O Magnum Mysterium (Lauridsen)
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O Magnum Mysterium (Lauridsen)
''O magnum mysterium'' (O great mystery) is a motet for choir a cappella by Morten Lauridsen. He set the text of "O magnum mysterium", a Gregorian chant for Christmas, in 1994. The composition, performed and recorded often, made Lauridsen famous. It was described as expressive ethereal sounds in imperturbable calmness. History The American composer Morten Lauridsen is professor of composition at the USC Thornton School of Music. He wrote his setting of "O magnum mysterium" in 1994, on a commission from the Los Angeles Master Chorale, by Marshall Rutter for his wife Terry Knowles. The composition was first performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on 18 December 1994 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by Paul Salamunovich. It was published in 1995 by Southern Music Publishing. The popular setting was often performed and recorded and became one of Lauridsen's signature pieces. Sandra Dackow wrote an arrangement for strings. Text and music The Latin ...
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Motet
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond.Margaret Bent,The Late-Medieval Motet in ''Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music'', edited by Tess Knighton and David Fallows, 114–19 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1992): 114. . The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts". Etymology In the early 20th century, it was generally believed the name ...
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Nativity Of Jesus
The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Gospel of Luke, Luke and Gospel of Matthew, Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea (Roman province), Judaea, Mary, mother of Jesus, his mother Mary was engaged to a man named Saint Joseph, Joseph, who was Davidic line, descended from King David and was not his biological father, and that his birth was Virgin birth of Jesus, caused by divine intervention. Many modern scholars consider the birth narratives unhistorical because they are laced with theology and present two different accounts which cannot be harmonised into a single coherent narrative. But many others view the discussion of historicity as secondary, given that gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than chronological timelines. The nativity is the basis for the Christianity, Christian holiday of Christmas, and plays a major role in the Chri ...
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John Rutter
John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Biography Born on 24 September 1945 in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutter grew up living over the Globe pub on London's Marylebone Road. He was educated at Highgate School where fellow pupils included John Tavener, Howard Shelley, Brian Chapple and Nicholas Snowman, and as a chorister there took part in the first (1963) recording of Britten's ''War Requiem'' under the composer's baton. He then read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. While still an undergraduate, he had his first compositions published, including the Shepherd's Pipe Carol. He served as director of music at Clare College from 1975 to 1979 and led the choir to international prominence. In 1981, Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings ...
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Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include ''Fratres'' (1977), ''Spiegel im Spiegel'' (1978), and ''Für Alina'' (1976). From 2011 to 2018, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world, and the second most performed in 2019—after John Williams. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018. Early life, family and education Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia, and was raised by his mother and stepfather in Rakvere in northern Estonia. He began to experiment with the top and bottom notes of the family's piano as the middle register was damaged. Pärt's musical education began at the age of seven when he began attending music school in Rakvere. By his early teenage ye ...
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Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is Conductor Laureate, Zubin Mehta is Conductor Emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is Principal Guest Conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current Composer-in-Residence. Music critics have described the orchestra as the most "contemporary minded", "forward thinking", "talked about and innovative", and "venturesome and admired" orchestra in America. According to Salonen, "We are interested in the future. We are not trying to re-create the glories of the past, like so many other symphony orchestras." "Especially since we moved into the new hall", continues Deborah Borda (former CEO), "our intention has been to integrate 21st-century ...
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Still Life With Lemons, Oranges And A Rose
''Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Baroque Spanish people, Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbarán completed in 1633. It is currently displayed at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California as part of its permanent collection. It is the only still life signed and dated by him and is considered a masterwork of the genre. Composition and analysis The painting shows three groups of objects (a saucer of four citrons, a basket of oranges, and a saucer holding both a cup of water and a rose) resting on a table against a dark background. Each group of objects are placed equidistant from one another and form a spatial and geometrical balance due to their pyramidal organization. As described by Andreas Prater: Norman Bryson writes: Many of Zurbaran's works contained Christian themes, and the objects in the painting are often interpreted as having symbolic meaning as alluding to the Holy Trinity or as an homage to the Virgin Mary. Morten ...
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Norton Simon Museum
The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds. Overview The Norton Simon collections include: European paintings, sculptures, and tapestries; Asian sculptures, paintings, and woodblock prints. Outside sculptures surround the museum, with notable Rodin sculptures near its entrance and other sculptures along Colorado Boulevard and in a landscape setting around a large pond. The museum contains the Norton Simon Theater which shows film programs daily, and hosts lectures, symposia, and dance and musical performances year-round. The museum is located on Colorado Boulevard along the route of the Tournament of Roses's Rose Parade, where its distinctive, brown tile exterior can be seen in the background of television broadcasts. History After receiving approximately 400 German Expressionist pieces from collect ...
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SATB
SATB is an initialism that describes the scoring of compositions for choirs, and also choirs (or consorts) of instruments. The initials are for the voice types: S for soprano, A for alto, T for tenor and B for bass. Choral music Four-part harmony using soprano, alto, tenor and bass is a common scoring in classical music, including chorales and most Bach cantatas.Shrock, DennisChoral Repertoire''Oxford University Press'', 2009, p. 298, The letters of the abbreviation are also used by publishers to describe different scorings for soloists and choirs other than four-part harmony. For example, the listing "STB solos, SATB choir", of Bach's ''Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme'', BWV 140, indicates that a performance needs three soloists: soprano, tenor and bass, and a four-part choir. "SATB/SATB" is used when a double choir is required, as in Penderecki's ''Polish Requiem''. or SSATB, with divided sopranos, which is a typical scoring in English church music. A listing for Bach's ''M ...
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Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite '' Trois mouvements perpétuels'' (1919), the ballet ''Les biches'' (1923), the ''Concert champêtre'' (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera ''Dialogues des Carmélites'' (1957), and the '' Gloria'' (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra. As the only son of a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his father into the family firm, and he was not allowed to enrol at a music college. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc also made the acquaintance of Erik Satie, under whose tutelage he became one of a group of young composers known collectively as ''Les Six''. ...
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Tomás Luis De Victoria
Tomás Luis de Victoria (sometimes Italianised as ''da Vittoria''; ) was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus as among the principal composers of the late Renaissance, and was "admired above all for the intensity of some of his motets and of his Offices for the Dead and for Holy Week". His surviving ''oeuvre'', unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. As a Catholic priest, as well as an accomplished organist and singer, his career spanned both Spain and Italy. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer. Life and career Victoria was born in Sanchidrián in the province of Ávila, Castile, around 1548 and died in 1611. Victoria's family can be traced back for generations. Not only are the names of the members in his immediate family known, but even the occupation of his grandfather. Victoria was the sev ...
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O Magnum Mysterium (Palestrina)
''O magnum mysterium'' (1569) is a six-part motet by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, based on the O magnum mysterium, responsorial chant of the same name, and was written for the celebration of Christmas. The piece is intended to express the joy and awe that was felt by the shepherds as they celebrated and worshiped the Christ-child in the manger on Christmas Eve. Palestrina took the text for this piece from the first half of the third and fourth Responsory, Responsories of Matins on Christmas Day. The text has been set many times by numerous composers, such as Palestrina, Francis Poulenc, Poulenc, Morten Lauridsen, Lauridsen, and Morales. History ''O magnum mysterium'' is a six-voice motet in the Aeolian mode in two musical parts. It was published in 1569 in Rome and formed a part of a collection of motets for five-, six- and seven voices, known as his ''Liber Primus Motettorum''. Palestrina wrote it for Christmas to express the joy and awe of the shepherds as they celebrated ...
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Visitation (Christianity)
In Christianity, the Visitation is the visit of Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus, to Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, in the Gospel of Luke, . It is also the name of a Christian feast day commemorating this visit, celebrated on 31 May in the feast-celebrating branches of Western Christianity (most and mainstream calendars of Catholics and High Church Anglicans (or as 2 July in calendars of 1263–1969, retained in the modern calendar of some countries whose bishops' conferences wanted to retain this, notably Germany and Slovakia) and 30 March in Eastern Christianity. The episode is one of the standard scenes shown in cycles of the Life of the Virgin in art, and sometimes in larger cycles of the Life of Christ in art. Biblical narrative Mary visits her relative Elizabeth; they are both pregnant: Mary with Jesus, and Elizabeth with John the Baptist. Mary left Nazareth immediately after the Annunciation and went "into the hill country ... into a city o ...
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