period, a trio, a piano quartet and a Suite in D Minor for violin and piano. Around 1881, he recorded on paper his short pizzicato piece Vattendroppar for violin, in 1881, he started to take violin lessons from the local bandmaster, Gustaf Levander, immediately developing a particularly strong interest in the instrument. Despite such success as an instrumentalist, he chose to become a composer. Although his mother tongue was Swedish, in 1874 Sibelius attended Lucina Hagmans Finnish-speaking preparatory school, despite having to repeat a year, he succeeded in passing the schools final examination in 1885 which allowed him to enter a university
34.
John Adams (composer)
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John Coolidge Adams is an American composer of classical music and opera, with strong roots in minimalism. The opera has drawn controversy, including allegations by some that the opera is antisemitic, the works creators and others have disputed these criticisms. John Coolidge Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1947 and he was raised in various New England states, where he was greatly influenced by New Englands musical culture. He graduated from Concord High School in Concord, New Hampshire, Adams began composing at the age of ten and first heard his music performed around the age of 13 or 14. After he matriculated at Harvard University in 1965 he studied composition under Leon Kirchner, Roger Sessions, Earl Kim and his piece American Standard was recorded and released on Obscure Records in 1975. He taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1972 until 1984 and he served as musical producer for a number of series for the Public Broadcasting System including the award-winning series, The Adams Chronicles in 1976 and 1977. Shaker Loops, A modular composition for three violins, one viola, two cellos, and one bass, with a conductor and it is divided into four movements. Harmonium for large orchestra and chorus, The piece starts with quietly insistent repetitions of one note – D –, Harmonielehre, Inspired by a dream of an oil tanker taking flight out of San Francisco Bay and also by Arnold Schoenbergs book, Harmonielehre. This piece is also about harmony of the mind, the Chairman Dances, This is a by-product of Nixon in China, set in the three days of President Nixons visit to Beijing in February 1972. Short Ride in a Fast Machine, This piece is joyfully exuberant and it begins with a marking of half-notes and eighths, the woodblock is fortissimo and the other instruments play forte. Nixon in China, The opera, in three acts, is based on Richard Nixons visit to China on February 21–25,1972, main characters in the opera are, the Nixons, Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Chiang Ching and Henry Kissinger. It was directed by Peter Sellars and this piece is John Adamss second major composition on a text, after Harmonium for chorus and orchestra. In October 2008, Adams told BBC Radio 3 that he had been blacklisted by the U. S, homeland Security department and immigration services. The Wound-Dresser, John Adamss setting of Walt Whitmans 1865 poem of the same title, the piece is scored for baritone voice, two flutes, two oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet, timpani, synthesizer, and strings. Chamber Symphony, This piece was commissioned by the Gerbode Foundation of San Francisco for the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, A stage piece with libretto by June Jordan and staging by Peter Sellars. The main characters are seven young Americans from different social and ethnic backgrounds, the story takes place in the aftermath of the earthquake in Los Angeles in 1994. Hallelujah Junction, This piece for two pianos employs variations of a two note rhythm. The intervals between the notes remain the same through much of the piece, on the Transmigration of Souls, This piece commemorates those who lost their lives in the September 11,2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York
35.
Graham Waterhouse
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Graham Waterhouse is an English composer and a cellist. For his own instrument, he composed a concerto and Three Pieces for Solo Cello. He wrote string quartets and compositions which juxtapose it with an instrument, including Piccolo Quintet, Bassoon Quintet. Graham Waterhouse was born in London, the son of the noted bassoonist and musicologist William Waterhouse and he attended Highgate School and studied music at the University of Cambridge, and in Germany at the Folkwang Hochschule and Hochschule für Musik Köln. He has lived in Munich since 1992 and his compositions have earned prizes at competitions of Münchener Tonkünstlerverband and of Via Nova in Weimar. His string quartet Chinese Whispers was awarded the BCMS Composition Prize of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society in 2011 and he has performed as the soloist of his Cello Concerto in Mexico City, Nizhny Novgorod, Weimar, Baden-Baden, St. Martin, Idstein, and Cambridge. He has worked with Ensemble Modern and participated in the concert tour 2001 of the Ensemble Modern Orchestra under Pierre Boulez and he has also performed with the ensembles musikFabrik and Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin. He established in 1998 a regular chamber music series at Gasteig Munich. Players for his music concerts have included members of the Munich Philharmonic. Waterhouse has collaborated with the composers Jens Josef and Rudi Spring, in 2011, he composed a Christmas cantata on a text by Krieger. In 2013 his piano trio Bells of Beyond was premiered at the Gasteig with Yury Revich, the compositions reflect the individual capacity and character of players and instruments from piccolo to contrabassoon, even unusual ones such as the heckelphone or didgeridoo. He also wrote compositions for cello and speaking voice, based on literature as diverse as limerick, ballad and drama. He has lectured on music at the yearly Komponisten-Colloquium of the University of Oldenburg. Several of his pieces have been composed for the competition Jugend musiziert, the first publisher of his works was the Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag, beginning with Aztec Ceremonies and Three Pieces for Solo Cello in 1996. His music appeared also with Zimmermann and Robert Lienau in Frankfurt, Heinrichshofen in Wilhelmshaven, the 50th birthday of the composer has been celebrated with concerts dedicated to his works in London, Munich and Frankfurt, with performances of chamber music by members of the Munich Philharmonic. Peter Grahame Woolf wrote about the Graham Waterhouse Portrait Concert at Highgate School on 9 October 2012, focussing on the string quartet Prophetiae Sibyllarum and Rhapsodie Macabre. A review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of the concert at the Gasteig on 4 November 2012 was titled Hochexpressiv and covered additionally Praeludium, Bassoon Quintet, the broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk aired an interview on his birthday
