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Pastoral Symphony (Vaughan Williams)
Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3, published as ''Pastoral Symphony'' and not numbered until later, was completed in 1922. Vaughan Williams's initial inspiration to write this symphony came during World War I after hearing a bugler practising and accidentally playing an interval of a seventh instead of an octave; this ultimately led to the trumpet cadenza in the second movement. The work is among the least performed of Vaughan Williams's symphonies, but it has gained the reputation of being a subtly beautiful elegy for the dead of World War I and a meditation on the sounds of peace. Like many of the composer's works, the ''Pastoral Symphony'' is not programmatic, but its spirit is evocative. None of the movements are particularly fast or upbeat (the composer himself described it as "four movements, all of them slow"), but there are isolated extroverted sections. It was first performed in London on 16 January 1922 with Adrian Boult conducting. The symphony was dismissed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Music of Germany, Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Horn
The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the predecessor to the modern-day (French) horn (differentiated by its lack of valves). Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century the natural horn evolved as a separation from the trumpet by widening the bell and lengthening the tubes. It consists of a mouthpiece, long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. This instrument was used extensively until the emergence of the valved horn in the early 19th century. Hand stopping technique The natural horn has several gaps in its harmonic range. To play chromatically, in addition to crooking the instrument into the right key, two additional techniques are required: ''bending'' and ''hand-stopping''. Bending a note is achieved by modifying the embouchure to raise or lower the pitch fractionally, and compensates for the slightly out-of-pitch " wolf tones" which all brass instruments have. Hand-stopping is a technique whereby the player can modify the pitch of a note by up to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brass Instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin and Greek elements meaning 'lip' and 'sound'. There are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. Slides, valves, crooks (though they are rarely used today), or keys are used to change vibratory length of tubing, thus changing the available harmonic series, while the player's embouchure, lip tension and air flow serve to select the specific harmonic produced from the available series. The view of most scholars (see organology) is that the term "brass instrument" should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above, and not by whether the instrument is actually made of brass. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornett, the serpent and the didgeridoo, while some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trio (music)
In music, a trio (from the Italian language, Italian) is any of the following: * a composition for three performers or three Part (music), musical parts * in larger works, the middle section of a ternary form (so named because of the 17th-century practice of scoring the contrasting second or middle dance appearing between two statements of a principal dance for three instruments) * an ensemble of three instruments or voices performing trio compositions. Composition A trio is a composition for three performers or musical parts. Works include Baroque trio sonatas, choral works for three parts, and works for three instruments such as string trios. In the 17th and early 18th century, musical genre trio sonata two melodic instruments are accompanied by a basso continuo, making three Part (music), parts in all. Because the basso continuo is usually played by two instruments (typically a cello or bass viol and a keyboard instrument such as the harpsichord), performances of trio sonata ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scherzo
A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often refers to a movement that replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. The term can also refer to a fast-moving humorous composition that may or may not be part of a larger work. Origins The Italian word ''scherzo'' means 'joke' or 'jest'. More rarely the similar-meaning word ''badinerie'' (also spelled ''battinerie''; from French, 'jesting') has been used. Sometimes the word ''scherzando'' ('joking') is used in musical notation to indicate that a passage should be executed in a playful manner. An early use of the word ''scherzo'' in music is in light-hearted madrigals of the early baroque period, which were often called ''scherzi musicali'', for example: * Claudio Monte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular use. The violin typically has four strings (music), strings (some can have five-string violin, five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow (music), bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical music, Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bluegrass music, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cor Anglais
The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto oboe in F. The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument). This means that music for the cor anglais is written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E3 (written B) below middle C to C6 two octaves above middle C. Description and timbre The pear-shaped bell (called Liebesfuß) of the cor anglais gives it a more covered timbre than the oboe, closer in tonal quality to the oboe d'am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedal Point
In music, a pedal point (also pedal note, organ point, pedal tone, or pedal) is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign (i.e. dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing tones. However, the pedal point is unique among non-chord tones, "in that it begins on a consonance, sustains (or repeats) through another chord as a dissonance until the harmony", not the non-chord tone, "resolves back to a consonance".Frank, Robert J. (2000)"Non-Chord Tones" , ''Theory on the Web'', Southern Methodist University. Pedal points "have a strong tonal effect, 'pulling' the harmony back to its root". Pedal points can also build drama or intensity and expectation. When a pedal point occurs in a voice other than the bass, it is usually referred to as an inverted pedal pointBenward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Prac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
12-tone Equal Temperament
Twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET) is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered (equally spaced) on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 ( ≈ 1.05946). That resulting smallest interval, the width of an octave, is called a semitone or half step. Twelve-tone equal temperament is the most widespread system in music today. It has been the predominant tuning system of Western music, starting with classical music, since the 18th century, and Europe almost exclusively used approximations of it for millennia before that. It has also been used in other cultures. In modern times, 12-TET is usually tuned relative to a standard pitch of 440 Hz, called A440, meaning one note, A, is tuned to 440 hertz and all other notes are defined as some multiple of semitones apart from it, either higher or lower in frequency. The standard pitch has not always been 440 Hz. It has varied and generally risen over the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minor Seventh
In music theory, a minor seventh is one of two musical intervals that span seven staff positions. It is ''minor'' because it is the smaller of the two sevenths, spanning ten semitones. The major seventh spans eleven. For example, the interval from A to G is a minor seventh, as the note G lies ten semitones above A, and there are seven staff positions from A to G. Diminished and augmented sevenths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones (nine and twelve, respectively). Minor seventh intervals rarely feature in melodies (and especially in their openings) but occur more often than major sevenths. The best-known example, in part due to its frequent use in theory classes, is found between the first two words of the phrase "There's a place for us" in the song " Somewhere" in ''West Side Story''.Neely, Blake (2009). ''Piano For Dummies'', p.201. . Another well-known example occurs between the first two notes of the introduction to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seventh Harmonic
The harmonic seventh interval, also known as the septimal minor seventh, or subminor seventh, is one with an exact 7:4 ratio (about 969 cents). This is somewhat narrower than and is, "particularly sweet", "sweeter in quality" than an "ordinary" just minor seventh, which has an intonation ratio of 9:5 (about 1018 cents). The harmonic seventh arises from the harmonic series as the interval between the fourth harmonic (second octave of the fundamental) and the seventh harmonic; in that octave, harmonics 4, 5, 6, and 7 constitute a purely consonant major chord with added seventh (root position). When played on the natural horn, as a compromise the note is often adjusted to 16:9 of the root (for C maj7, the substituted note is B, 996.09 cents), but some pieces call for the pure harmonic seventh, including Britten's ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings''. Composer Ben Johnston uses a small "7" as an accidental to indicate a note is lowered 49 cents ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Trumpet
A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series. History The natural trumpet was used as a military instrument to facilitate communication (e.g. break camp, retreat, etc.). Even before the late Baroque period the natural trumpet had been accepted into Western art music. There is evidence, for example, of extensive use of trumpet ensembles in Venetian ceremonial music of the 16th century. Although neither Andrea nor Giovanni Gabrieli wrote music specifically for the trumpet, they would have been very familiar with its technical possibilities. Later, talented players such as the early baroque composer Girolamo Fantini demonstrated that by playing in the extreme upper register and "lipping" the notes of the 11th and 13th harmonics (that is, flattening or sharpening those impure harmonics into tune with the embouchure), it was possible to play diatonic major and minor scales (and, hence, actual melodies rather than arpeggios) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
