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Bagatelle (music)
A bagatelle is a short piece of music, typically for the piano, and usually of a light, mellow character. The name bagatelle literally means "a short unpretentious instrumental composition" as a reference to the light style of a piece. Although bagatelles are generally written for solo piano, they have also been written for piano four hands, harpsichord, harp, organ, classical guitar, vibraphone, unaccompanied oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, various chamber-music configurations, orchestra, band, voice and piano, and a cappella choir. Earliest known bagatelle The earliest use of the name "bagatelle" for a musical work was by François Couperin, in his tenth harpsichord ''ordre'' (1717), in which a rondeau is titled "Les bagatelles." Best-known bagatelles The best-known bagatelles are probably those by Ludwig van Beethoven, who published three sets, Op. 33, 119 and 126, and wrote a number of similar works that were unpublished in his lifetime including the piece that is popularly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano
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] |
François Couperin
François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family. Life Couperin was born in Paris, into a prominent musical family. His father Charles was organist at the Church of Saint-Gervais in the city, a position previously held by Charles's brother Louis Couperin, the esteemed keyboard virtuoso and composer whose career was cut short by an early death. As a boy François must have received his first music lessons from his father, but Charles died in 1679 leaving the position at Saint-Gervais to his son, a common practice known as ''survivance'' that few churches ignored. With their hands tied, the churchwardens at Saint-Gervais hired Michel Richard Delalande to serve as new organist on the understanding that François would replace him at age 18. However, it is likely Couperin b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Tcherepnin
Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Черепни́н, link=no; 21 January 1899 – 29 September 1977) was a Russian-born composer and pianist. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin (pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov), and his sons, Serge Tcherepnin and Ivan Tcherepnin, as well as two of his grandsons (sons of Ivan), Sergei and Stefan, were composers. His son Serge was involved in the earliest development of electronic music and instruments. His mother was a member of the artistic Benois family, a niece of Alexandre Benois. Biography He was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and played the piano and composed prolifically from a very early age. He was stimulated in this activity by the atmosphere at home, which—thanks to his family's Benois-Diaghilev connection—was a meeting place for many well-known musicians and artists of the day. By the time he began formal theory and composition studies in his late teens, he had already co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana ( , ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival." He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera ''The Bartered Bride'' and for the symphonic cycle ''Má vlast'' ("My Fatherland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau" (in English, "The Moldau"). Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of 6. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pump Organ
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. The idea for the free reed was imported from China through Russia after 1750, and the first Western free-reed instrument was made in 1780 in Denmark. More portable than pipe organs, free-reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range were limited. They generally had one or sometimes two manuals, with pedal-boards being rare. The finer pump organs had a wider range of tones, and the cabinets of those intended for churches and affluent homes were often excellent pieces of furniture. Several million free-reed organs and melodeons were made in the US and Canada between the 1850s and the 1920s, some of which were exported. The Cable Company, Estey Organ, and Mason & ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, scientific pitch notation, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages. Played by a ''List of cellists, cellist'' or ''violoncellist'', it enjoys a large solo repertoire Cello sonata, with and List of solo cello pieces, without accompaniment, as well as numerous cello concerto, concerti. As a solo instrument, the cello uses its whole range, from bassline, bass to soprano, and in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, it often plays the bass part, where it may be reinforced an octave lower by the double basses. Figure ... [...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] |
François Schubert
François Schubert (né Franz Anton Schubert (the Younger); 22 July 1808, Dresden – 12 April 1878, Dresden) was a violinist and composer. After training with concertmaster Antonio Rolla in Dresden, Schubert studied violin with Charles Philippe Lafont in Paris and began working under the name ''François Schubert''. He played in the Staatskapelle in Dresden from 1823 to 1873. The son of church composer Franz Anton Schubert (the Elder, 1768–1824), Schubert was married to the singer and actress Maschinka Schubert (1815–1882) who was the daughter of horn player and composer Georg Abraham Schneider. Their daughter was the opera singer and composer Georgina Schubert (1840–1878). François Schubert composed concert pieces, études, and chamber music, but is largely known for the bagatelle ''The Bee'', a perpetuum mobile for violin and piano – a piece that is often misattributed to Franz Schubert due to the similarity of the two men's names. Selected works * ''9 Études'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a single, central triad is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another. More narrowly, the term ''atonality'' describes music that does not conform to the system of tonal hierarchies that characterized European classical music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. "The repertory of atonal music is characterized by the occurrence of pitches in novel combinations, as well as by the occurrence of familiar pitch combinations in unfamiliar environments". The term is also occasionally used to describe music that is neither tonal nor serial, especially the pre-twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School, principally Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern. However, "as a categoric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bagatelle Sans Tonalité
''Bagatelle sans tonalité'' ("Bagatelle without tonality", S.216a) is a piece for solo piano written by Franz Liszt in 1885. The manuscript bears the title "Fourth Mephisto Waltz" and may have been intended to replace the piece now known as the Fourth Mephisto Waltz when it appeared Liszt would not be able to finish it; the phrase ''Bagatelle ohne Tonart'' actually appears as a subtitle on the front page of the manuscript. The Bagatelle is a waltz in a typical sectioned dance form, with repeated sections given inventive variation. While this piece is not especially dissonant, it is extremely chromatic, becoming what Liszt's contemporary François-Joseph Fétis called "omnitonic" in that it lacks any definite feeling for a tonal center. Some critics have suggested, however, that the various underpinnings of the piece—in other words, the main bass notes and melodic elements—work together to imply an underlying tonality of D,Baker, 117. which would link the Bagatelle in terms o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simply "c" in all words except surnames; this has led to Liszt's given name being rendered in modern Hungarian usage as "Ferenc". From 1859 to 1867 he was officially Franz Ritter von Liszt; he was created a ''Ritter'' (knight) by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, Francis Joseph I in 1859, but never used this title of nobility in public. The title was necessary to marry the Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein without her losing her privileges, but after the marriage fell through, Liszt transferred the title to his uncle Eduard in 1867. Eduard's son was Franz von Liszt., group=n (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Für Elise
Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (WoO59, Bia515) for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" (, ), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It was not published during his lifetime, only being discovered (by Ludwig Nohl) 40 years after his death, and may be termed either a ''Bagatelle'' or an . The identity of "Elise" is unknown; researchers have suggested Therese Malfatti, Elisabeth Röckel, or Elise Barensfeld. History The score was not published until 1867, forty years after the composer's death in 1827. The discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, affirmed that the original autograph manuscript, now lost, had the title: "Für Elise am 27 April 810zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn" ("For Elise on April 27 in memory by L. v. Bthvn"). The music was published as part of Nohl's ''Neue Briefe Beethovens'' (New letters by Beethoven) on pages 28 to 33, printed in Stuttgart by Johann Friedrich Cotta. The version of "Für Elise" heard today is an earlier version that wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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