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Alta Cappella
An alta cappella or alta musica (Italian), haute musique (French) or just alta was a kind of town wind band found throughout continental Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which typically consisted of shawms and slide trumpets or sackbuts. ''Waits'' is the British equivalent. These were not found anywhere outside of Europe. History ''Alta musique'' in general refers to the "loud music" of instruments like shawms, sackbuts, trumpets, and drums, in contrast to ''basse musique'', the "soft music" of recorders, viols, fiddles, harps, psalteries, and the like.Howard Mayer Brown, and Keith Polk, "Alta (i)", Grove Music Online, edited by Deane Root (accessed 28 January 2015) These ensembles first appeared in Europe in the thirteenth century, taken from the ceremonial loud bands of the Arab World, consisting of small shawms, nakers, and other percussion, together with pairs of straight trumpets functioning as something of a cross between drone and percussion. In Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Tarr
Edward Hankins Tarr (June 15, 1936 – March 24, 2020), was an American trumpet player and musicologist. He was a pioneer in the revival of Baroque and Romantic era trumpet performance practice. Biography Edward Tarr was born in Norwich, Connecticut. Among his accomplishments is a complete edition of the trumpet works of the Bolognese Baroque Italian composer Giuseppe Torelli. His performance repertory includes Baroque, Classical era and modern works; Mauricio Kagel dedicated works to him in 1971, including ''Morceau de concours'', for trumpeter and electronic tape. In 1953 he was a student of Roger Voisin, principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and in 1958–1959 with Adolph Herseth, principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also studied musicology in Basel with Leo Schrade (1959–1964) for which he was awarded a degree in 1985. In 1968 the Edward Tarr Brass Ensemble was formed, the only one of its kind – with four trumpets and four trombo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Heartz
Daniel Heartz (1928–2019) was an American musicologist and professor emeritus of music at the University of California, Berkeley. Heartz studied at Harvard University. He lived in Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer .... Honors * Recipient of Guggenheim Fellowships * ASCAP–Deems Taylor Awards * Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society. Selected bibliography * ''Artists and Musicians: Portrait Studies from the Rococo to the Revolution,'' with contributing studies by Paul Corneilson and John A. Rice, ed. Beverly Wilcox, Ann Arbor, MI: Steglein, 2014. * ''From Garrick to Gluck: Essays on Opera in the Age of Enlightenment,'' ed. John A. Rice, Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2004. * ''Haydn, Mozart and the Viennese School. 1740-17 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantus Firmus
In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect treatment of ''cantus'' as a second- rather than a fourth-declension noun) can also be found. The Italian is often used instead: (and the plural in Italian is ). History The term first appears in theoretical writings early in the 13th century (e.g., Boncampagno da Signa, ''Rhetorica novissima'', 1235). The earliest polyphonic compositions almost always involved a cantus firmus, typically a Gregorian chant, although by convention the term is not applied to music written before the 14th century. The earliest surviving polyphonic compositions, in the ''Musica enchiriadis'' (around 900 AD), contain the chant in the top voice, and the newly composed part underneath; however, this usage changed around 1100, after which the cantus firmus typicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basse Danse
The ''basse danse'', or "low dance", was a popular court dance in the 15th and early 16th centuries, especially at the Burgundian court. The word ''basse'' describes the nature of the dance, in which partners move quietly and gracefully in a slow gliding or walking motion without leaving the floor, while in livelier dances both feet left the floor in jumps or leaps. The basse danse was a precursor of the pavane as a dignified processional dance. The term may apply to the dance or the music alone. History The earliest record of a basse danse is found in an Occitan poem of the 1320s by Raimon de Cornet, who notes that the ''joglars'' performed them. The ''bassa danza'' is described in the dance treatise of Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, in northern Italy towards the end of the 15th century, and by his friend Antonio Cornazzano, for whom it was the queen of all dance measures, low dance to be contrasted with the ''alta danza'', the "high" or leaping dance called the ''saltarello''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Improvisation (music)
Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. Sometimes musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in classical music and many other kinds of music. One definition is a "performance given extempore without planning or preparation". Another definition is to "play or sing (music) extemporaneously, by inventing variations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms and harmonies". ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' defines it as "the extemporaneous composition or free performance of a musical passage, usually in a manner conforming to certain stylistic norms but unfettered by the prescriptive features of a specific musical text." Improvisation is often done within (or based on) a pre-existing harmonic framework or chord p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cancionero De Palacio
The Cancionero de Palacio (Madrid, Biblioteca Real, MS II–1335), or Cancionero Musical de Palacio (CMP), also known as Cancionero de Barbieri, is a Spanish manuscript of Renaissance music. The works in it were compiled during a time span of around 40 years, from the mid-1470s until the beginning of the 16th century, approximately coinciding with the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. The manuscript The first ten folios are not numbered; the remaining folios are numbered from 1 to 304. Based on the index of works included in the beginning of the manuscript, it originally had 548 works. Many folios have been lost, reducing the number of works currently in the manuscript to 458. The manuscript was written by 9 different people and, in all, received 11 successive additions: *The first addition happened in the first years of the 16th century, most probably after 1505, as a result of the reorganization of the Court's musical chapel ordered by Ferdinand II of Aragon, one year after th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francisco De La Torre
Francisco de la Torre (c. 1460 - c. 1504) was a Spanish composer mainly active in the Kingdom of Naples. His hometown may have been Seville. His music can be found in ''La música en la corte de los Reyes Musulmanes'', edited by H. Anglès (1947–51). Biography Francisco served as a singer at the Seville Cathedral from at least 1464 until 1467, and probably remained connected with Seville until 1485, when he left with the Aragonese royal chapel, whose choir he had joined on 1 July 1483. He would have been back in Seville when the court returned there for a residence lasting from the end of 1490 until March 1491 . He took an annual salary of 25,000 ''maravedís'' and served in the same capacity for seventeen years. On 15 July 1488 he was awarded a half-prebend from Ferdinand II . In May 1488 La Torre presented the Seville Cathedral Chapter with a claim that he had already been appointed to a half-prebend left vacant by its previous holder, Alonso Martínez de San Vicente. The c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castell
A ''castell'' () is a human tower built traditionally at festivals in Catalonia, the Balearic islands and the Valencian Community. At these festivals, several ''colles castelleres'' (teams that build towers) attempt to build and dismantle a tower's structure. On 16 November 2010, ''castells'' were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Origin Although based on the earlier traditional Muixeranga of Algemesí in Valencia, the tradition of ''castells'' within Catalonia originated in the ''Ball dels Valencians'' (Valencian Dance) in Valls, near the city of Tarragona, first documented in 1712. Over the course of the 18th century, they spread to other towns and cities in the area, including Vilafranca del Penedès and Tarragona, though it was not until the last 50 years that the practice of building ''castells'' began to spread to the rest of Catalonia. Interest in castells began to grow in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gralla (instrument)
The gralla (), also known as grall de pastor, xaramita or xirimita, is a traditional Catalan double reed instrument in the shawm family classified in the group 422.112 in the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Like the dolçaina from Valencia – a very similar instrument that many experts consider a variety of the gralla –. The gralla comes from the ancient xeremia a medieval instrument largely used until the Baroque. Probably, the name of the instrument comes from its strident sound similar to the sound of a Jackdaw native to Catalonia and northern Spain and also called 'Gralla' in Catalan. This traditional instrument is used during the construction and dismantling of human towers or castells and other traditional festivities. it is usually played with the timbal The timbau or Brazilian timbal is a membranophone instrument derived from the caxambu drum, usually played with both hands. Slightly conical and of varying sizes, it is usually light in weight and made of lacquered wood or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catalan Shawm
In music, a Catalan shawm is one of two varieties of shawm, an oboe-like woodwind musical instrument played in Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Region, types, and uses The types of shawm commonly used in Catalonia are the tible (, Catalan for "treble") and the tenora (, Catalan for "tenor"). The tenora is pitched a fifth lower than the tible. These shawms are usually used with other instruments to accompany the traditional Catalan circle dance, the Sardana. Other Catalan folk shawms are the tarota () the original keyless version of the ''tible'', and the gralla (), a short, strident instrument with a steep conical bore. Both of these resemble shawms from other parts of Spain, such as the dolçaina of Aragon and Valencia, and both employ open fingering. Difference between shawms and oboes There are several distinct differences between shawms and oboes. Shawms normally have a larger bore, which makes them louder and more suitable than the oboe for outdoor playing. In addition, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
