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Masques (Szymanowski)
The Masques op. 34 is a work for piano written by Karol Szymanowski from 1915 to 1916. In 1914, the composer took refuge in his home village in Ukraine and remained there until the Russian Revolution. He had returned from a long stay in Europe, Sicily and North Africa, where he drew his inspiration for these years' works. Here his style approached the Impressionism of Debussy and inaugurated a series of program music, a literary source, with his '' Myths for violin and piano'', contemporaries of his '' Métopes'' for piano and his ''Masques''. The three pieces that compose the work offer access to three major myths of the Western imagination, whereas his ''Metopes'' focused on Homer. The ''Masques'' were written in a different chronological order than that of their publication, with ''Scheherazade'' initially completing the cycle. ''Tantris'' is a corruption of ''Tristan'', taken from the myth of Tristan and Iseult and retold in a piece by Ernst Hardt Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Har ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski (; 6 October 188229 March 1937) was a Polish composer and pianist. He was a member of the modernist Young Poland movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century. Szymanowski's early works show the influence of the late Romantic German school as well as the early works of Alexander Scriabin, as exemplified by his Étude Op. 4 No. 3 and his first two symphonies. Later, he developed an impressionistic and partially atonal style, represented by such works as the Third Symphony and his Violin Concerto No. 1. His third period was influenced by the folk music of the Polish Górale people, including the ballet ''Harnasie'', the Fourth Symphony, and his sets of Mazurkas for piano. ''King Roger,'' composed between 1918 and 1924, remains Szymanowski's most popular opera. His other significant works include ''Hagith'', Symphony No. 2, ''The Love Songs of Hafiz'', and '' Stabat Mater''. Szymanowski was awarded the highest national honors, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invasion, it was the eighth-most populous country in Europe, with a population of around 41 million people. It is also bordered by Belarus to the north; by Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; and by Romania and Moldova to the southwest; with a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city. Ukraine's state language is Ukrainian; Russian is also widely spoken, especially in the east and south. During the Middle Ages, Ukraine was the site of early Slavic expansion and the area later became a key centre of East Slavic culture under the state of Kievan Rus', which emerged in the 9th century. The state eventually disintegrated into rival regional po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience. Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The Impressionists faced harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France. The name of the style derives from the title of a Claude Monet work, ''Impression, soleil levant'' (''Impression, Sunrise''), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term in a Satire, satirical review published in the Parisian newspaper ''Le Charivari''. The development of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, '' Pelléas et Mélisande''. Debussy's orchestral works include ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' (1894), ''Nocturnes'' (1897–1899) and ''Images'' (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Program Music
Program music or programatic music is a type of instrumental art music that attempts to musically render an extramusical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience through the piece's title, or in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music. A well-known example is Sergei Prokofiev's ''Peter and the Wolf''. The genre culminates in the symphonic works of Richard Strauss that include narrations of the adventures of Don Quixote, ''Till Eulenspiegel'', the composer's domestic life, and an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy of the Übermensch. Following Strauss, the genre declined and new works with explicitly narrative content are rare. Nevertheless the genre continues to exert an influence on film music, especially where this draws upon the techniques of 19th-century late romantic music. Similar compositional forms also exist within popular music, including the concept album and rock opera. The term is almost exclusive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myths (Szymanowski)
The Myths Op. 30 is a work for violin and piano written by Karol Szymanowski in 1915 and premiered one year later by Paweł Kochański on violin and the composer on piano. It is dedicated to Kochański's wife, Zofia Kochańska. Similarly to the '' Métopes'' composed around the same time, the ''Myths'' consists of three programmatic miniature tone poems drawing on Greek mythology. The piece was heavily inspired by the composer's earlier travels in Sicily and North Africa and by impressionist music. The work is considered an important milestone in 20th-century violin writing and was heavily admired by Szymanowski's contemporaries, such as Béla Bartók and Sergei Prokofiev. It features heavy use of advanced violin techniques, and the third movement famously contains quarter tones. Performance usually lasts about twenty minutes. Structure The piece has three movements, each depicting a scene from Greek mythology: *''La fontaine d'Arethuse'' ( The Fountain of Arethusa) *''Narci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Métopes
''Métopes'', Op. 29, is a work for piano solo by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, completed in 1915. It is a cycle of three miniature tone poems drawing on Greek mythology. Each of the three movements features a female character encountered by Odysseus on his homeward voyage. The movements are: * "The Isle of the Sirens" * "Calypso" * "Nausicaa" The work may have been inspired by the metopes of the temple at Selinunte. The composition is the first of four piano works composed by Szymanowski during the First World War, an intensely productive period for the composer. In style it resembles impressionism and bitonal works by Ravel and Debussy. References * Didier van Moere, CD booklet insert: Szymanowki Sonata no 3, Masques, Métopes, performed by Piotr Anderszewski Piotr Anderszewski () (born 1969) is a Polish pianist and composer. Biographical background Anderszewski was born in Warsaw, Poland. His father's family was part of Poland's aristocracy while his mothe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history. Homer's ''Iliad'' centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The ''Odyssey'' chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, Homer was simply the one who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristan And Iseult
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult. It depicts Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them. The story has had a lasting impact on Western culture. Its different versions exist in many European texts in various languages from the Middle Ages. The earliest instances take two primary forms: the courtly and common branches. The former begins with the 12th-century poems of Thomas of Britain and Béroul, while the latter reflects a now-lost original version. A subsequent version emerged in the 13th century in the wake of the greatly expanded Prose ''Tris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Hardt
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Hardt (9 May 1876 – 3 January 1947), born Ernst Stöckhardt, was a German playwright, poet, and novelist. Hardt was born in Graudenz, West Prussia (now Grudziądz, Poland). He is the author of ''Priester des Todes'' (1898), ''Bunt ist das Leben'' (1902), ''An den Toren des Lebens'' (1904), and the plays ''Der Kampf ums Rosenrote'' (1903), ''Ninon von Lenclos'' (1905), ''Tantris der Narr'' (1907), ''Gudrun'' (1911), and ''Konig Salomo'' (1915). He was director of the National Theater in Weimar (1919–24), the Schauspiel Köln in Cologne (1925), and the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting Co). (1926–1933). He worked with Bertolt Brecht on some experimental radio broadcasts. He was removed from his position with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk by the Nazis in 1933. A few months later he was imprisoned for a short period and then took refuge in the Sankt Anna Hospital in Cologne-Lindenthal. He was later acquitted in the "broadcast trial" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schéhérazade
Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''. Name According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' derives from the Middle Persian name , which is composed of the words ('lineage') and ('noble, exalted'). The earliest forms of Scheherazade's name in Arabic sources include (, ) in Masudi, and in Ibn al-Nadim. The name appears as in the '' Encyclopaedia of Islam'' and as in ''Encyclopædia Iranica''. Among standard 19th-century printed editions, the name appears as () in Macnaghten's Calcutta edition (1839–1842) and in the 1862 Bulaq edition, and as () in the Breslau edition (1825–1843). Muhsin Mahdi's critical edition has (). The spelling ''Scheherazade'' first appeared in English-language texts in 1801, borrowed from German usage. Narration The story goes that the monarch Shahryar, on discovering that his first wife wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Homer_and_his_Guide_(1874).jpg "Click for more on -> Homer")
