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B Flat Minor
B-flat minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has five flats. Its relative major is D-flat major and its parallel major is B-flat major. Its enharmonic equivalent, A-sharp minor, which would contain seven sharps, is not normally used. The B-flat natural minor scale is: : Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary. The B-flat harmonic minor and melodic minor scales are: : : Characteristics B-flat minor is traditionally a 'dark' key. The old valveless horn was barely capable of playing in B-flat minor: the only example found in 18th-century music is a modulation that occurs in the first minuet of Franz Krommer's Concertino in D major, Op. 80. Notable classical compositions * Charles-Valentin Alkan ** '' Prelude Op. 31'', No. 12 (Le temps qui n'est plus) ** Symphony for Solo Piano, 3rd movement: Menuet *Samuel Barber **''Ada ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D-flat Major
D-flat major (or the key of D-flat) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B and C. Its key signature has five flats. It is enharmonically equivalent to C-sharp major. The D-flat major scale is: : Its relative minor is B-flat minor. Its parallel minor, D-flat minor, is usually replaced by C-sharp minor, since D-flat minor features a B ( B-double-flat) in its key signature making it impractical to use. C-sharp major, the enharmonic equivalent to D-flat major, has a similar problem as it contains seven sharps. Therefore, D-flat major is often used as the parallel major for C-sharp minor. (The same enharmonic situation occurs with the keys of A-flat major and G-sharp minor). For example, in his Prelude No. 15 in D-flat major ("Raindrop"), Frédéric Chopin switches from D-flat major to C-sharp minor for the middle section in the parallel minor, while in his ''Fantaisie-Impromptu'' and Scherzo No. 3, primarily in C-sharp minor, he switche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enharmonic
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written note, interval, or chord is an alternative way to write that note, interval, or chord. The term is derived from Latin ''enharmonicus'', from Late Latin ''enarmonius'', from Ancient Greek ἐναρμόνιος (''enarmónios''), from ἐν (''en'') and ἁρμονία (''harmonía''). Definition For example, in any twelve-tone equal temperament (the predominant system of musical tuning in Western music), the notes C and D are ''enharmonic'' (or ''enharmonically equivalent'') notes. Namely, they are the same key on a keyboard, and thus they are identical in pitch, although they have different names and different roles in harmony and chord progressions. Arbitrary amounts of accidentals can produce further enharmonic equivalents, such as B (me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adagio For Strings
''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 same year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time on November 5, 1938, by Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast from NBC Studio 8H. Toscanini also conducted the piece on his South American tour with the NBC Symphony in 1940. Its reception has generally been positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that ''Adagio for Strings'' is "full of pathos and cathartic passion" and that it "rarely leaves a dry eye". The music is the setting for Barber's 1967 choral arrangement of ''Agnus Dei''. ''Adagio for Strings'' has been featured in many TV and movie soundtracks. History Barber's ''Adagio for Strings'' was originally the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11, composed in 1936 while he was spending a summe ... [...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] |
Menuet
A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accompanies the dance, which subsequently developed more fully, often with a longer musical form called the minuet and trio, and was much used as a movement in the early classical symphony. Dance The name may refer to the short steps, ''pas menus'', taken in the dance, or else be derived from the ''branle à mener'' or ''amener'', popular group dances in early 17th-century France. The minuet was traditionally said to have descended from the ''bransle de Poitou'', though there is no evidence making a clear connection between these two dances. The earliest treatise to mention the possible connection of the name to the expression ''pas menus'' is Gottfried Taubert's ''Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister'', published in Leipzig in 1717, but this source ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan (; 30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888) was a French Jewish composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life. Alkan earned many awards at the Conservatoire de Paris, which he entered before he was six. His career in the salons and concert halls of Paris was marked by his occasional long withdrawals from public performance, for personal reasons. Although he had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the Parisian artistic world, including Eugène Delacroix and George Sand, from 1848 he began to adopt a reclusive life style, while continuing with his compositions – virtually all of which are for the keyboard. During this period he published, among other works, his collections of large-scale studies in all the major keys (Op. 35) and all the mino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D Major
D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Characteristics According to Paolo Pietropaolo, D major is Miss Congeniality: it is persistent, sunny, and energetic. D major is well-suited to violin music because of the structure of the instrument, which is tuned G D A E. The open strings resonate sympathetically with the D string, producing a sound that is especially brilliant. This is also the case with all other orchestral strings. Thus, it is no coincidence that many classical composers throughout the centuries have chosen to write violin concertos in D major, including those by Mozart ( No. 2, 1775, No. 4, 1775); Ludwig van Beethoven (1806); Paganini ( No. 1, 1817); Brahms (1878); Tchaikovsky (1878); Prokofiev ( No. 1, 1917); Stravinsky (1931); and Korngold ( 1945). The k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Krommer
Franz Krommer ( cz, František Vincenc Kramář; 27 November 1759 in Kamenice u Jihlavy – 8 January 1831 in Vienna) was a Czech composer of classical music and violinist. He was one of the most popular composers in the 19th century Vienna. Today he is mostly known for his clarinet concertos. Life Franz Krommer was born as František Vincenc Kramář in Kamenice. But even his parents were going by a Germanized version of their surname – Krommer. His father was an innkeeper in Kamenice until the family moved to Třebíč in 1773. From 1773 to 1776, Franz studied violin and organ with his uncle, Antonín Mattias Kramář (1742-1804), in Tuřany. He became an organist here along with his uncle in 1777. In 1785 he moved to Vienna and later to Simontornya in Hungary, where he was a violinist and later a Kapellmeister for the orchestra of the Count of Limburg Stirum. In 1790, Krommer was named choirmaster at the Cathedral of Pécs, Hungary. In 1793 he became a Kapellmeister to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a list of horn players, horn player or hornist. Pitch is controlled through the combination of the following factors: speed of air through the instrument (controlled by the player's lungs and thoracic diaphragm); diameter and tension of lip aperture (by the player's lip muscles—the embouchure) in the mouthpiece; plus, in a modern horn, the operation of Brass instrument valve, valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra sections of tubing. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves (similar to a trumpet's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brass Instrument Valve
Brass instrument valves are valves used to change the length of tubing of a brass instrument allowing the player to reach the notes of various harmonic series. Each valve pressed diverts the air stream through additional tubing, individually or in conjunction with other valves. This lengthens the vibrating air column thus lowering the fundamental tone and associated harmonic series produced by the instrument. Valves in brass instruments require regular maintenance and lubrication to ensure fast and reliable movement. Piston valve The first musical instruments with piston valves were developed just after the start of the 19th century. Stölzel valve The first of these types was the Stölzel valve, bearing the name of its inventor Heinrich Stölzel, who first applied these valves to the French horn in 1814. Until that point, there had been no successful valve design, and horn players had to stop off the bell of the instrument, greatly compromising tone quality to achieve a partia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tempo (journal)
''Tempo'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that specialises in music of the 20th century and contemporary music. It was established in 1939 as the 'house magazine' of the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes. ''Tempo'' was the brain-child of Arnold Schoenberg's pupil Erwin Stein, who worked for Boosey & Hawkes as a music editor. The journal's first editor was Ernest Chapman and it was intended to be a bi-monthly publication. Issues 1 to 4 appeared from January to July 1939; but owing to the outbreak of World War II there was a hiatus in publication until August 1941, when issue 5 appeared, and another until February 1944, when regular publication resumed with issue 6 on a roughly quarterly basis. Meanwhile, the New York City office of Boosey & Hawkes set up a separate American edition which produced six issues in 1940–1942 (numbered 1–6, independent of the UK numbering) and an unnumbered 'wartime edition' in February 1944. In 1946, the journal was enlarged and r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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