|
Birmingham Festival
The Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, in Birmingham, England, founded in 1784, was the longest-running classical music festival of its kind. It last took place in 1912. History The first music festival, over three days in September 1768, was to help raise funds to complete the new General Hospital on Summer Lane. It proved to be very popular and successful, but it took another event in 1778 to achieve the funds required. The hospital opened September 1779. From September 1784 the performances became a permanent feature and ran every three years, becoming the Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, still with the aim of raising funds for the hospital. Originally hosted in St Philip's Church (later to become the Cathedral) or the Theatre Royal on New Street the available venues became too small for the festival. As a result, the Birmingham Town Hall was built, and opened in 1834 to house it. The festival for 1832 was delayed by two years during its erection. Vocal works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham Town Hall Interior 1845
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the Birmingham metropolitan area, wider metropolitan area. It is the ESPON metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom, largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame, West Midlands, River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole, West Midlands ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano Concerto No
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Requiem (Dvořák)
Antonín Dvořák's Requiem in B minor, Op. 89, B. 165, is a funeral Mass scored for soloists, choir and orchestra. It was composed in 1890 and performed for the first time on 9 October 1891, in Birmingham, England, with the composer conducting. antonin-dvorak.cz Structure Part I Part II The approximate duration of the work is 95 minutes.Score, summaryOrchestration The work is scored for:Score, summary Voices: :[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mors Et Vita
''Mors et vita'' is an oratorio in three parts by Charles Gounod premiered at the Birmingham Festival in 1885. It was conceived as a sequel to '' La rédemption'' (1882). The 1886 Paris premiere again featured Jean-Baptiste Faure. Gounod considered this oratorio, and its predecessor '' La rédemption'' (1882) as his greatest achievements. Recordings *Michel Plasson Michel Plasson (born 2 October 1933, Paris, France) is a French conductor. Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. ... EMI References {{Charles Gounod 1885 compositions Oratorios based on the Bible Oratorios by Charles Gounod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Spectre's Bride
''The Spectre's Bride'' ( cs, Svatební košile; literally "The Wedding Shirt") is a cantata for soloists, choir and orchestra op. 69 by Antonín Dvořák based on a literary model by Karel Jaromír Erben (1884). History of origins and performance In 1883, Dvořák was invited to write a large orchestral oratorio for England to be performed at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. Dvořák had agreed with his librettist Marie Červinková-Riegrová to write an oratorio on a theme from Czech history, for example the story of St. Wenceslaus or Jan Hus. Finally he decided to write a literary work, the ballad ''The Spectre's Bride'' by Karel Jaromír Erben. He worked on his composition from April to November 1884, and the cantata was published by Alfred Novello the following year. It is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tam-tam, bells, harp, first and sec ... [...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] |
La Rédemption
''La Rédemption'' (''The Redemption'') is an oratorio in three parts by Charles Gounod arranged for the first time in 1882. Composition ''La Rédemption'' is based on much earlier sketches, which were finished only after his publisher, Novello, arranged for its performances at the Birmingham Festival in 1882. The oratorio was a huge popular success and cemented Gounod's position in England. In the chorus of La Pentecôte (The Pentecost), Gounod elaborates his oratoria by developing a theme which he had written for the ''Cantique de nos Martyrs'', which he had written with Father Daller of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in honour of the martyrs of Korea in 1866. Theme ''La Rédemption'' was a return to Christian-themed sacred music which Charles Gounod had adhered to since his time in Rome, or in Berlin when her wrote on oratoria on the subject of Judith in 1842, or during his time as organist for the Chapel of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. In three parts, it is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Ave Maria (an elaboration of a Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach piece), and ''Funeral March of a Marionette''. Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Bruch
Max Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920) was a German Romantic composer, violinist, teacher, and conductor who wrote more than 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a prominent staple of the standard violin repertoire. Early life and education Max Bruch was born in 1838 in Cologne to Wilhelmine (), a singer, and August Carl Friedrich Bruch, an attorney who became vice president of the Cologne police. Max had a sister, Mathilde ("Till"). He received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Robert Schumann dedicated his Piano Concerto in A minor. The Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles recognized the aptitude of Bruch. At the age of nine, Bruch wrote his first composition, a song for his mother's birthday. From then on, music was his passion. His studies were enthusiastically supported by his parents. He wrote many minor early works including motets, psalm settings, piano pieces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Light Of The World (Sullivan)
''The Light of the World'' is an oratorio composed in 1873 by Arthur Sullivan. Sullivan wrote the libretto with the assistance of George Grove, based on the New Testament. The work was inspired by William Holman Hunt's popular 1853–54 painting, '' The Light of the World''. The story of the oratorio follows the whole life of Christ, told mostly in the first person, focusing on his deeds on Earth as preacher, healer and prophet. The work was first performed at the Birmingham Festival on 27 August 1873 and was the composer's second oratorio, the first being '' The Prodigal Son'' (1869). Background Historian Michael Ainger suggests that the idea for the libretto of ''The Light of the World'' came to Sullivan when he viewed a chapel near Norwich, England, in September 1872. Composing the oratorio occupied Sullivan during much of 1873. Sullivan's introduction to the work says that, unlike Handel's ''Messiah'', which focuses on Christ's "spiritual idea", or J. S. Bach's Passion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form. In an oratorio, the choir often plays a central role, and there is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes. A particularly important difference is in the typical subject matter of the text. Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder, whereas the plot of an oratorio often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church. Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible, while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints, as w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado''. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord". The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music, which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre, Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
