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Henryk Górecki
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki ( , ; 6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during the post-Stalin cultural thaw. His Anton Webern-influenced serialist works of the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by adherence to dissonant modernism and influenced by Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen,Thomas (1997), 17 Krzysztof Penderecki and Kazimierz Serocki. He continued in this direction throughout the 1960s, but by the mid-1970s had changed to a less complex sacred minimalist sound, exemplified by the transitional Symphony No. 2 and the Symphony No. 3 (''Symphony of Sorrowful Songs''). This later style developed through several other distinct phases, from such works as his 1979 ''Beatus Vir'',Cummings (2000), 241 to the 1981 choral hymn '' Miserere'', the 1993 ''Kleines Requiem f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as a form of atonality, post-tonal thinking. Twelve-tone technique orders the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, forming a tone row, row or series and providing a unifying basis for a composition's melody, harmony, structural progressions, and variation (music), variations. Other types of serialism also work with set (music), sets, collections of objects, but not necessarily with fixed-order series, and extend the technique to other musical dimensions (often called "parameter (music), parameters"), such as duration (music), duration, Dynamics (music), dynamics, and timbre. The idea of serialism is also applied in various ways in the visual arts, design, and architectu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Zinman
David Zinman (born July 9, 1936, in Brooklyn, NY) is an American conductor and violinist. Education After violin studies at Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota, earning his M.A. in 1963. He took up conducting at Tanglewood and from 1958 to 1962 worked in Maine with Pierre Monteux; he served as Monteux's assistant from 1961 to 1964. Career in the Netherlands Zinman held the post of ''tweede dirigent'' (second conductor) of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra from 1965 to 1977 and was principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 1979 to 1982. Career In the United States Zinman served as music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1974 to 1985, during the last two years of which tenure he also was principal guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He became music director in Baltimore in 1985. There he made several recordings for Telarc and Argo and Sony, toured widely, and began t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960) is an American soprano. She is the recipient of several Grammy Awards and has released a number of Edison Award-winning discs; she performs both opera and art song, and her repertoire spans Baroque to contemporary. Many composers, including Henri Dutilleux, Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Adams, and Kaija Saariaho, have written for her. In 2007, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Early life Dawn Upshaw was born in Nashville, Tennessee. She began singing while attending Rich East High School in Park Forest, Illinois and was the only female ever promoted to the top choir (the Singing Rockets) as a sophomore, according to choir director Douglas Ulreich. She received a B.A. in 1982 from Illinois Wesleyan University, where she studied voice with Dr. David Nott. She went on to study voice with Ellen Faull at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, earning her M.M. in 1984. She also attended courses given by Jan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) = 1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word '' sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" '' |
Miserere (Górecki)
, Op. 44 () is a choral work composed in 1981 by Henryk Górecki for large (120 voices) a cappella mixed choir. The text comprises five words: '' (''Lord our God''), which are repeated for the first ten sections, resolved by a chorus of '' (''Have mercy on us'') in the eleventh and final section. Both lines of text are sung as imploring pleas. A typical performance lasts 35 minutes. Górecki composed the work in 1981 in protest to government intervention against the Polish Solidarity trade union - specifically, in response to the government-sanctioned assault of activists in Bydgoszcz. After martial law was enacted in December of that year, performance of the piece became impossible, and the piece was not performed until 1987. The first performance took place on 10 September 1987 in St. Stanisłaus Church Włocławek, and a day later in Bydgoszcz, with conducting the Bydgoszcz Philharmonic Choir. Background Henryk Górecki dedicated his Miserere to the city of Bydgoszcz. Bydgos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beatus Vir (Górecki)
''Beatus Vir'', Op. 38, subtitled ''Psalm for baritone, large mixed chorus and grand orchestra'', is a musical psalm setting written by Henryk Górecki in 1979 . The text is drawn from several psalms ( 143:1,6-10; 31:16; 88:2; 67:7; 34:9), and the title is from the last of these: "Blest is the man that trusteth in Him". The work was premiered on 9 June 1979, in Kraków, Poland, with Baritone Jerzy Mechlinski and the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by the composer. The work was a commission by then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyła (later selected Pope John Paul II) for the commemoration on the 900th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Stanisław. ''Beatus Vir'' was intended as the first work in a larger cycle entitled ''Sancti tui Domine florebunt sicut lilium''. No other works of the cycle were completed, however Górecki stated that the next piece in the cycle would be entitled '' Offertorium''. Górecki spent more time selecting the texts for ''Beatus Vir'' than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphony No
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Etymology and origins The word ''symphony'' is derived from the Greek word (), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Minimalism
Holy minimalism, mystic minimalism, spiritual minimalism, or sacred minimalism are terms, sometimes pejorative, used to describe the musical works of a number of late-twentieth-century composers of Western classical music. The compositions are distinguished by a minimalist compositional aesthetic and a distinctly religious or mystical subject focus. Origins With the growing popularity of minimalist music in the 1960s and 1970s, which often broke sharply with prevailing musical aesthetics of serialism and aleatoric music, many composers, building on the work of such minimalists as Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, began to work with more traditional notions of simple melody and harmony in a radically simplified framework. This transition was seen variously as an aspect of musical post-modernism or as neo-romanticism, that is a return to the lyricism of the nineteenth century. Popularity In the 1970s and continuing in the 1980s and 1990s, several composers, many of whom had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazimierz Serocki
Kazimierz Serocki (3 March 1922 – 9 January 1981) was a Polish composer and one of the founders of the Warsaw Autumn contemporary music festival. Life Serocki was born in Toruń. He studied composition with Kazimierz Sikorski and piano with Stanisław Szpinalski at the State Higher School of Music in Łódź and graduated in 1946. He continued in Paris, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger and piano with Lazare Lévy, before graduating in 1947-1948. Between 1946 and 1951 he performed many times as a concert pianist in Poland and abroad, but for the rest of his career, he was focused exclusively on composition. Serocki's output is concentrated in two main spheres: orchestral music and vocal-instrumental pieces to Polish texts selected with fine discrimination. His main compositional idea was to explore sound color in music. His last work – Pianophonie (1979) – used the possibilities provided by electronic processing of live piano sound. Serocki was one of the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', ''Polish Requiem'', ''Anaklasis'' and ''Utrenja''. Penderecki's ''oeuvre'' includes four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works''.'' Born in Dębica, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from the Academy, he became a teacher there and began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw Autumn festival. His ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'' for string orchestra and the choral work ''St. Luke Passion'' have received popular acclaim. His first opera, ''The Devils of Loudun'', was not immediately successful. In the mid-1970s, Penderecki became a pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, for introducing controlled chance ( aleatory techniques) into serial composition, and for musical spatialization. He was educated at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and the University of Cologne, later studying with Olivier Messiaen in Paris and with Werner Meyer-Eppler at the University of Bonn. One of the leading figures of the Darmstadt School, his compositions and theories were and remain widely influential, not only on composers of art music, but also on jazz and popular music. His works, composed over a period of nearly sixty years, eschew traditional forms. In addition to electronic music—both with and without live performers—they range from miniatures for musical boxes through works for s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
