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BBC Symphony Chorus
The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras. Brief history Background In its early years, the BBC worked on developing its choral output, founding the BBC Wireless Chorus, a professional chamber choir of 16, to supply the smaller scale needs. For bigger choral works, the BBC turned to outside organisations, which performed either under their own name, or under the title of "The National Chorus". Participating choruses included the Civil Service Choir, the Lloyds Choir, and the Railway Clearing House Male Voice Choir, which would perform en masse together with the Wireless Chorus. Holst's choral ballet ''The Morning of the Year'' has the distinction of having been the first piece of music to be commissioned by the music department of the newly formed British Broadcasting Corporation. Its first performance was as part of a concert g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonah Barrington (journalist)
Jonah Barrington was the pseudonym of Cyril Carr Dalmaine (20 August 1904–21 September 1986) the radio critic of the '' Daily Express'', a British newspaper, during the Second World War. He is especially known as being the person who first used the term "Lord Haw-Haw" to describe a German radio broadcaster: He speaks English of the haw-haw, damn-it-get-out-of-my-way variety, and his strong suit is gentlemanly indignation. Early life and education Dalmaine studied at Eastbourne College and graduated from the Royal College of Music. Career Dalmaine was music master at Uppington School and chorus master to the BBC. He composed chamber music, and he transcribed cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach for piano. Jonah Barrington was also a record presenter in the pre-1955 days. He was responsible for the "discovery" of the then-deceased Italian tenor, Alessandro Valente. At a time when the great Swedish tenor Jussi Björling's recording of "Nessun dorma "" (; English: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choral Symphony (Holst)
The Choral Symphony is a work by Gustav Holst for soprano soloist, chorus, and orchestra in a setting of verses by John Keats. Written in 1923–24, it was premiered in Leeds Town Hall on October 7, 1925, conducted by Albert Coates with Dorothy Silk as soloist. The same performers gave the work's second performance three weeks later in Queen's Hall, London. The work is sometimes known as the First Choral Symphony, although a planned 'second Choral Symphony' never progressed beyond some uncompleted sketches.Holst (1986), pp. 77, 157 Structure The symphony is written in a traditional four-movement structure; nevertheless, the setting of the '' Ode on a Grecian Urn'' and the Scherzo can also be performed separately.Holst, ''New Grove'', 8:663. * Prelude: Invocation to Pan 'O Thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang' * Movement 1 ** Part 1. Song and Bacchanal: Beneath my palm tree, by the river side (" Song of the Indian Maid") ** Part 2. Chorus: Whence came ye, merry Damsels, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Coward
Sir Henry Coward (26 November 184910 June 1944) was a British conductor and composer. Born in Liverpool to parents in the entertainment industry, Coward took an apprenticeship to a cutler in Sheffield. Educating himself, he became a teacher and soon a headteacher."Coward, Henry", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' Coward's interest in music developed from a tonic sol-fa class, and in 1876 he founded the Sheffield Tonic Sol-fa Association. This was renamed the Sheffield Musical Union, and Coward was its director until 1933. His choral legacy is still visible in Sheffield, following Sheffield Music Union's 1937 merger with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, a choir which still performs to this day. In 1889, Coward obtained a B.Mus. degree at the University of Oxford, and in 1894, became a Doctor of Music. He returned to Sheffield, where he became the chorus master of the Sheffield Music Festival. He conducted societies in Leeds, Huddersfield, Newcastle and Glasgow, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Chorus
There have been three choirs named The BBC Chorus in the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation. * 1. Today's BBC Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1928 as the BBC National Chorus, it changed its name to the BBC Chorus in 1932, before changing it again in 1935 to the BBC Choral Society (going on to adopt its current name in 1977). * 2. A 42-strong professional chorus developed in the 1930s. It would perform either alone or with the BBC Choral Society as a "choir within a choir". It was abolished in 1961 following changes to the BBC's choral structures. * 3. Today's BBC Singers. Founded in 1924 as a 16-strong BBC Wireless Chorus, and formally renamed The BBC Singers in 1935, it was expanded to 28 in 1961 and renamed The BBC Chorus as part of reforms to the BBC's choral set-up. It was then renamed The BBC Singers once more in 1972. History Founded in late 1922, the BBC's initial output was heavily music oriented. The General Manager, John Reith, made arrangements with Percy P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the United States in 1939. He worked closely with Gustav Mahler, whose music he helped to establish in the repertory, held major positions with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others, made recordings of historical and artistic significance, and is widely considered to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century. Biography Early life Born near Alexanderplatz in Berlin to a middle-class Jewish family, he began his musical education at the Stern Conservatory at the age of eight, making his first public appearance as a pianist when he was nine; he performed a co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–54), and this led to his becoming a household name (especially in the United States) through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire. Biography Early years Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, and won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where he studied the cello. Living conditions at the conservatory were harsh and strict. For example, the menu at the conservatory consisted almost entirely of fish; in his later years, ... [...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] |
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor. Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer, but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music. In the 1920s and 1930s he composed extensively not only for the concert hall, but also for films and ballet. In the Second World War, Bliss returned to England from the US to work for the BBC and became its director of music. After the war he resumed his work as a composer, and was appointed Master of the Queen's Music. In Bliss's later years, his work was respected but was thought old-fashioned, and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton and Benjamin Britten. Since his death, his compositions have been well represented in recordings, and many of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morning Heroes
''Morning Heroes'' is a choral symphony by the English composer Arthur Bliss. The work received its first performance at the Norwich Festival on 22 October 1930, with Basil Maine as the speaker/orator. Written in the aftermath of World War I, in which Bliss had performed military service, Bliss inscribed the dedication as follows: "To the Memory of my brother Francis Kennard Bliss and all other Comrades killed in battle" The work sets various poems: * Homer, ''The Iliad'', passages from Book VI (translation of W Leaf) and Book XIX (translation of Chapman) * Walt Whitman, "Drum Taps" * Wilfred Owen, "Spring Offensive" * Li Tai Po * Robert Nichols, "Dawn on the Somme" The extracts are spoken by a narrator and sung by a large choir. Juxtaposing the harsh images of trench warfare with the epic heroes of Ancient Greece, the parallels Bliss draws are essentially romantic, and the work as a whole has been criticised as being rather complacent. Bliss himself said that he suffered f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Alexandre Ansermet (; 11 November 1883 – 20 February 1969)"Ansermet, Ernest" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 435. was a Swiss conductor. Biography Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Originally he was a mathematics professor, teaching at the University of Lausanne. He began conducting at the Casino in Montreux in 1912, and from 1915 to 1923 was the conductor for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Travelling in France for this, he met both Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and consulted them on the performance of their works. During World War I, he met Igor Stravinsky, who was exiled in Switzerland, and from this meeting began the conductor's lifelong association with Russian music. In 1918 Ansermet founded his own orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR). He toured widely in Europe and America and became famous for accurate performances of difficult modern music, making first record ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH (; 8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later. Forced to leave the BBC in 1950 on reaching retirement age, Boult took on the chief conductorship of the LPO. The orchestra had declined from its peak of the 1930s, but under his guidance its fortunes were revived. He retired as its chief conductor in 1957, and later accepted the post of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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