|
A Tale Of Two Cellos
''A Tale of Two Cellos'' is a recording of twenty-one duets for two cellos and piano (or harp) ranging from the sixteenth century, Monteverdi, to the twenty-first century, Arvo Pärt. The recording features cellists Julian Lloyd Webber and his wife Jiaxin Cheng as well as pianist John Lenehan, harpist Catrin Finch and two former BBC Young Musician of the Year winners Guy Johnston and Laura van der Heijden. It was released by Naxos Records in September 2013. Track listing # Camille Saint-Saëns: Ave Maria # Astor Piazzolla: The Little Beggar Boy (Chiquilin de Bachin) # Claudio Monteverdi: Interrotte Speranze # Dmitri Shostakovich: Prelude from ''The Gadfly'' # Gustav Holst: Hymn to the Dawn, Op. 26, No. 1 (arr. for four cellos and harp) # Roger Quilter: My Lady (Greensleeves) # Anton Rubinstein: The Angel, Op. 48, No. 1 # Antonín Dvořák: The Harvesters, Op. 38, No. 3 # William Lloyd Webber: Moon Silver # Robert Schumann: Summer Calm (Sommerruh) # Giovanni Pergolesi: Dolorosa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber (born 14 April 1951) is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme. Early years and education Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer and music educator William Lloyd Webber and his wife, Jean Johnstone (a piano teacher). He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. The composer Herbert Howells was his godfather. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1968 and completed his studies with Pierre Fournier in Geneva in 1973. Career Lloyd Webber made his professional debut as a cellist at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in September 1972 when he gave the first London performance of the cello concerto by Sir Arthur Bliss. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians, including conductors Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Georg Solti, Yevgeny Svetl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gadfly Suite
''The Gadfly Suite'', Op. 97a, is a suite for orchestra arranged by Levon Atovmyan from Dmitri Shostakovich's score for the 1955 Soviet film ''The Gadfly'', based on the novel of the same name by Ethel Lilian Voynich. Atovmyan's suite differs markedly from the original: the orchestration is more colorful and economic, certain sections have been transposed harmonically, and he inserted newly composed connecting passages. Movements The following are the movements of the Suite Op. 97a as arranged by Atovmian. #Overture 03:05 #Contredanse 02:37 #Folk Feast (National Holiday) 02:44 #Interlude 02:38 #Barrel Organ Waltz 02:01 #Galop 02:03 #Introduction (Prelude) 06:18 #Romance 05:54 #Intermezzo 05:49 #Nocturne 04:13 #Scene 03:18 #Finale 03:13 The "Romance" section from the suite, with its solo violin melody, is known to Western TV audiences as the theme music for the Euston Films mini-series ''Reilly, Ace of Spies'', about Russian adventurer Sidney Reilly. The finale part of the sui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Barnby
Sir Joseph Barnby (12 August 183828 January 1896) was an English composer and conductor. Life Barnby was born at York, as a son of Thomas Barnby, who was an organist. Joseph was a chorister at York Minster from the age of seven, was educated at the Royal Academy of Music under Cipriani Potter and Charles Lucas, and was appointed in 1862 organist of St Andrew's, Wells Street, London, where he raised the services to a high degree of excellence. It was at St Andrew's that in 1864, Barnby and the choir performed two anthems by Alice Mary Smith; this is believed to be the first time that liturgical music composed by a woman was performed in the Church of England. He was conductor of "Barnby's Choir" from 1864, and in 1871 was appointed, in succession to Charles Gounod, conductor of the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society, a post he held till his death. In 1875, he was precentor and director of music at Eton College, and in 1892 became principal of the Guildhall School of Music, rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethelbert Nevin
Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin (November 25, 1862February 17, 1901) was an American pianist and composer. Early life Nevin was born on November 25, 1862, at Vineacre, on the banks of the Ohio River, in Edgeworth, Pennsylvania.Mulkearn, Lois, p. 62 There he spent the first sixteen years of his life, and received all his schooling, most of it from his father, Robert Peebles Nevin, editor and proprietor of a Pittsburgh newspaper, and a contributor to many magazines. (Robert Nevin also composed several campaign songs, among them the popular "Our Nominee," used in the day of James K. Polk's candidacy.) Nevin's mother, Elizabeth Duncan Oliphant, was a pianist. The first grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over for Nevin's mother. Other members of the Nevin family showed musical inclinations as well; Nevin's younger brother, Arthur, also achieved some renown as a composer, as did his cousins George and Gordon Balch Nevin. Musical education From a young age, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composers. No later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century. Life and work Early life Purcell was born in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster – the area of London later known as Devil's Acre, a notorious slum – in 1659. Henry Purcell Senior, whose older brother Thomas Purcell was a musician, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of King Charles II of England. Henry the elder had three sons: Edward, Henry and Daniel. Daniel Purcell, the youngest of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he made a point of using his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at the age of four. He studied with Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1892, having already composed several piano and orchestral pieces. In 1897, following the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn (; 9 August 1874 – 28 January 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer. He is best known for his songs – ''mélodies'' – of which he wrote more than 100. Hahn was born in Caracas but his family moved to Paris when he was a child, and he lived most of his life there. Following the success of his song "''Si mes vers avaient des ailes''" (If my verses had wings), written when he was aged 14, he became a prominent member of ''fin de siècle'' French society. Among his closest friends were Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. After the First World War, in which he served in the army, Hahn adapted to new musical and theatrical trends and enjoyed successes with his first opérette, ''Ciboulette'' (1923) and a collaboration with Sacha Guitry, the musical comedy ''Mozart (comédie musicale), Mozart'' (1926). During the Second World War Hahn, who was of Jewish descent, took refuge in Monaco, returning to Paris in 1945 where he w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stabat Mater (Pergolesi)
(P.77) is a musical setting of the sequence, composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi in 1736. Composed in the final weeks of Pergolesi's life, it is scored for soprano and alto soloists, violin I and II, viola and (cello and organ). Background Many pieces which were said to have been composed by Pergolesi have been misattributed; the is definitely by Pergolesi, as a manuscript in his handwriting has been preserved. The work was composed for a Neapolitan confraternity, the , which had also commissioned a Stabat Mater from Alessandro Scarlatti. Pergolesi composed it during his final illness from tuberculosis in a Franciscan monastery in Pozzuoli, along with a ' setting, and, as it is said, finished it right before he died. Reception The is one of Pergolesi's most celebrated sacred works, achieving great popularity after the composer's death. Jean-Jacques Rousseau showed appreciation for the work, praising the opening movement as "the most perfect and touching duet to come from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Draghi (; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), often referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (), was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist. His best-known works include his Stabat Mater and the opera '' La serva padrona'' (''The Maid Turned Mistress''). His compositions include operas and sacred music. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 26. Biography Born in Jesi in what is now the Province of Ancona (but was then part of the Papal States), he was commonly given the nickname "Pergolesi", a demonym indicating in Italian the residents of Pergola, Marche, the birthplace of his ancestors. He studied music in Jesi under a local musician, Francesco Santi, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others. On leaving the conservatory in 1731, he won some renown by performing the oratorio in two parts ' ("The Phoenix on the Pyre, or The Death of Saint Joseph"), and the ''dramma sacro'' in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. His teacher, Friedrich Wieck, a German pianist, had assured him that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara Wieck, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with Friedrich, who opposed the marriage. A lifelong partnership in music began, as Clara herself was an established pianist and music prodigy. Clara and Robert also maintained a close relationship with German composer Johannes Brahms. Until 1840, Schumann wrote exclusively for the piano. Later, he composed piano and orchestral works, and many Lieder (songs for voice and piano). He composed four symphonies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Lloyd Webber
William Southcombe Lloyd Webber (11 March 1914 – 29 October 1982) was an English organist and composer, who achieved some fame as a part of the modern classical music movement whilst commercially facing mixed opportunities. Besides his long and prestigious career, composing works ranging from choral pieces to instrumental items and more, he is known for being the father of both fellow composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and virtuoso cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. He also notably served as a teacher, instructing pupils on music theory at the Royal College of Music for many years until his death in 1982. Childhood Webber was born in London. The son of William Charles Henry Webber, a self-employed plumber, he was fortunate that his father was a keen organ 'buff' who spent what little money he had travelling to hear various organs in and around the capital. Often he would take his son with him and, before long, young William started to play the organ himself and developed a keen inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era Czech nationalism, nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them". Dvořák displayed his musical gifts at an early age, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success, in 1873, when he was 31 years old. Seeking recognition beyond the Prague area, he submitted a score of his Symphony No. 1 (Dvořák), First Symphony to a prize competition in Germany, but did not win, and the unreturned manuscript was lost until it was rediscovered many decades ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
