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Esquisses (Alkan)
''Esquisses'' (Sketches), Op. 63 is a set of 49 short piano pieces by French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan and published in 1861. The pieces are divided into four books; the first pair of books and the last pair each comprise between them pieces in each of all the major and minor keys. Book 4 ends with an extra, unnumbered, piece, '' Laus Deo'', in C major. Four pianists have recorded the set in its entirety: Laurent Martin, Osamu Nakamura (now Osamu Kanazawa), Steven Osborne, and Yui Morishita (twice). Unlike many other of Alkan's pieces, such as the Op. 33 Grand Sonate and the Op. 39 set of etudes in all the minor keys, these 49 pieces do not focus mainly on virtuosity and transcendentalism and instead contain more of Alkan's sentimental and evocative writing. Alkan's innovation is also vividly present in the pieces. The 45th piece, ''Les Diablotins'', features wrenched cluster chords and the 48th piece, ''En Songe'', is a dreamy and quiet piece all except for the very fina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan (; 30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888) was a French Jewish composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life. Alkan earned many awards at the Conservatoire de Paris, which he entered before he was six. His career in the salons and concert halls of Paris was marked by his occasional long withdrawals from public performance, for personal reasons. Although he had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the Parisian artistic world, including Eugène Delacroix and George Sand, from 1848 he began to adopt a reclusive life style, while continuing with his compositions – virtually all of which are for the keyboard. During this period he published, among other works, his collections of large-scale studies in all the major keys (Op. 35) and all the mino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Written In All 24 Major And Minor Keys
There is a long tradition in classical music of writing music in sets of pieces that cover all the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. These sets typically consist of 24 pieces, one for each of the major and minor keys (sets that comprise all the enharmonic variants include 30 pieces). Examples include Johann Sebastian Bach's ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'' and Frédéric Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28. Such sets are often organized as preludes and fugues or designated as preludes or études. Some composers have restricted their sets to cover only the 12 major keys or the 12 minor keys; or only the flat keys (Franz Liszt's ''Transcendental Études'') or the sharp keys (Sergei Lyapunov's Op. 11 set). In yet another type, a single piece may progressively modulate through a set of tonalities, as occurs in Ludwig van Beethoven's Two Preludes through all twelve major keys, Op. 39. The bulk of works of this type have been written for piano solo, but there also exist set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurent Martin
Laurent Martin (born 12 September 1945) is a French classical pianist. Biography After piano studies with Geneviève Zaigue in Troyes, Joseph Benvenuti at the Conservatoire de Paris, Germaine Audibert in Nice and Pierre Sancan in Paris, Martin distinguished himself in several international competitions in Spain and Italy and began a career as soloist and chamber musician in 1977. Initially confined to a relatively limited activity, he performed alone with Emmanuel Krivine in 1979 and 1980 and then with other prestigious partners. In the same way, his repertoire as an off the beaten track soloist limits his engagements at first, then, after the recording of his first 4 CDs devoted to Charles-Valentin Alkan in the years 1989-1992, his concerts have continued to develop in Europe until today. He is now recognized as the principal defender and specialist of the little-known French romantic composers and his discography, which exceeds 40 recordings, gives pride of place to worl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Osborne (pianist)
Steven George McNeil Osborne (born 1971) is a Scottish pianist who has performed concertos and solo recitals worldwide. He was taught by Richard Beauchamp at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh before going to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester to study under Renna Kellaway. After graduating, Osborne went on to win first prize in the prestigious Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland in 1991 and the Naumburg International Competition in New York City, New York in May 1997. In 1999 he was selected as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, BBC New Generation Artist in the first year of the scheme. His recording career began when he was signed to Hyperion Records in 1998 and has resulted in bi-annual recordings. The first disc with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra celebrated Osborne's Scottish musical heritage with a pairing of Sir Alexander Mackenzie (composer), Alexander Mackenzie's Scottish Concerto alongside Sir Donald Tovey's Piano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre âges' (Alkan)
''Grande sonate: Les quatre âges'' (French for ''Grand sonata: The Four Ages'') is a four movement sonata for piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The sonata's title refers to the subtitles given to each movement, portraying a man at the ages of 20, 30, 40, and 50. The work was published in 1847, dedicated to the composer's father, Alkan Morhange (who died eight years later, in 1855). The sequence of movements is unlike the typical classical piano sonata, in that they become progressively slower; after the lively ''20 ans'' (years), marked 'très vite' (very fast) and the complex ''30 ans'', subtitled ''Quasi- Faust'', and marked 'assez vite' (quite fast), ''40 ans'' is more sedate, marked 'lentement' (slowly), and ''50 ans'', dark and pessimistic in mood, is marked 'extrêmement lent' (extremely slow). Structure 20 ans The sonata opens with ''20 ans'', a quickly played piece based in D major but also with many passages in the relative minor key of B minor. The young man's 'cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἡράκλειτος , "Glory of Hera"; ) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, only fragments of which have survived. Most of the ancient stories about him are later said to be fabrications based on interpretations of the preserved fragments. His paradoxical philosophy and appreciation for wordplay and cryptic utterances has earned him the epithet "the obscure" since antiquity. He was considered a misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient philosopher Democritus, who was known as "the laughing philosopher". The central idea of Heraclitus' philosophy is the unity of opposites. One of his most notable applications of this idea was to the concept of impermanence; he saw the world as constantly in flux, changing as it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. None of his work has survived. Life Although many anecdotes about Democritus' life survive, their authenticity cannot be verified and modern scholars doubt their accuracy. Democritus was said to be born in the city of Abdera in Thrace, an Ionian colony of Teos,. Ancient accounts of his life have claimed that he lived to a very old age, with some writers claiming that he was over a hundred years old at the time of his death. Philosophy and science states that the relation between Democritus and his predecessor Leucippus is not clear; while earlier ancient sources such as Aristotle and Theophrastus credit Leucippus with the invention of atomism and credit its doctrines to both philosophers, later sources only credit Democritus, making defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and ear ... Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comedy, comic playwright or comedy-writer of Classical Athens, ancient Athens and a poet of Ancient Greek comedy, Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Ancient Greek comedy, Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His pow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Frogs
''The Frogs'' ( grc-gre, Βάτραχοι, Bátrakhoi, Frogs; la, Ranae, often abbreviated ''Ran.'' or ''Ra.'') is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in Athens, in 405 BC and received first place. Plot ''The Frogs'' tells the story of the god Dionysus, who, despairing of the state of Athens' tragedians, travels to Hades (the underworld) to bring the playwright Euripides back from the dead. (Euripides had died the year before, in 406 BC.) He brings along his slave Xanthias, who is smarter and braver than Dionysus. As the play opens, Xanthias and Dionysus argue over what kind of jokes Xanthias can use to open the play. For the first half of the play, Dionysus routinely makes critical errors, forcing Xanthias to improvise in order to protect his master and prevent Dionysus from looking incompetent—but this only allows Dionysus to continue to make mistakes with no consequence. To find ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Compositions By Charles-Valentin Alkan
The following is a list of all the musical compositions of Charles-Valentin Alkan in order of opus number. Transcriptions are excluded from this list. All dates are publication dates except for unpublished works: With opus numbers * Op. 1, Variations on a theme from Steibelt's ''Orage'' concerto in E major (1828) * Op. 2, ''Les omnibus'', variations in C major (1829) * Op. 3, Rondoletto ''Il était un p'tit homme'' in A major (1833) * Op. 4, ''Rondo brillant'' in A major (1833) * Op. 5, '' Largo al factotum, air du ''Barbier de Séville'' arrangé en rondo brillant'' (1833, lost) * Op. 8 '' See ''12 morceaux caractéristiques'' in 'Without opus numbers' below.'' * Op. 10, Two ''Concerti da camera'' (1832–1837?) *: No. 1 ''Concerto da Camera'' in A minor (1832) *:: ''Allegro moderato'' in A minor; ''Adagio'' in E major; ''Rondo: Allegro'' in A major *: No. 2 ''Concerto da Camera'' in C minor (1834) *:: ''Allegro moderato'' in C minor; ''Adagio'' in A major; ''1re movimento'' in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1861 Compositions
Statistically, this year is considered the end of the whale oil industry and (in replacement) the beginning of the petroleum oil industry. Events January–March * January 1 ** Benito Juárez captures Mexico City. ** The first steam-powered carousel is recorded, in Bolton, England. * January 2 – Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia dies, and is succeeded by Wilhelm I. * January 3 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the Union. * January 9 – American Civil War: Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union. * January 10 – American Civil War: Florida secedes from the Union. * January 11 – American Civil War: Alabama secedes from the Union. * January 12 – American Civil War: Major Robert Anderson sends dispatches to Washington. * January 19 – American Civil War: Georgia secedes from the Union. * January 21 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate. * January 26 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
