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Babel (Stravinsky)
''Babel'' is a neoclassical religious cantata composed by Igor Stravinsky in 1944. Composition ''Babel'' was written on commission from Nathaniel Shilkret, a music publisher, who asked Stravinsky to contribute to a collaborative work titled ''Genesis Suite'', based on the early chapters of the Book of Genesis. Although Shilkret's intention was to create a descriptive suite, using representational music on aesthetic as well as religious grounds, Stravinsky relied on abstract musical form to present the biblical text in a more objective manner, believing that he should not make any attempts at dramatically portraying the voice of God. Arnold Schoenberg's Prelude was the first piece in the set, whereas Stravinsky's ''Babel'' was the last, on the subject of the building and destruction of the Tower of Babel. Stravinsky wrote his cantata on words taken from Genesis 11:1–9, in April 1944. Even though Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, and Sergei Prokofiev were also commissioned piec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as '' Renard'', ''L'Histoire du soldat,'' and ''Les noces'', was followed in the 1920s by a period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schott Music
Schott Music () is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe, and is the second oldest music publisher after Breitkopf & Härtel. The company headquarters of Schott Music were founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz in 1770. Schott Music is one of the world's leading music publishers. It represents many important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, and its publishing catalogue contains some 31,000 titles on sale and over 10,000 titles on hire. The repertoire ranges from complete editions, stage and concert works to general educational literature, fine sheet music editions and multimedia products. In addition to the publishing houses of Panton, Ars-Viva, Ernst Eulenburg, Fürstner, Cranz, Atlantis Musikbuch and Hohner-Verlag, the Schott group also includes two recording labels, Wergo (for new music) and Intuition (for Jazz), as well as eight specialist magazines. The Schott Music group also includes the printing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abrasives available. The largest town and capital of the island is Chora or Naxos City, with 7,374 inhabitants (2011 census). The main villages are Filoti, Apiranthos, Vivlos, Agios Arsenios, Koronos and Glynado. Geography Climate Naxos experiences a Mediterranean climate, with relatively mild winters and warm summers. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Csa". (Mediterranean Climate). Inland areas of the island are much wetter and cooler in winter. Mythic Naxos According to Greek mythology, the young Zeus was raised in a cave on Mt. Zas ("''Zas''" meaning "''Zeus''"). Homer mentions " Dia"; literally the sacred island "of the Goddess". Károly Kerényi explains: One legend has it that in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abbey Road Studio
Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, which owned it until Universal Music Group (UMG) took control of part of it in 2013. It is ultimately owned by UMG subsidiary Virgin Records Limited (until 2013 by EMI Records Limited, nowadays known as Parlophone Records and owned by UMG's competitor Warner Music Group). The studio's most notable client was the Beatles, who used the studio – particularly its Studio Two room – as the venue for many of the innovative recording techniques that they adopted throughout the 1960s. In 1976, the studio was renamed from EMI in honour of their final recorded album, ''Abbey Road''. In 2009, Abbey Road came under threat of sale to property developers. In response, the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Wilson-Johnson
David Wilson-Johnson (born 16 November 1950, in Northampton) is a British operatic and concert baritone. Career David Wilson-Johnson was educated at Wellingborough School, and studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. As a singer he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he won the Dove Prize for most distinguished student. In 1976, Wilson-Johnson made his operatic debut in Henze's ''"We Come to the River"'' at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, where he subsequently sang important roles in many operas. In 2006, he decided to retire from the stage production of opera performance, but return to stage ''Swallow'' for ''"Peter Grimes"'' (dir. Willy Decker / cond. Yutaka Sado) at Teatro Regio di Torino in 201 He is still involved in giving concerts (including opera's concert version) worldwide with the major orchestras and recitals with his regular pianist David Owen Norris. David Wilson-Johnson was Professor of Singing at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Arturo Toscanini; of the Philharmonia's younger conductors, the most important to its development was Herbert von Karajan who, though never formally chief conductor, was closely associated with the orchestra in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Philharmonia became widely regarded as the finest of London's five symphony orchestras in its first two decades. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s the orchestra's chief conductor was Otto Klemperer, with whom the orchestra gave many concerts and made numerous recordings of the core orchestral repertoire. During Klemperer's tenure Legge, citing the difficulty of maintaining the orchestra's high standards, attempted to disband it in 1964, but the players, backed by Klemp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flood (Stravinsky)
''The Flood: A musical play'' (1962) is a short biblical drama by Igor Stravinsky on the story of Noah and the flood, originally conceived as a work for television. It contains singing, spoken dialogue, and ballet sequences. It is in Stravinsky's late, serial style. The work was premiered in the United States on the CBS Television Network on 14 June 1962, a production conducted by Robert Craft and choreographed by George Balanchine. Dramatic actors participating in the work included Laurence Harvey (narrator), Sebastian Cabot (Noah), and Elsa Lanchester (Noah's wife, which Lanchester played with a Cockney accent). Robert Craft also conducted the first staged performance, by the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico in 1962, and again in Hamburg on 30 April 1963. Text The narrative of ''The Flood'' juxtaposes the story of the Creation with that of Noah. The text was compiled by Robert Craft using material from Genesis and the York and Chester cycles of mystery plays. Excerpts from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham And Isaac (Stravinsky)
''Abraham and Isaac'' is a sacred ballad for baritone and orchestra composed in 1962–63 by Igor Stravinsky. History When the Israel Festival Committee asked Stravinsky for a new work, he decided to set the story of Abraham and Isaac to a text in Hebrew, a language with which he was not familiar. The philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin, who was a friend of the composer, helped Stravinsky to understand the sounds and structure of the text. Work was begun in 1962 and the score, which is dedicated to the people of the State of Israel, was completed on 3 March 1963. The work was premiered on 23 August 1964 in Binyanei Ha'Ooma, Jerusalem, by Ephraim Biran, baritone, and the Israel Festival Orchestra, conducted by Robert Craft. Scoring ''Abraham and Isaac'' is set for baritone solo and a chamber orchestra consisting of two flutes, alto flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, horn, two trumpets, tenor trombone, bass trombone, tuba, and string quintet. Analysis Alth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these. Variation techniques Mozart's Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" (1785), known in the English-speaking world as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" exemplifies a number of common variation techniques. Here are the first eight bars of the theme: Melodic variation Mozart's first variation decorates and elaborates the plain melodic line: Rhythmic variation The fifth variation breaks up the steady pulse and creates syncopated off-beats: Harmonic variation The seventh variation introduces powerful new chords, which replace the simple harmonies originally implied by the theme with a prolongational series of descending fifths: Minor mode In the elaborate eighth variation, Mozart changes from the major to the parallel minor mode, while combining three techniques: count ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the course of the composition. It is not to be confused with a ''fuguing tune'', which is a style of song popularized by and mostly limited to early American (i.e. shape note or "Sacred Harp") music and West Gallery music. A fugue usually has three main sections: an exposition, a development and a final entry that contains the return of the subject in the fugue's tonic key. Some fugues have a recapitulation. In the Middle Ages, the term was widely used to denote any works in canonic style; by the Renaissance, it had come to denote specifically imitative works. Since the 17th century, the term ''fugue'' has described what is commonly regarded as the most fully developed procedure of imitative counterpoint. Most fugues open with a short ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passacaglia
The passacaglia (; ) is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre. Origin The term passacaglia ( es, pasacalle; french: passacaille; Italian: ''passacaglia'', ''passacaglio'', ''passagallo'', ''passacagli'', ''passacaglie'') derives from the Spanish ''pasar'' (to walk) and ''calle'' (street). It originated in early 17th-century Spain as a strummed interlude between instrumentally accompanied dances or songs. Despite the form's Spanish roots (confirmed by references in Spanish literature of the period), the first written examples of passacaglias are found in an Italian source dated 1606. These pieces, as well as others from Italian sources from the beginning of the century, are simple, brief sequences of chords outlining a cadential formula. The passacaglia was redefined in the late 1620s by Italian composer Girolamo F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Craft
Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. Life Craft was born in Kingston, New York, to Raymond and Arpha Craft, and studied music at the Juilliard School. He became particularly interested in early music, such as that of Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo, and Heinrich Schütz, and in contemporary music by the composers of the Second Viennese School and others. Craft met Stravinsky in 1948, and from then until the composer's death in 1971, Craft worked with Stravinsky in a variety of roles, eventually evolving into a full artistic partnership. Craft compiled the libretti for Stravinsky's '' The Flood'' and ''A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer'', and lived with Igor and Vera Stravinsky in Hollywood and later in New York City. He remained close to the composer's widow until her de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
