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Duet
A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo section rather than performing simultaneously. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is a "piano duet" or " piano four hands". A piece for two pianists performing together on separate pianos is a " piano duo". The term ''duet'' is also used as a verb for the act of performing a musical duet, or colloquially as a noun to refer to the performers of a duet. A musical ensemble with more than two solo instruments or voices is called trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, etc. History When Mozart was young, he and his sister Marianne played a duet of his composition at a London concert in 1765. The four-hand, described as a duet, was in many of his compositions which included five sonatas; a set o ...
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L'incoronazione Di Poppea
''L'incoronazione di Poppea'' ( SV 308, ''The Coronation of Poppaea'') is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi. It was Monteverdi's last opera, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, and was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times. The original manuscript of the score does not exist; two surviving copies from the 1650s show significant differences from each other, and each differs to some extent from the libretto. How much of the music is actually Monteverdi's, and ...
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Piano Duet
According to the ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', there are two kinds of piano duet: "those for two players at one instrument, and those in which each of the two pianists has an instrument to themself." In American usage the former is often referred to as "piano four hands". Grove notes that the one-piano duet has the larger repertory, but has come to be regarded as a modest, domestic form of music-making by comparison with "the more glamorous two-piano duet".Dawes, Frank"Piano duet" ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford Music Online, accessed 31 March 2012 The latter is more often referred to as a piano duo.Bellingham, Jane"piano duet" ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', Ed. Alison Latham, Oxford Music Online, accessed 31 March 2012 The piano duet came to popularity in the second half of the 18th century. Mozart played duets as a child with his sister, and later wrote sonatas for four hands at one piano; Schubert was another composer who composed for the genre, notably with ...
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Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 â€“ 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ...
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Piano Four Hands
Piano four hands (french: À quatre mains, german: Zu vier Händen, Vierhändig, it, a quattro mani) is a type of piano duet involving two players playing the same piano simultaneously. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is generally referred to as a '' piano duo''.Bellingham, Jane"piano duet" ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', Ed. Alison Latham, Oxford Music Online, accessed 31 March 2012 Music written for piano four hands is usually printed so that left-hand pages contain only the part for the pianist sitting on the left, while right-hand pages contain only the part for the pianist sitting on the right. The upper part (right) is called ''primo'' while the lower part (left) is called ''secondo''. Repertoire Arrangements By far the greater proportion of music "à quatre mains" consists of arrangements of orchestral and vocal compositions and of quartets and other groups for stringed instruments. Indeed, scarcely any composition of importance for any combin ...
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Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ...
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Bicinium
In music of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, a bicinium (pl. bicinia) was a composition for only two parts, especially one for the purpose of teaching counterpoint or singing. The term has had two usages in music history: # Recently, the term has come to mean any composition at all from the Renaissance or early Baroque period for two vocal or instrumental parts. # Historically, a bicinium referred specifically to a two-part composition used as a teaching tool, most often in Protestant, German-speaking areas. The term was first used in Poland, by Jan z Lublina in a treatise of 1540. Volumes of bicinia were published in the next several decades in Germany, the Low Countries, and even in Italy, as the usefulness of bicinia as teaching aids became apparent. In addition, Martin Luther had strongly expressed that children should learn both music and the psalms: bicinia with German texts from the Psalms fulfilled his purpose. Students could be expected to master singing a sin ...
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Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania". Many years later, in 1898, Giuseppe Verdi "praised the broad curves of Bellini's melody: 'there are extremely long melodies as no-one else had ever made before'." A large amount of what is known about Bellini's life and his activities comes from surviving letters—except for a short period—which were written over his lifetime to his friend Francesco Florimo, whom he had met as a fellow student in Naples and with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Other sources of information come from correspondence saved by other friends and business acquaintances. Bellini was the quintessential composer of the Italian '' bel canto'' era of the early 19th century, and his work has been summed up by the London critic Tim Ashley as: ... also hugely influential, as much a ...
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List Of Compositions For Piano Duo
This article lists compositions written for piano duo. The list includes works for piano four-hands and works for two pianos. Catalogue number and date of composition are also included. Ordering is by composer surname. A list of notable performers who played and recorded these works is at List of classical piano duos (performers). Piano four hands * Anton Arensky (1861–1906) :: Twelve Pieces, Op. 66 (1903) * Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782) :: Sonata for keyboard 4-hands, Op. 15 No. 6 (1778) :: Sonata for keyboard 4-hands, Op. 18 No. 5 (1781) :: Sonata for keyboard 4-hands, Op. 18 No. 6 (1781) * Samuel Barber (1910–1981) :: ''Souvenirs'', Op. 28 (1951) * Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) :: Sonata for Piano 4 hands in D major, Op. 6 (1797) :: 3 Marches, Op. 45 (1803) :: Fugue for Piano, four hands, Op. 134 (1826, arrangement of Große Fuge, Op. 133) * Luciano Berio (1925–2003) :: ''Touch'' (1991) :: ''Canzonetta'' (1991) * Georges Bizet (1838–1875) :: '' Jeux d'en ...
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Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of ...
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Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy ''Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his residency there until productio ...
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Étude
An étude (; ) or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano. Of the vast number of études from that era some are still used as teaching material (particularly pieces by Carl Czerny and Muzio Clementi), and a few, by major composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and Claude Debussy, achieved a place in today's concert repertory. Études written in the 20th century include those related to traditional ones (György Ligeti) and those that require wholly unorthodox technique (John Cage). 19th century Studies, lessons, and other didactic instrumental pieces composed before the 19th century are extremely varied, without any established genres. Domenico Scarlatti's ''30 Essercizi per gravicembalo'' ("30 Exercises for harpsichord", 1738) do not differ in scope fro ...
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The Musical Quarterly
''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including Carl Engel (1930–1944), Gustave Reese (1944-45), Paul Henry Lang, who edited the journal for over 25 years, from 1945 to 1973, Joan Peyser (1977–84), Eric Salzman who served as editor from 1984 to 1991 and several others. Since 1993 ''The Musical Quarterly'' has been edited by Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. Originally published by G. Schirmer, Inc., it is published by Oxford University Press. References External links * Articles published before 1923at the Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, i ...
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