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Frank Martin (composer)
Frank Martin (15 September 1890 – 21 November 1974) was a Swiss composer, who spent much of his life in the Netherlands. Childhood and youth Born into a Huguenot family in the Eaux-Vives quarter of Geneva, the youngest of the ten children of a Calvinist pastor named Charles Martin, Frank Martin started to improvise on the piano prior to his formal schooling. At the age of nine he had already written a few songs without external musical instruction. At 12, he attended a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's ''St. Matthew Passion'' and was deeply affected by it. Respecting his parents' wishes, he studied mathematics and physics for two years at Geneva University, but at the same time was also studying piano, composition and harmony with his first music teacher Joseph Lauber (1864–1953), a Geneva composer and by that time a leading figure of the city's musical scene. In the 1920s, Martin worked closely with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze from whom he learned much about rhythm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concerto For Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion, And String Orchestra
Concerto for seven wind instruments, timpani, percussion, and string orchestra (published as ''Concerto pour sept instruments à vent, timbales, batterie et orchestre à cordes'') is a composition by the Swiss composer Frank Martin. Composed in 1949 for the Bern Musikgesellschaft, the first movement, ''Allegro'', opens with the string players only, with the percussion only gradually coming to the forefront. The haunting second movement ''Adagietto'' is marked "mysterious and elegant", and is hallmarked by an ostinato figure on the strings, initially pizzicato before being taken up by the ensemble. Martin himself characterised the slow movement as being: based entirely on a steady two-time beat, which serves as an accompaniment to the melodic elements: sometimes serene, sometimes dark and violent. A lyrical phrase first heard in the bassoon's upper register is repeated by the trombone with a gentle nobility at the conclusion. The conductor Ernest Ansermet remarked that this move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petite Symphonie Concertante
''Petite symphonie concertante'', Op. 54, is an orchestral composition by the Swiss composer Frank Martin, one of his best-known works. Martin received the commission for the work in 1944, though progress was delayed by work on the oratorio ''In Terra Pax''. The ''Petite symphonie concertante'' was completed the following year and received its premiere in Zurich on May 27, 1946, under the direction of Paul Sacher, who is also the work's dedicatee. Sacher's commission prompted Martin to assume the unusual ensemble of harp, harpsichord, piano and string orchestra divided into two groups, though all accounts suggest the final choice of instruments was the composer's own. Using all of the common stringed instruments available, Martin desired to use the harp, harpsichord and piano not as accompanying, or ' basso continuo' instruments (as is often their role) but as solos, thus being a distant echo of J.S. Bach's '' Brandenburg Concerto No. 5'', and justifying the work's title of s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cimetière Des Rois
The Cimetière des Rois (French: ''Cemetery of Kings'') (officially Cimetière de Plainpalais), is a cemetery in Geneva, Switzerland. The cemetery is commonly named after la ''rue des Rois'' (French: ''Kings' Street'') near which it is situated. The graveyard was established in 1482 for people who died from plague in the Middle Ages, during the second plague pandemic. Personalities The right to rest in the cemetery of Plainpalais is strictly limited. Under Article 30 (3) of the City of Geneva Cemeteries Regulations, only "magistrates and distinguished personalities, having contributed by their life and activity to the influence of Geneva", p. 6. can claim a concession whose request must be made to the Administrative Council. In the cemetery are buried John Calvin (the Protestant reformer), Jorge Luis Borges (the Argentine author), Sérgio Vieira de Mello (the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), Ernest Ansermet (renowned Swiss conductor), and Jean Piaget A full-color ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naarden
Naarden () is a city and former municipality in the Gooi region in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It has been part of the new municipality of Gooise Meren since 2016. History Naarden was granted its city rights in 1300 (the only town in the Gooi with these rights) and later developed into a fortified garrison town with a textile industry. Naarden is an example of a star fort, complete with fortified walls and a moat. The moat and walls have been restored on numerous occasions, most notably during the French era (1795-1814). After the Battle of Leipzig (1813), the Netherlands were liberated by an allied force of Dutch, Prussian and Russian armies. During this period, Naarden was besieged for months since the French commander didn't believe that Napoleon was captured. In May 1814, the French soldiers left the city in a retreat with honour (see Siege of Naarden (1813-1814). John Amos Comenius, 17th century Moravian born Czech educator was buried in the city, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of the term changed over time, from the simple single-voice madrigal of the early 17th century, to the multi-voice "cantata da camera" and the "cantata da chiesa" of the later part of that century, from the more substantial dramatic forms of the 18th century to the usually sacred-texted 19th-century cantata, which was effectively a type of short oratorio. Cantatas for use in the liturgy of church services are called church cantata or sacred cantata; other cantatas can be indicated as secular cantatas. Several cantatas were, and still are, written for special occasions, such as Christmas cantatas. Christoph Graupner, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach composed cycles of church cantatas for the occasions of the liturgical year. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is called the tonic. The root of the tonic chord forms the name given to the key, so in the key of C major, the note C is both the tonic of the scale and the root of the tonic chord (which is C–E–G). Simple folk music songs often start and end with the tonic note. The most common use of the term "is to designate the arrangement of musical phenomena around a referential tonic in European music from about 1600 to about 1910". Contemporary classical music from 1910 to the 2000s may practice or avoid any sort of tonality—but harmony in almost all Western popular music remains tonal. Harmony in jazz includes many but not all tonal characteristics of the European common practice period, usually known as "classical music". "All harmonic idi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelve-tone Technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law of the twelve tones" in 1919. In 1923, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) developed his own, better-known version of 12-tone technique, which became associated with the "Second Viennese School" composers, who were the primary users of the technique in the first decades of its existence. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one notePerle 1977, 2. through the use of tone rows, orderings of the 12 pitch classes. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. Over time, the technique increased greatly in popularity and eventually became widely influential on 20th-cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was associated with the expressionism, expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. As a Jewish composer, Schoenberg was targeted by the Nazi Party, which labeled his works as degenerate music and forbade them from being published. He immigrated to the United States in 1933, becoming an American citizen in 1941. Schoenberg's approach, bοth in terms of harmony and development, has shaped much of 20th-century musical thought. Many composers from at least three generations have consciously extended his thinking, whereas others have passionately reacted against it. Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German German Romanticism, Romantic styles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchestre De La Suisse Romande
The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) is a Swiss symphony orchestra, based in Geneva at the Victoria Hall. In addition to symphony concerts, the OSR performs as the opera orchestra in productions at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. History Ernest Ansermet founded the OSR in 1918, together with Paul Lachenal, with a contingent of 48 players and a season of six months' duration. Besides Swiss musicians, the OSR players initially came from other countries, including Austria, France, Germany and Italy. Ansermet gradually increased the percentage of Swiss musicians in the orchestra, attaining 80% Swiss personnel by 1946. He remained the music director of the OSR for 49 years, from 1918 to 1967. A Swiss radio orchestra based in Lausanne was merged into the OSR in 1938. Subsequently, the OSR began to broadcast radio concerts regularly on Swiss radio. The orchestra had a long-standing contract for recordings with Decca Records, dating from the tenure of Ansermet, and made over 300 rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form. In an oratorio, the choir often plays a central role, and there is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes. A particularly important difference is in the typical subject matter of the text. Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder, whereas the plot of an oratorio often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church. Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible, while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
