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Johan Van Der Meer (conductor)
Johan van der Meer (26 November 1913 – 24 April 2011) was a Dutch choral conductor and pioneer in the field of historically informed performance. He founded the Groningse Bachvereniging. Career Van der Meer was born in Noordhorn. In 1945, he founded the semi-professional choir Groningse Bachvereniging and conducted the group until 1984. During the first 25 years they performed music from Renaissance to contemporary, but concentrated on the Baroque era in the early 1970s. Van der Meer introduced Nikolaus Harnoncourt in the Netherlands in 1970. The regular orchestra, the Noordelijk Filharmonisch Orkest, was not available for a performance of Bach's ''Magnificat'', instead van der Meer could work with Harnoncourt's Concentus Musicus Wien. Van der Meer focused on period instruments, all male voices for the soloists, musical rhetoric and dramatic declamation. In 1973 he conducted the Groningse Bachvereniging in the first historically informed performance in the Netherlands of Bach's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noordhorn
Noordhorn (Gronings: ''Noordhörn'') is a village in the Dutch province of Groningen. It is part of the municipality of Westerkwartier and is separated from Zuidhorn by the . History Noordhorn is located on a sandy ridge. The settlement on the north side became known as Noordhorn and the southern village Zuidhorn. It was first mentioned in 1375 as Ecberte van Northorne. The church has 13th century elements, and was founded by the Aduard Abbey. The village was not part of a ''heerlijkheid'' or ruled by a lord. In 1498, Nittert Fox, a Saxon knight, demanded a ransom of ƒ32,000 from the city of Groningen. The amount was not paid, and Fox burnt the villages of Noord- and Zuidhorn which resulted in Groningen giving into the demands. During the Dutch Revolt, the city of Groningen sided with Spain. Most of the Ommelanden (country side) and the province of Friesland opted for the Dutch Republic, and an army advanced on the city. On 30 September 1581, the Battle of Noordhorn was foug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ton Koopman
Antonius Gerhardus Michael Koopman (; born 2 October 1944), known professionally as Ton Koopman, is a Dutch conductor, organist, harpsichordist, and musicologist, primarily known for being the founder and director of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir. He is a professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the University of Leiden. In April 2003 he was knighted in the Netherlands, and received the Order of the Netherlands Lion. Biography Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ (with Simon C. Jansen), harpsichord (with Gustav Leonhardt), and musicology at the Amsterdam conservatory. He specialized in Baroque music and received the Prix d'Excellence for both organ and harpsichord. In the organ, he never learned how to play with heels and toes, and because of his short height, always plays with his toes on the pedalboard. This is an authentic Baroque practice. Koopman founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 1979 and the Amsterdam Baroque Cho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1913 Births
Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the war. * January 13 – Edward Carson founds the (first) Ulster Volunteer Force, by unifying several existing loyalist militias to resist home rule for Ireland. * January 23 – 1913 Ottoman coup d'état: Ismail Enver comes to power. * January – Stalin (whose first article using this name is published this month) travels to Vienna to carry out research. Until he leaves on February 16 the city is home simultaneously to him, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito alongside Berg, Freud and Jung and Ludwig and Paul Wittgenstein. February * February 1 – New York City's Grand Central Terminal, having been rebuilt, reopens as the world's largest railroad station. * February 3 – The 16th Amendment to the United S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are still spoken, albeit in declining numbers. Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, , Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, the state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other its seaport, Bremerhaven (which is a semi-enclave, as it has a coastline). Lower Saxony thus borders more neighbours than any other single '. The state's largest cities are state capital Hanover, Braunschweig (Brunswick), Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, Hildesheim, Salzgitt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle (Saale), Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and Handel's Naturalisation Act 1727, became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphony, polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ( ; April or May, 1562 – 16 October 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ tradition. Life Sweelinck was born in Deventer, Netherlands, in April or May 1562. He was the eldest son of organist Peter (or Pieter) Swybbertszoon and Elske Jansdochter Sweeling, daughter of a surgeon. Soon after Sweelinck's birth, the family moved to Amsterdam, where from about 1564, Pieter Swybbertszoon served as organist of the Oude Kerk (Sweelinck's paternal grandfather and uncle also were organists).Sadie, Stanley. 1980.Sweelinck [Swelinck, Zwelinck, Sweeling, Sweelingh, Sweling, Swelingh], Jan Pieterszoon ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Vol.8. Macmillan Publishers Limited, London. Pg. 406–407 Jan Pieterszoon must have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josquin Desprez
Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of his predecessors Guillaume Du Fay and Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of expressive—and often imitative—movement between independent voices (polyphony) which informs much of his work. He further emphasized the relationship between text and music, and departed from the early Renaissance tendency towards lengthy melismatic lines on a single syllable, preferring to use shorter, repeated motifs between voices. Josquin was a singer, and his compositions are mainly vocal. They include masses, motets and secular chansons. Josquin's biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship, and remains highly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the Early Baroque. Most of his surviving music was written for the Lutheran church, primarily for the Electoral Chapel in Dresden. He wrote what is traditionally considered the first German opera, ''Dafne'', performed at Torgau in 1627, the music of which has since been lost, along with nearly all of his ceremonial and theatrical scores. Schütz was a prolific composer, with more than 500 surviving works. He is commemorated as a musician in the Calendar of Saints of some North American Lutheran churches on 28 July with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Early life Schütz was born in Köstritz, the eldest son of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St John Passion
The ''Passio secundum Joannem'' or ''St John Passion'' (german: Johannes-Passion, link=no), BWV 245, is a Passion or oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, the older of the surviving Passions by Bach. It was written during his first year as director of church music in Leipzig and was first performed on April 7, 1724, at Good Friday Vespers at the St. Nicholas Church. The structure of the work falls in two halves, intended to flank a sermon. The anonymous libretto draws on existing works (notably by Barthold Heinrich Brockes) and is compiled from recitatives and choruses narrating the Passion of Christ as told in the Gospel of John, ariosos and arias reflecting on the action, and chorales using hymn tunes and texts familiar to a congregation of Bach's contemporaries. Compared with the ''St Matthew Passion'', the ''St John Passion'' has been described as more extravagant, with an expressive immediacy, at times more unbridled and less "finished". The work is most often heard toda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken (; born 16 February 1944) is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on period and original instruments. Biography Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble of Brussels between 1964 and 1972 and formed La Petite Bande in 1972. Since 1971 he has taught Baroque violin at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. He is noted for using the older technique of resting the violin on the shoulder without a shoulder rest, rather than held under the chin. He is a member of the Kuijken String Quartet, which he formed in 1986. In recent years, he has also performed as conductor of symphonies of the Romantic era. His brothers are also known for historically informed performance: Barthold Kuijken is a flutist and recorder player and Wieland Kuijken, also a member of the Kuijken Quartet, is a cellist and gambist. They all have worked extensively with harpsichordist Gustav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Petite Bande
La Petite Bande is a Belgium-based ensemble specialising in music of the Baroque and Classical eras played on period instruments. They are particularly known for their recordings of works by Corelli, Rameau, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Mozart. History The ensemble was brought together in 1972 by Sigiswald Kuijken, originally for the one-off purpose of recording Lully's comédie-ballet, ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'', conducted by Gustav Leonhardt for the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi label. The ensemble was given its name from Lully's '' Petite Bande des Violons du Roi'', an orchestra of 21 string players at the court of Louis XIV. The nucleus of the original group was the Leonhardt Consort along with Sigiswald Kuijken and his brothers Wieland and Barthold. Following the recording, the group continued to give concerts throughout Europe and became a permanent ensemble based in Leuven with Kuijken as director. Their initial repertoire concentrated on French Baroque music, but soon bra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holland Festival
The Holland Festival () is the oldest and largest performing arts festival in the Netherlands. It takes place every June in Amsterdam. It comprises theatre, music, opera and modern dance. In recent years, multimedia, visual arts, film and architecture were added to the festival roster. Performances take place in Amsterdam venues such as the city theatre, the opera, the Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw concert halls and the Westergas factory site. Each edition is loosely themed, and the programme features both contemporary work and classical pieces presented with a modern edge. History The festival was founded in 1947 and features some of the world's top artists and performers, as well as lesser-known performers. Notable world premieres included Karlheinz Stockhausen's ''Helicopter String Quartet''. The festival introduced Maria Callas in the Netherlands, and was also the first to successfully set up a large symphonic tribute to Frank Zappa with "200 motels-the suite" in 2000 (af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
