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Micropolyphony
Micropolyphony is a kind of polyphonic musical texture developed by György Ligeti which consists of many lines of dense canons moving at different tempos or rhythms, thus resulting in tone clusters vertically. According to David Cope, "micropolyphony resembles cluster chords, but differs in its use of moving rather than static lines"; it is "a simultaneity of different lines, rhythms, and timbres". Differences between micropolyphonic texture and conventional polyphonic texture can be explained by Ligeti's own description: The earliest example of micropolyphony in Ligeti's work occurs in the second movement (mm 25–37) of his orchestral composition ''Apparitions''. He used the technique in a number of his other works, including '' Atmosphères'' for orchestra; the first movement of his '' Requiem'' for soprano, mezzo-soprano, mixed choir, and orchestra; the unaccompanied choral work ''Lux aeterna''; and ''Lontano'' for orchestra. Micropolyphony is easier with larger ensembl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" and "one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures of his time". Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in the Hungarian People's Republic before emigrating to Austria in 1956. He became an Austrian citizen in 1968. In 1973 he became professor of composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater, where he worked until retiring in 1989. He died in Vienna in 2006. Restricted in his musical style by the authorities of Communist Hungary, only when he reached the West in 1956 could Ligeti fully realise his passion for avant-garde music and develop new compositional techniques. After experimenting with electronic music in Cologne, Germany, his breakthrough came with orchestral works such as '' Atmosphères' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atmosphères
''Atmosphères'' is a piece for orchestra, composed by György Ligeti in 1961. It is noted for eschewing conventional melody and metre in favor of dense sound textures. After ''Apparitions'', it was the second piece Ligeti wrote to exploit what he called a " micropolyphonic" texture. It gained further exposure after being used in Stanley Kubrick's film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. History ''Atmosphères'' was commissioned in 1961 by the Southwest German Radio (SWF) and had its world premiere on 22 October 1961 by Hans Rosbaud conducting the SWF Symphony Orchestra at the Donaueschingen Festival. Ligeti dedicated the piece to the memory of Mátyás Seiber, a fellow Hungarian-born composer who had been killed in a car crash the previous year. The SWF recorded this performance for broadcast, and this recording has been released commercially on CD several times. Paul Griffiths writes that this performance made Ligeti a "talking point". Ligeti says that after this and his earlier pie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Requiem (Ligeti)
The Requiem by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti is a large-scale choral and orchestral composition, composed between 1963 and 1965. The work lasts for just under half an hour, and is in four movements: ''Introitus'', a gradual unbroken plane of sound; ''Kyrie'', a complex polyphonic movement reaching a fortissimo climax; '' Dies Irae'', which uses vocal and orchestral extremes in theatrical gestures; and the closing ''Lacrimosa'', for soloists and orchestra only, which returns to the subdued atmosphere of the opening. Composition Ligeti was commissioned to write a work in 1961 for a series of new-music concerts on Swedish Radio. It was he who suggested a Requiem, and had initially intended to set the full text of the Requiem mass. However, he ultimately decided on setting the composition around half of the original text. Ligeti spent nine months working on the six-minute ''Kyrie'' section alone, which featured the most complex polyphony he had ever attempted, featuring twent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Texture
In music, texture is how the tempo, melodic, and harmonic materials are combined in a musical composition, determining the overall quality of the sound in a piece. The texture is often described in regard to the density, or thickness, and range, or width, between lowest and highest pitches, in relative terms as well as more specifically distinguished according to the number of voices, or parts, and the relationship between these voices (see Common types below). For example, a thick texture contains many 'layers' of instruments. One of these layers could be a string section or another brass. The thickness also is changed by the amount and the richness of the instruments playing the piece. The thickness varies from light to thick. A piece's texture may be changed by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments or voices playing these parts and the harmony, tempo, and rhythms used. The types categorized by number and relationship of parts are an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perspectives Of New Music
''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was first published by the Princeton University Press, initially supported by the Fromm Music Foundation.David Carson Berry, "''Journal of Music Theory'' under Allen Forte's Editorship," ''Journal of Music Theory'' 50/1 (2006), 21, n49. The first issue was favorably reviewed in the ''Journal of Music Theory'', which observed that Berger and Boretz had produced "a first issue which sustains such a high quality of interest and cogency among its articles that one suspects the long delay preceding the yet-unborn Spring 1963 issue may reflect a scarcity of material up to their standard". However, as the journal's editorial "perspective" coalesced, Fromm became—in the words of David Gable—disenchanted with the "exclusive viewpoint hatcame to dominat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Tyrrell (musicologist)
John Tyrrell (17 August 1942 – 4 October 2018) was a British musicologist. He published several books on Leoš Janáček, including an authoritative and largely definitive two-volume biography. Early life Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), he studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. He pursued his Bachelor of Music at the University of Cape Town following which he moved to Oxford University to pursue a doctoral degree under the supervision of Edmund Rubbra Career Tyrrell started his career working in an editorial capacity at The Musical Times. He was a Lecturer in Music at the University of Nottingham (1976), becoming Reader in Opera Studies (1987) and Professor (1996). From 1996 to 2000 he was Executive Editor of the second edition of ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (2001). From 2000-08, he was Research Professor at Cardiff University. He received numerous awards and honours throughout his ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was published as the first edition of ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Along with Thurston Dart, Nigel Fortune and Oliver Neighbour he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation. Career Born in Wembley, Sadie was educated at St Paul's School, London, and studied music privately for three years with Bernard Stevens. At Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge he read music under Thurston Dart. Sadie earned Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees in 1953, a Master of Arts degree in 1957, and a PhD in 1958. His doctoral dissertation was on mid-eighteenth-century British chamber music. After Cambridge, he taught at Trinity College of Music, London (1957–1965). Sadie then turned t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music. Earlier editions were published under the titles ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', and ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''; the work has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called ''Grove Music Online'', which is now an important part of ''Oxford Music Online''. ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' was first published in London by Macmillan and Co. in four volumes (1879, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by George Grove with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland in the fourth volume. An Index edited by Mrs. E. Wodehouse was issued as a separate volume in 1890. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Griffiths (writer)
Paul Anthony Griffiths (born 1947) is a British music critic, novelist and librettist. He is particularly noted for his writings on modern classical music and for having written the libretti for two 20th century operas, Tan Dun's ''Marco Polo'' and Elliott Carter's '' What Next?''. Career Paul Griffiths was born on 24 November 1947 in the Welsh town of Bridgend to Fred and Jeanne Griffiths. He received his BA and MSc in biochemistry from University of Oxford, and from 1971 worked as a freelance music critic. He joined the editorial staff of ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' in 1973 and in 1982 became the chief music critic for ''The Times'', a post which he held for ten years. From 1992 to 1996, he was a music critic for ''The New Yorker'', and from 1997 to 2005, for ''The New York Times''. A collection of his musical criticism for these and other periodicals was published in 2005 as ''The substance of things heard: writings about music'', Volume 31 of ''Ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Analysis (journal)
''Music Analysis'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It is based in England and published its first issue in 1982. Although the journal "is not produced on behalf of a society, it is closely associated with the Society for Music Analysis." Its website describes ''Music Analysis'' as an "international forum for the presentation of new writing focused on musical works and repertoires." It "is eclectic in its coverage of music from medieval to post-modern times, and has regular articles on non-western music. Its lively tone and focus on specific works makes it of interest to the general reader as well as the specialist." The journal has also featured translations of articles by Theodor W. Adorno and Heinrich Schenker. The journal's first editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-rankin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pygmy Music
Pygmy music refers to the sub-Saharan African music traditions of the Central African foragers (or "Pygmies"), predominantly in the Congo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon. Pygmy groups include the Bayaka, the Mbuti, and the Batwa. Music is an important part of Pygmy life, and casual performances take place during many of the day's events. Music comes in many forms, including the spiritual likanos stories, vocable singing and music played from a variety of instruments including the bow harp (''ieta''), '' ngombi'' (harp zither) and '' limbindi'' (a string bow). Researchers who have studied Pygmy music include Simha Arom, Louis Sarno, Colin Turnbull and Jean-Pierre Hallet. Polyphonic song The Mbenga ( Aka/Benzele) and Baka peoples in the west and the Mbuti (Efé) in the east are particularly known for their dense contrapuntal communal improvisation. Simha Arom says that the level of polyphonic complexity of Mbenga–Mbuti music was reached in Europe only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." To do so, his music employs the technique of phase shifting, in which a phrase is slightly altered over time, in a flow that is clearly perceptible to the listener. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, as on the early compositions '' It's Gonna Rain'' (1965) and '' Come Out'' (1966), and the use of simple, audible processes, as on ''Pendulum Music'' (1968) and ''Four Organs'' (1970). The 1978 recording ''Music for 18 Musicians'' would help entrench minimalism as a movement. Reich's work to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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