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Progressive Tonality
Progressive tonality is the music compositional practice whereby a piece of music does not finish in the key in which it began, but instead 'progresses' to an ending in a different key or tonality. To avoid misunderstanding, it should be stressed that in this connection 'different key' means a different tonic, rather than merely a change to a different mode (see: Picardy third and List of major/minor compositions): Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony (1888–94), for example, which moves from a C minor start to an E-flat major conclusion, exhibits 'progressive tonality'—whereas Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1804–08), which begins in C minor and ends in C major, does not. A work which ends in the key in which it began may be described as exhibiting 'concentric tonality'. The terms 'progressive' and 'concentric' were both introduced into musicology by Dika Newlin in her book ''Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg'' (1947).William Kinderman and Harald Krebs, eds. (1996). ''The Sec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score," which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration (choosing the instruments of a large music ensemble such as an orchestra which will play the different parts of music, such as the melody, accompaniment, countermelody ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fanny Hensel
Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was also known as Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel (as well as Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel). Her compositions include a piano trio, a piano quartet, an orchestral overture, four cantatas, more than 125 pieces for the piano, and over 250 lieder, most of which went unpublished in her lifetime. Although praised for her piano technique, she rarely gave public performances outside her family circle. She grew up in Berlin and received a thorough musical education from teachers including her mother, as well as the composers Ludwig Berger and Carl Friedrich Zelter. Her younger brother Felix Mendelssohn, also a composer and pianist, shared the same education and the two developed a close relationship. Due to her family's reservations, and to social conventions of the time about the roles of women, six of her songs were published und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre âges'
''Grande sonate: Les quatre âges'' (French language, French for ''Grand sonata: The Four Ages'') is a four movement sonata for piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The sonata's title refers to the subtitles given to each movement, portraying a man at the ages of 20, 30, 40, and 50. The work was published in 1847, dedicated to the composer's father, Alkan Morhange (who died eight years later, in 1855). The sequence of movements is unlike the typical classical piano sonata, in that they become progressively slower; after the lively ''20 ans'' (years), marked 'très vite' (very fast) and the complex ''30 ans'', subtitled ''Quasi-Faust'', and marked 'assez vite' (quite fast), ''40 ans'' is more sedate, marked 'lentement' (slowly), and ''50 ans'', dark and pessimistic in mood, is marked 'extrêmement lent' (extremely slow). Structure 20 ans The sonata opens with ''20 ans'', a quickly played piece based in D major but also with many passages in the relative minor key of B minor. The yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan (; 30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888) was a French Jewish composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life. Alkan earned many awards at the Conservatoire de Paris, which he entered before he was six. His career in the salons and concert halls of Paris was marked by his occasional long withdrawals from public performance, for personal reasons. Although he had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the Parisian artistic world, including Eugène Delacroix and George Sand, from 1848 he began to adopt a reclusive life style, while continuing with his compositions – virtually all of which are for the keyboard. During this period he published, among other works, his collections of large-scale studies in all the major keys (Op. 35) and all the mino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Ring Des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibelungenlied''. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a ("preliminary evening"). It is often referred to as the ''Ring'' cycle, Wagner's ''Ring'', or simply ''The Ring''. Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the ''Ring'' cycle are, in sequence: * ''Das Rheingold'' (''The Rhinegold'') * '' Die Walküre'' (''The Valkyrie'') * '' Siegfried'' * '' Götterdämmerung'' (''Twilight of the Gods'') Individual works of the sequence are often performed separately, and indeed the operas contain dialogues that mention events in the previous operas, so that a viewer could watch any of them wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristan Und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "" (literally ''a drama'', ''a plot'', or ''an action''). Wagner's composition of ''Tristan und Isolde'' was inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (particularly ''The World as Will and Representation''), as well as by Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck. Widely acknowledged as a pinnacle of the operatic repertoire, ''Tristan'' was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and harmonic suspension. The opera was enormously influential among Western classical com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dante Symphony
''A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy'', List of compositions by Franz Liszt (S.1 - S.350), S.109, or simply the "''Dante Symphony''", is a choral symphony composed by Franz Liszt. Written in the high romantic style, it is based on Dante Alighieri's journey through Hell and Purgatory, as depicted in ''The Divine Comedy''. It was premiered in Dresden in November 1857, with Liszt conducting himself, and was unofficially dedicated to the composer's friend and future son-in-law Richard Wagner. The entire symphony takes approximately 50 minutes to perform. It premiered on 7 November 1857. Some critics have argued that the ''Dante Symphony'' is not so much a symphony in the classical sense as it is two descriptive symphonic poems. Regardless, ''Dante'' consists of two movements, both in a loosely structured ternary form with little use of thematic transformation. Composition Liszt had been sketching themes for the work since the early 1840s. The French poet Joseph Autran recalled that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simply "c" in all words except surnames; this has led to Liszt's given name being rendered in modern Hungarian usage as "Ferenc". From 1859 to 1867 he was officially Franz Ritter von Liszt; he was created a ''Ritter'' (knight) by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, Francis Joseph I in 1859, but never used this title of nobility in public. The title was necessary to marry the Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein without her losing her privileges, but after the marriage fell through, Liszt transferred the title to his uncle Eduard in 1867. Eduard's son was Franz von Liszt., group=n (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hector Berlioz
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, killing countless Greek warriors. He was ultimately killed in single combat by Achilles, who later dragged his dead body around the city of Troy behind his chariot. Etymology In Greek, is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ''ékhein'', archaic form * grc, ἕχειν, hékhein, label=none ('to have' or 'to hold'), from Proto-Indo-European *'' seɡ́ʰ-'' ('to hold'). , or as found in Aeolic poetry, is also an epithet of Zeus in his capacity as 'he who holds verything together. Hector's name could thus be taken to mean 'holding fast'. Description Hector was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark-skinned, tall, very stoutly built, strong, good nose, wooly-haired, good beard, sq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballades (Chopin)
Frédéric Chopin's four ballades are single- movement pieces for solo piano, composed between 1831 and 1842. They are considered to be some of the most important and challenging pieces in the standard piano repertoire. Form The term ''ballade'' was used by Chopin in the sense of a balletic interlude or dance-piece, equivalent to the old Italian ''ballata'', but the term may also have connotations of the medieval heroic ballad, a narrative minstrel-song, often of a fantastical character. There are dramatic and dance-like elements in Chopin's use of the genre, and he may be said to be a pioneer of the ballade as an abstract musical form. The four ballades are said to have been inspired by a friend of Chopin’s, poet Adam Mickiewicz. The exact inspiration for each individual ballade, however, is unclear and disputed. Though the ballades do not conform exactly to sonata form, the "ballade form" created by Chopin for his four ballades is a variant of sonata form with specific di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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