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Kreutzer Quartet
The Kreutzer Quartet is a British string quartet. With their selected programs they have given concerts in Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Serbia, Montenegro, Sardinia, the United States, Spain, Cyprus, Poland and Lithuania. A further focus is the critical examination of not only recordings of classical works, but above all of contemporary string quartets by Robert Gerhard, Michael Finnissy, Harrison Birtwistle, Gloria Coates, Michael Tippett and Hafliði Hallgrímsson. There exist recordings on the labels Metier, Naxos, NMC Recordings NMC Recordings is a British recording label and a charity which specialises in recording works by living composers from the British Isles. History The composer Colin Matthews founded NMC in 1989, with financial assistance from the Holst Found ..., Chandos, Guild and New Focus. Members * Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) * Mihailo Trandafilovski and Gordon MacKay (violin) before * Clifton Harrison and zuvor Morgan Goff (alto) * Neil H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String Quartet
The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. The string quartet was developed into its present form by composers such as Franz Xaver Richter, and Joseph Haydn, whose works in the 1750s established the ensemble as a group of four more-or-less equal partners. Since Haydn the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form; writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert each wrote a number of them. Many Romantic and early-twentieth-century composers composed string quartets, including Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, Leoš ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Gerhard
Robert Gerhard i Ottenwaelder (; 25 September 1896 – 5 January 1970) was a Spanish Catalan composer and musical scholar and writer, generally known outside Catalonia as Roberto Gerhard.Malcolm MacDonald. 'Gerhard, Roberto' in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001) Life Gerhard was born in Valls, near Tarragona, Spain, the son of a German-Swiss father and an Alsatian mother. He was predisposed to an international, multilingual outlook. He studied piano with Enrique Granados and composition with scholar-composer Felip Pedrell, teacher of Isaac Albéniz, Granados and Manuel de Falla. When Pedrell died in 1922, Gerhard tried unsuccessfully to become a pupil of Falla and considered studying with Charles Koechlin in Paris but then approached Arnold Schoenberg, who on the strength of a few early compositions accepted him as his only Spanish pupil. Gerhard spent several years with Schoenberg in Vienna and Berlin. Returning to Barcelona in 1928, he devoted his energies to new music through c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Finnissy
Michael Peter Finnissy (born 17 March 1946) is an English composer, pianist, and pedagogue. An immensely prolific composer, his music is "notable for its dramatic urgency and expressive immediacy". Although he rejects the label, he is often regarded as the foremost composer of the New Complexity movement. Biography Early life Michael Finnissy was born at 77 Claverdale Road in Tulse Hill, London at roughly two in the morning on 17 March 1946 to Rita Isolene (''née'' Parsonson) and George Norman Finnissy. His father was employed at the London City Council. When he was four, he received his first piano lessons from his great aunt Rose Louise (Rosie) Hopwood, soon after writing his first compositions, He attended Hawes Down Infant and Junior schools, Bromley Technical High, and Beckenham and Penge Grammar schools and excelled in graphic art, mathematics, and English literature. Student years Finnissy received the William Hurlstone composition prize at the Croydon Music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' The Triumph of Time'' (1972) and the operas '' The Mask of Orpheus'' (1986), ''Gawain'' (1991), and '' The Minotaur'' (2008). The last of these was ranked by music critics at ''The Guardian'' in 2019 as the third-best piece of the 21st-century. Even his compositions that were not written for the stage often showed a theatrical approach. A performance of his saxophone concerto ''Panic'' during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms caused "national notoriety". He received many international awards and honorary degrees. Life and career Early life Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire around 20 miles north of Manchester. His parents, Fred and Madge Birtwistle, ran a bakery, and his interest in music was encouraged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gloria Coates
Gloria Coates (born October 10, 1938, in Wausau, Wisconsin) is an American composer who has lived in Munich since 1969. She studied with Alexander Tcherepnin, Otto Luening, and Jack Beeson. Music Her music features canonic structures and prominent, sometimes exclusive, glissandos, being "characterized by extremely strict, even rigid technical procedures (canonic structures), which are often worked out with unusual musical materials (glissandi)". Her music is Postminimalism#Music, postminimalist, marked by the tension "not only between material and technique (...an attempt to give structure to chaos), but even more so between what would have to be termed 'sober-technical' compositional principles and the genuine direct expressive power and emotionality of the music". As one interview describes: Mark Swed: ''“Coates is a master of microtones, of taking a listener to aural places you never knew could exist and finding the mystical spaces between tones.”'' As is describ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the 20th century. Among his best-known works are the oratorio '' A Child of Our Time'', the orchestral ''Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli'', and the opera ''The Midsummer Marriage''. Tippett's talent developed slowly. He withdrew or destroyed his earliest compositions, and was 30 before any of his works were published. Until the mid-to-late 1950s his music was broadly lyrical in character, before changing to a more astringent and experimental style. New influences, including those of jazz and blues after his first visit to America in 1965, became increasingly evident in his compositions. While Tippett's stature with the public continued to grow, not all critics approved of these changes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hafliði Hallgrímsson
Hafliði Hallgrímsson (born 1941 in Akureyri) is an Icelandic composer, currently living in Bath, England. Hafliði was the principal cellist of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, but left that position in 1983 to pursue a full-time career as a composer. In 2008, he became composer-in-residence of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (through 2010). In 1970, Hafliði played the (uncredited) cello solo on “Atom Heart Mother” by Pink Floyd. Selected compositions * ''Verse I'' for flute and cello (1975) * ''Poemi'' for violin and string orchestra (1983) * ''Eight Pieces'' for wind quintet (1991) * ''Intarsia'' for wind quintet (1992 revision of Eight Pieces for wind quintet) * ''Rima'' for soprano and string orchestra (1994) * ''Herma'' for cello and string orchestra (1995) * ''Crucifixion'' for orchestra (1997) * ''Mini-stories'', music theatre work (1997) * ''Passía'' for mezzo-soprano, tenor, choir and chamber orchestra (2001) * ''Die Wält der Zwischenfälle'', chamber opera (2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naxos (company)
Naxos comprises numerous companies, divisions, imprints, and labels specializing in classical music but also audiobooks and other genres. The premier label is Naxos Records which focuses on classical music. Naxos Musical Group encompasses about 17 labels including Naxos Records, Naxos Audiobooks, and Naxos Books (ebooks). There are about an additional 50 labels that are independent of the Naxos Musical Group with a wide range of offerings. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong. Naxos Records Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. The company was known for its budget pricing of discs, with simpler artwork and design than most other labels. In the 1980s, Naxos primarily recorded central and eastern European symphony orchestras, often with lesser-known conductors, as well as upcoming and unknown musicians, to minimize recording costs and maintain its budget prices. In more recent years, Naxos has taken adva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NMC Recordings
NMC Recordings is a British recording label and a charity which specialises in recording works by living composers from the British Isles. History The composer Colin Matthews founded NMC in 1989, with financial assistance from the Holst Foundation. NMC is an abbreviation for "New Music Cassettes", which refers to the intended main means of packaging its recordings at the time. Matthews continues as a producer of NMC's recordings. NMC was originally administered through the Society for the Promotion of New Music. In 1992, NMC became independent, and Matthews invited Bill Colleran to become NMC's first board chairman. Colleran served in this capacity from 1993 to 2004. Additional financial support for NMC resulted after the 1993 Copyright Duration Directive (93/98/EEC), which extended the copyright term from 50 to 70 years. As a result, the music of Gustav Holst came back into copyright, and NMC obtained increased funding. However, it has fallen out of copyright again, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Sheppard Skærved
Peter Sheppard Skærved (born 1966) Violinist and violist, is the dedicatee of over 150 new works. He has collaborated with Nigel Clarke, David Matthews, Michael Finnissy, Hans Werner Henze, George Rochberg, William Bolcom, Dmitri Smirnov, Jörg Widmann and John Wall. He leads the Kreutzer Quartet, and has cultivated duo-partnerships with pianists including Aaron Shorr, Jan Philip Schulze, Daniel-Ben Pienaar and David Owen Norris, and the fortepianist and harpsichordist Julian Perkins Julian Perkins is a British conductor and keyboard player ( harpsichord, fortepiano and clavichord). Shortlisted for the Gramophone Award in 2021, he is Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in the USA. He lives in London, Englan .... References External links *Peter Sheppard Skærved biography and discography at Naxos.com British violinists British male violinists Living people 1966 births 21st-century violinists 21st-century British male musicians {{violinis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
