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Mephisto Waltzes
The ''Mephisto Waltzes'' (german: Mephisto-Walzer, link=no) are four waltzes composed by Franz Liszt from 1859 to 1862, from 1880 to 1881, and in 1883 and 1885. Nos. 1 and 2 were composed for orchestra, and later arranged for piano, piano duet and two pianos, whereas nos. 3 and 4 were written for piano only. Of the four, the first is the most popular and has been frequently performed in concert and recorded. Associated with the ''Mephisto Waltzes'' is the Mephisto Polka, which follows the same program as the other ''Mephisto'' works. The Waltzes No. 1, S.514 The most popular of the series and, along with the third ''Waltz'', most praised musically, the ''Der Tanz in der Dorfschenke: Erster Mephisto-Walzer'' ("The Dance in the Village Inn: First Mephisto-Waltz"), or the First Mephisto Waltz, is the second of two short works he wrote for orchestra under the title ''Zwei Episoden aus Lenaus Faust''. While the work preceding it, ''Midnight Procession'' (''Der nächtliche Zug''), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the waltz that date from 16th-century Europe, including the representations of the printmaker Hans Sebald Beham. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless ''Weller'' or ''Spinner''."Nettl, Paul. "Birth of the Waltz." In ''Dance Index'' vol 5, no. 9. 1946 New York: Dance Index-Ballet Caravan, Inc. pages 208, 211 "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, uses his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the bar, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing." Around 1750, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin "Fritz" Reiner (December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to prominence as a conductor with several orchestras. He reached the pinnacle of his career while music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and early 1960s. Life and career Reiner was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary into a secular Jewish family that resided in the Pest area of the city. After preliminary studies in law at his father's urging, Reiner instead decided to pursue the study of piano, piano pedagogy, and composition at the Franz Liszt Academy. During his last two years there, his piano teacher was the young Béla Bartók. After early engagements at opera houses in Budapest and Dresden (June 1914 to November 1921), where he worked closely with Richard Strauss, he moved to the United States in 1922 to take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
F (musical Note)
F is a musical note, the fourth above C or fifth below C. It is the fourth note and the sixth semitone of the solfège. It is also known as fa in fixed-do solfège. It has enharmonic equivalents of E (E-sharp) and G (G-double flat), amongst others. When calculated in equal temperament with a reference of A above middle C as 440 Hz, the frequency of Middle F (F4) is approximately 349.228 Hz. See pitch (music) for a discussion of historical variations in frequency. Designation by octave Scales Common scales beginning on F * F major: F G A B C D E F * F natural minor: F G A B C D E F * F harmonic minor: F G A B C D E F * F melodic minor ascending: F G A B C D E F * F melodic minor descending: F E D C B A G F Diatonic scales * F Ionian: F G A B C D E F * F Dorian: F G A B C D E F * F Phrygian: F G A B C D E F * F Lydian: F G A B C D E F * F Mixolydian: F G A B C D E F * F Aeolian: F G A B C D E F * F Locrian: F G A B C D E F Jazz melodic minor * F ascending melod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B (musical Note)
B, also known as Si, Ti, or, in some European countries, H, is the seventh note and the twelfth semitone of the fixed-Do solfège. Its enharmonic equivalents are C (C-flat) and A (A-double sharp). When calculated in equal temperament with a reference of A above middle C as 440 Hz, the frequency of Middle B (B4) is approximately 493.883 Hz. See pitch (music) for a discussion of historical variations in frequency. Designation by octave Scales Common scales beginning on B * B major: B C D E F G A B * B natural minor: B C D E F G A B * B Harmonic minor: B C D E F G A B * B Melodic minor ascending: B C D E F G A B * B melodic minor descending: B A G F E D C B Diatonic scales * B Ionian: B C D E F G A B * B Dorian: B C D E F G A B * B Phrygian: B C D E F G A B * B Lydian: B C D E F G A B * B Mixolydian: B C D E F G A B * B Aeolian: B C D E F G A B * B Locrian: B C D E F G A B Jazz melodic minor * B Ascending melodic minor: B C D E F G A B * B Dorian ♭2: B C D E F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
E-flat Major
E-flat major (or the key of E-flat) is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has three flats. Its relative minor is C minor, and its parallel minor is E minor, (or enharmonically D minor). The E-flat major scale is: : Characteristics The key of E-flat major is often associated with bold, heroic music, in part because of Beethoven's usage. His ''Eroica Symphony'', ''Emperor Concerto'' and ''Grand Sonata'' are all in this key. Beethoven's (hypothetical) 10th Symphony is also in E-flat. But even before Beethoven, Francesco Galeazzi identified E-flat major as "a heroic key, extremely majestic, grave and serious: in all these features it is superior to that of C." Three of Mozart's completed Horn Concertos and Joseph Haydn's Trumpet Concerto are in E-flat major, and so is Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony with its prominent horn theme in the first movement. Another notable heroic piece in the key of E-flat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consonance And Dissonance
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed, "The two concepts have never been completely explained, and for a thousand years the definitions have varied". The term ''sonance'' has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms ''consonance'' and ''dissonance''. De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danse Macabre (Saint-Saëns)
''Danse macabre'', Op. 40, is a tone poem for orchestra, written in 1874 by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. It premiered 24 January 1875. It is in the key of G minor. It started out in 1872 as an art song for voice and piano with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis, based on the play Danza macàbra by Camillo Antona-Traversi. In 1874, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin part. Analysis According to legend, Death appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death calls forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays his fiddle (here represented by a solo violin). His skeletons dance for him until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year. The piece opens with a harp playing a single note, D, twelve times (the twelve strokes of midnight) which is accompanied by soft chords from the string section. The solo violin enters playing the tri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of the devil can be summed up as 1) a principle of evil independent from God, 2) an aspect of God, 3) a created being turning evil (a ''fallen angel''), and 4) a symbol of human evil. Each tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil.Jeffrey Burton Russell, ''The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity'', Cornell University Press 1987 , pp. 41–75 The history of these perspectives intertwines with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art, and literature developing independently within each of the traditions. It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names— Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Iblis—and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord. In Western music, intervals are most commonly differences between notes of a diatonic scale. Intervals between successive notes of a scale are also known as scale steps. The smallest of these intervals is a semitone. Intervals smaller than a semitone are called microtones. They can be formed using the notes of various kinds of non-diatonic scales. Some of the very smallest ones are called commas, and describe small discrepancies, observed in some tuning systems, between enharmonically equivalent notes such as C and D. Intervals can be arbitrarily small, and even imperceptible to the human ear. In physical terms, an interval is the ratio between two sonic f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tritone
In music theory, the tritone is defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones (six semitones). For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three adjacent whole tones F–G, G–A, and A–B. Narrowly defined, each of these whole tones must be a step in the scale, so by this definition, within a diatonic scale there is only one tritone for each octave. For instance, the above-mentioned interval F–B is the only tritone formed from the notes of the C major scale. More broadly, a tritone is also commonly defined as any interval with a width of three whole tones (spanning six semitones in the chromatic scale), regardless of scale degrees. According to this definition, a diatonic scale contains two tritones for each octave. For instance, the above-mentioned C major scale contains the tritones F–B (from F to the B above it, also called augmented fourth) and B–F (from B to the F above ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. Biography Childhood and early years (1881–98) Bartók was born in the Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a Catholic of Bunjevci origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók's father (1855–1888) was also named Béla. Bartók's mother, Paula (née Voit) (1857–1939), also spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmárton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary figures of his time, and he was a sought-after keyboard instructor and a teacher of composition. From an early age, Busoni was an outstanding, if sometimes controversial, pianist. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory and then with Wilhelm Mayer and Carl Reinecke. After brief periods teaching in Helsinki, Boston, and Moscow, he devoted himself to composing, teaching, and touring as a virtuoso pianist in Europe and the United States. His writings on music were influential, and covered not only aesthetics but considerations of microtones and other innovative topics. He was based in Berlin from 1894 but spent much of World War I in Switzerland. He began composing in his early years in a late romantic style, but after 1907, when he publi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
