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Jānis Mediņš
Jānis Mediņš (October 9, 1890 — March 4, 1966) was a Latvian composer. He was born in Riga. He was a vital force in musical life during the short-lived first independent Latvian republic (1918—40). He almost singlehandly established in his country both the balletic genre – with ''Mīlas uzvara'' (‘Love's Victory’, 1934) – and the operatic with ''Uguns un nakts'' (‘Fire and Night’, 1913—19) and ''Dievi un cilvēki'' (‘Gods and People’, 1921). It was as a result of multiple invasions of his country that Mediņš left Latvia in 1944, eventually settling for good in Sweden. Life Jānis Mediņš's memoir ''Toņi un pustoņi'' (‘Tones and Semitones’, published in Stockholm in 1964), provides posterity with many details of his early years. As an old man – it was written between autumn 1962 and spring 1963 in collaboration with Jānis Rudzītis – he characterised his life as ‘rich in experience, though difficult ... having lived through Tsarist eras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Baltic Sea. Riga's territory covers and lies above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201 and is a former Hanseatic League member. Riga's historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture in 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden. Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, the 2006 IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championships, 2013 World Women's Curling Championship and the 2021 IIHF World Championship. It is home to the European Union's office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). In 2017, it was named the European Region of Gastronomy. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part (in contrast to orchestral music, in which each string part is played by a number of performers). However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances. Because of its intimate nature, chamber music has been described as "the music of friends". For more than 100 years, chamber music was played primarily by amateur musicians in their homes, and even today, when chamber music performance has migrated from the home to the concert hall, many musicians, amateur and professional, still play chamber music for their own pleasure. Playing chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required for playing solo or symphonic works. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets ''Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the ''1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arensky
Anton Stepanovich Arensky (russian: Анто́н Степа́нович Аре́нский; – ) was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music. Biography Arensky was born into an affluent, music-loving family in Novgorod, Russia. He was musically precocious and had composed a number of songs and piano pieces by the age of nine. With his mother and father, he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1879, after which he studied composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1882, Arensky became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his students there were Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Alexander Gretchaninov. In 1895, Arensky returned to Saint Petersburg as the director of the Imperial Choir, a post for which he had been recommended by Mily Balakirev. He retired from this position in 1901, living off a comfortable pension and spending hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he made a point of using his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at the age of four. He studied with Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1892, having already composed several piano and orchestral pieces. In 1897, following the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haapsalu
Haapsalu () is a seaside resort town located on the west coast of Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Lääne County, and on 1 January 2020 it had a population of 9,375. Description Haapsalu has been well known for centuries for its warm seawater, curative mud and peaceful atmosphere. Salt mud spas frequented by the Russian Romanov family still operate. Narrow streets with early 20th century wooden houses lead to the sea. Haapsalu has been called the "Venice of the Baltics", although this claim has been criticized as an exaggeration. The name "Haapsalu" is from Estonian ''haab'' 'aspen' and ''salu'' 'grove.' In Swedish and German, the town is called ''Hapsal'', and in Russian it is Га́псаль (''Gapsal''). History The town dates back to 1279, when it was chartered and became the centre of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, which it remained for the next 300 years. Buildings from those early days remain today, including an episcopal castle which has the largest singl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aspazija
Aspazija was the pen name of Elza Johanna Emilija Lizete Pliekšāne (née Elza Rozenberga; 16 March 1865 – 5 November 1943), a Latvian poet and playwright. Aspazija is the Latvian transliteration of Aspasia. Biography Aspazija was born and raised in a wealthy peasant family near Jelgava in 1865, where she studied and was active in youth organizations. She left gymnasium during the last year of studies, and in 1886 married Wilhelm Max Valter. Later she became interested in literature, mainly by German authors. Her first publication appeared in 1887 in the newspaper ''Dienas Lapa''. In 1891, she divorced her husband and until 1893 worked as a private teacher in Jaunsvirlauka. In 1893, she settled in Riga and started to work as a journalist. In 1894 her first plays ''Vaidelote'' and ''Zaudētās tiesības'' were staged in Riga. In those years she met Jānis Pliekšāns (better known as Rainis), a newspaper editor, poet, lawyer, and a leader of the New Current (Jaunā str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jāzeps Vītols
Jāzeps Vītols (german: Joseph Wihtol; 26 July 1863 – 24 April 1948) was a Latvian composer, pedagogue and music critic. He is considered one of the fathers of Latvian classical music. Biography Vītols, born in Valmiera the son of a schoolteacher, began his studies in composition in 1880 at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.Naxos profile. After graduating in 1886, he remained at the Conservatory to teach composition and reached the rank of Professor in 1901. His pupils there included Nikolai Myaskovsky and Sergei Prokofiev. Vītols was a close friend of fellow professors Alexander Glazunov and Anatoly Lyadov; he would regularly participate at Mitrofan Belyayev's "Weekly Fridays"—regular meetings of prominent Russian composers at Belyayev's home. At the time, Belyayev was Vītols' primary publisher. Besides academia, Vītols also spent time as a music critic for the ''St Petersburger Zeitung'' from 1897 to 1914. In 1918, Vītols returne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Life For The Tsar
''A Life for the Tsar'' ( rus, "Жизнь за царя", italic=yes, Zhizn za tsarya ) is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. During the Soviet era the opera was known under the name ''Ivan Susanin'' (russian: Иван Сусанин ). The original Russian libretto, based on historical events, was written by Nestor Kukolnik, Egor Fyodorovich (von) Rozen, Vladimir Sollogub and Vasily Zhukovsky. It premiered on 27 November 1836 OS (9 December NS) at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg. The historical basis of the plot involves Ivan Susanin, a patriotic hero of the early 17th century who died in the expulsion of the invading Polish army for the newly elected Tsar Michael of Russia, the first of the Romanov dynasty, elected in 1613.Osborne (2007) p. 143 History Composition history The plot of ''A Life for the Tsar'' had been used earlier in 1815, when Catterino Cavos, an Italian-Russian composer, had written a two-act si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undina (Tchaikovsky)
''Undina'' (sometimes ''Undine'' or ''Ondine'') (russian: Ундина ) is an opera in three acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The work was composed in 1869. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sollogub, and is based on Vasily Zhukovsky's translation of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's '' Ondine''. History The opera was composed during the months of January to July, 1869, but Tchaikovsky destroyed the score in 1873, preserving only a few numbers from the opera. The opera has never been performed in its entirety. The only extracts that survive are: #Introduction #Aria: ''"Waterfall, my uncle, streamlet, my brother"'' (Undina) #Chorus: ''"Help, help! Our stream is raging"'' #Duet: ''"O happiness, O blessed moment"'' (Undina, Huldbrand) #Chorus: ''"O hours of death"'' (soloists, chorus) At least three of these pieces - the aria, the duet, and the final chorus - were performed at the Moscow premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 28 March 1870. Some music from the opera was sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smallholding
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient, but may be valued for the rural lifestyle. As the sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people. Small-scale agriculture is often in tension with industrial agriculture, which finds efficiencies by increasing outputs, monoculture, consolidating land under big agricu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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