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Adieu (Stockhausen)
''Adieu'' ''für Wolfgang Sebastian Meyer'' is a composition for wind quintet by Karlheinz Stockhausen composed in 1966. It is Number 21 in the composer's catalog of works, and the second of Stockhausen's three wind quintets, the others being ''Zeitmaße'' (1955-1956) and the ''Rotary'' Wind Quintet (1997). History In June 1966 the oboist Wilhelm Meyer, who had frequently performed Stockhausen's earlier quintet ''Zeitmaße'' under the composer's direction, asked Stockhausen to compose a new wind quintet for an upcoming tour of Asia. Stockhausen initially demurred because a new quintet would probably take months to compose, and the current production of ''Hymnen'' in the Cologne electronic studio was taking up all of his time. A visit made a few days later to a comprehensive exhibition in The Hague of Piet Mondrian's paintings made Stockhausen ask himself, when confronted with Mondrian's well-known series of paintings titled simply "compositions"—with their strict organization by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wind Quintet
A wind quintet, also known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players (most commonly flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon). Unlike the string quartet (of 4 string instruments) with its homogeneous blend of sound color, the instruments in a wind quintet differ from each other considerably in technique, idiom, and timbre. The modern wind quintet sprang from the octet ensemble favored in the court of Joseph II in late 18th century Vienna: two oboes, two clarinets, two (natural) horns, and two bassoons. The influence of Haydn's chamber writing suggested similar possibilities for winds, and advances in the building of these instruments in that period made them more useful in small ensemble settings, leading composers to attempt smaller combinations. It was Anton Reicha's twenty-four quintets, begun in 1811, and the nine quintets of Franz Danzi that established the genre, and their pieces are still standards of the repertoire. Though the form fell out of favor in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kontra-Punkte
''Kontra-Punkte'' (Counter-Points, or Against-Points) is a composition for ten instruments by Karlheinz Stockhausen which resolves contrasts among six instrumental timbres, as well as extremes of note values and dynamic levels, into a homogeneous ending texture. Stockhausen described it: "Counter-Points: a series of the most concealed and also the most conspicuous transformations and renewals—with no predictable end. The same thing is never heard twice. Yet there is a distinct feeling of never falling out of an unmistakable construction of the utmost homogeneity. An underlying force that holds things together—related proportions: a structure. Not the same ''Gestalten'' in a changing light. But rather this: various ''Gestalten'' in the same light, that permeates everything." History The first, untitled version, written in 1952–53, was a sparse-textured, " punctual" composition scored for flute, E-flat clarinet, contrabass clarinet, contrabassoon, trumpet, contrabass tuba, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Maconie
Robin John Maconie (born 22 October 1942) is a New Zealand composer, pianist, and writer. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Maconie studied with Frederick Page and Roger Savage at the Victoria University of Wellington, receiving a Master of Arts in the History and Literature of Music in 1964. He studied analysis with Olivier Messiaen in 1963–64 at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1964–65 studied composition for film and radio under Bernd Alois Zimmermann, and electronic music under Herbert Eimert at the Cologne Conservatory. He also studied composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Henri Pousseur, and Luc Ferrari at the Second Cologne Courses for New Music at the , also in Cologne, as well as piano with Aloys Kontarsky, conducting with Herbert Schernus, and information science with Georg Heike. Following a temporary lectureship at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1967–69, Maconie emigrated to England to study for a Ph.D in the Psychology of Music at Southampton Univers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City) was an American composer and music theorist. Biography Kramer received his B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University (1965) and his MA and PhD in music from the University of California, Berkeley (1967 and 1969). His composition teachers included Karlheinz Stockhausen, Roger Sessions, Leon Kirchner, Seymour Shifrin, Andrew Imbrie, Richard Felciano, Jean-Claude Éloy, Billy Jim Layton, Edwin Dugger, and Arnold Franchetti. He studied theory with David Lewin, criticism with Joseph Kerman, and computer music with John Chowning. Kramer was professor of composition and theory at Columbia University from 1988 until his death in 2004. He also taught at the Oberlin Conservatory, Yale University, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He held visiting appointments at Wesleyan University, King's College London, the Canberra School of Music, the School of Music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian composer (his father was Austrian, and Eisler fought in a Hungarian regiment in World War I). He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht, and for the scores he wrote for films. The Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" is named after him. Family background Johannes Eisler was born in Leipzig in Saxony, the son of Rudolf Eisler, a professor of philosophy, and Marie Ida Fischer. His father was an atheist of Jewish origin and his mother was Lutheran. In 1901, the family moved to Vienna. His brother, Gerhart, was a Communist journalist, and his sister, Elfriede, was a leader of the German Communist Party in the mid-1920s. After emigrating to America, she turned into an anti-Stalinist, writing books against her former political affiliation, and even testifying against her brothers before the House Un-American Activities Committee. At age 14 Eis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kleine Kammermusik
(''Chamber Music'') is the title for eight chamber music compositions by Paul Hindemith. He wrote them, each in several movements, during the 1920s. They are grouped in three opus numbers: Op. 24, Op. 36 and Op. 46. Six of these works, ''Kammermusik'' Nos. 2–7, are not what is normally considered chamber music – music for a few players with equally important parts such as a wind quintet – but rather concertos for a soloist and chamber orchestra. They are concertos for piano, cello, violin, viola, viola d'amore and organ. The works, for different ensembles, were premiered at different locations and times. The composer was the soloist in the premiere of the viola concertos, while his brother Rudolf Hindemith was the soloist in the premiere of the cello concerto. is reminiscent of Bach's ''Brandenburg Concertos'', also concertos for different solo and orchestra instruments, and in a neo-Bachian spirit of structure, polyphony and stability of motion. Background Bet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the '' Neue Sachlichkeit'' (new objectivity) style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as '' Kammermusik'', including works with viola and viola d'amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other notable compositions include his song cycle '' Das Marienleben'' (1923), '' Der Schwanendreher'' for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera '' Mathis der Maler'' (1938), the '' Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber'' (1943), and the oratorio ''When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'', a requiem based on Walt Whitman's poem (1946). Life and career Hindemith was born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, the eldest child of the painter and decorator Robert Hindemith from Lower Silesia and his wife Marie Hindemith, née War ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. However, he adopted elements of modernism after 1940 in some of his compositions, such as an increased use of dissonance and chromaticism in the '' Cello Concerto'' (1945) and '' Medea's Dance of Vengeance'' (1955); and the use of tonal ambiguity and a narrow use of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known South American composer of all time. A prolific composer, he wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works, totaling over 2000 works by his death in 1959. His music was influenced by both Brazilian folk music and stylistic elements from the European classical tradition, as exemplified by his ''Bachianas Brasileiras'' (Brazilian Bachian-pieces) and his Chôros. His Etudes for classical guitar (1929) were dedicated to Andrés Segovia, while his ''5 Preludes'' (1940) were dedicated to his spouse Arminda Neves d'Almeida, a.k.a. "Mindinha". Both are important works in the classical guitar repertory. Biography Youth and exploration Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro. His father, Raúl, was a civil servant, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop (Stockhausen)
''Stop'' is a composition for orchestra (divided into six groups) by Karlheinz Stockhausen, work-number 18 in the composer’s catalogue of works, where two performing realisations are also found as Nr. 18½ and Nr. 18⅔. History ''Stop'' is a work of about 20 minutes duration, written in a single session at the blackboard in 1965 during a composition seminar at the Cologne Courses for New Music 1964–65, in response to a request from a student for a demonstration of the process of creating a work, including "precise details". The instrumentation is flexible, and an organic process binding the whole together must also be developed from the basic score to make a version before it can be performed. The title stems from the fact that, from time to time, noises or coloured silences ''stop'' these processes of unfolding of groups of pitches. In addition to the original score, two performing versions made by the composer have been published: a "Paris Version" for nineteen instruments, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Waterhouse (bassoonist)
William Waterhouse (18 February 1931 – 5 November 2007) was an English bassoonist and musicologist. He played with notable orchestras, was a member of the Melos Ensemble, professor at the Royal Northern College of Music, author of the ''Yehudi Menuhin Music Guide "Bassoon"'', of ''The New Langwill Index'', and contributor to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Biography and career as a performer Born in London, Waterhouse studied at the Royal College of Music, specifically the bassoon with Archie Camden, viola with Cecil Aronowitz, and harmony with the composer Gordon Jacob. From 1953 to 1955, he was second bassoonist in the orchestra of the Royal Opera at Covent Garden at the time of Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, and Kirsten Flagstad. Later he stated that his most valuable lessons in phrasing were actually learned playing in the pit while accompanying opera singers. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
