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Piano Sonata No. 12 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Piano Sonata No. 12 in A major, Op. 26, in 1800–1801, around the same time as he completed his First Symphony. He dedicated the sonata to Prince Karl von Lichnowsky, who had been his patron since 1792. Consisting of four movements, the sonata takes around 20–22 minutes to perform. Structure The structure of the sonata is unconventional in that the piece opens with a relatively slow movement in the format of theme and variations. The third movement incorporates a funeral march, clearly anticipating the watershed of the Eroica Symphony that Beethoven wrote in 1803–1804. This is the only movement from his sonatas that Beethoven arranged for orchestra, and was played during Beethoven's own funeral procession in 1827. This sonata is also unusual in that none of its four movements is in sonata-allegro form. In most of Beethoven's four-movement sonatas, the third movement is in and in ternary form, while the second movement is slow and in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively tau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
András Schiff
Sir András Schiff (; born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who has received numerous major awards and honours, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize, and was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to music. He is also known for his public criticism of political movements in Hungary and Austria. Schiff is distinguished visiting professor of piano at the Barenboim–Said Akademie in Berlin, and the first artist-in-residence of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Biography Schiff was born in Budapest to a Jewish family, the only child of two Holocaust survivors. He began piano lessons at age five, studying at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Elisabeth Vadász, then with Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados. Of Rados, Schiff said, "There was never a positive word from him. Everything was bad, horrible. But it instilled a healthy a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Rosen
Charles Welles Rosen (May 5, 1927December 9, 2012) was an American pianist and writer on music. He is remembered for his career as a concert pianist, for his recordings, and for his many writings, notable among them the book ''The Classical Style''. Life and career Youth and education Charles Rosen was born in New York City on May 5, 1927, to a Russian-Jewish immigrant couple, Irwin Rosen, an architect, and Anita Rosen ( Gerber), a semiprofessional actress and amateur pianist. Charles began his musical studies at age 4 and at age 6 enrolled in the Juilliard School. At age 11 he left Juilliard to study piano with Moriz Rosenthal, and with Rosenthal's wife, Hedwig Kanner. Rosenthal, born in 1862, had been a student of Franz Liszt. Rosenthal's memories of the 19th century in classical music were communicated to his pupil and appear frequently in Rosen's later writings. (For instance, in ''Critical Entertainments'', Rosen offers a memory from Rosenthal concerning how Brahms per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano Sonata No
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation". Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafterin the last 18 years of his lifehe gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schubert's Last Sonatas
Franz Schubert's last three piano sonatas, 958, 959 and 960, are his last major compositions for solo piano. They were written during the last months of his life, between the spring and autumn of 1828, but were not published until about ten years after his death, in 1838–39. Like the rest of Schubert's piano sonatas, they were mostly neglected in the 19th century. By the late 20th century, however, public and critical opinion had changed, and these sonatas are now considered among the most important of the composer's mature masterpieces. They are part of the core piano repertoire, appearing regularly on concert programs and recordings. One of the reasons for the long period of neglect of Schubert's piano sonatas seems to be their dismissal as structurally and dramatically inferior to the sonatas of Beethoven. In fact, the last sonatas contain distinct allusions and similarities to works by Beethoven, a composer Schubert venerated. Nevertheless, musicological analysis has shown ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impromptus (Schubert)
Franz Schubert's Impromptus are a series of eight pieces for solo piano composed in 1827. They were published in two sets of four impromptus each: the first two pieces in the first set were published in the composer's lifetime as Op. 90; the second set was published posthumously as Op. 142 in 1839 (with a dedication added by the publisher to Franz Liszt). The third and fourth pieces in the first set were published in 1857 (although the third piece was printed by the publisher in G major, instead of G as Schubert had written it, and remained available only in this key for many years). The two sets are now catalogued as D. 899 and D. 935 respectively. They are considered to be among the most important examples of this popular early 19th-century genre. Three other unnamed piano compositions (D. 946), written in May 1828, a few months before the composer's death, are known as both "Impromptus" and ''Klavierstücke'' ("piano pieces"). The Impromptus are often considered companion piec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...s, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include "Erlkönig (Schubert), Erlkönig" (D. 328), the Trout Quintet, Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (''Trout Quintet''), the Symphony No. 8 (Schubert), Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (''Unfinished Symphony''), the Symphony No. 9 (Schubert), "Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the String Quintet (Schubert), String Quintet (D. 956), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beethoven And C Minor
The compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven in the key of C minor carry special significance for many listeners. His works in this key have been said to be powerful and emotive, evoking dark and stormy sentiments. Background During the Classical era, C minor was used infrequently and always for works of a particularly turbulent cast. Mozart, for instance, wrote only very few works in this key, but they are among his most dramatic ones (the twenty-fourth piano concerto, the fourteenth piano sonata, the Masonic Funeral Music, the Adagio and Fugue in C minor and the Great Mass in C minor, for instance). Beethoven chose to write a much larger proportion of his works in this key, especially traditionally "salon" (i.e. light and diverting) genres such as sonatas and trios, were a sort of conscious rejection of older aesthetics, valuing the "sublime" and "difficult" above music that is "merely" pleasing to the ear. The key is said to represent for Beethoven a "stormy, heroic tonalit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleonore Prochaska
Marie Christiane Eleonore Prochaska (11 March 1785, in Potsdam – 5 October 1813, in Dannenberg) was a German female soldier who fought in the Prussian army against Napoleon during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Life Prochaska's father was a noncommissioned officer in the Prussian guards, serving on a low income. She grew up poor and was sent by her father to the military orphanage in Potsdam when her mother died. There she later found work as a domestic servant, though she was also interested in the war against Napoleon from an early age. During these wars Prochaska disguised herself as a man and registered for 1 Jägerbataillon of the Lützow Free Corps under the name August Renz in 1813, serving first as a drummer, then later in the infantry. She was severely wounded at the Battle of the Göhrde and field surgeons, rushing to treat her wounds, discovered she was a woman and took her to Dannenberg, where she succumbed to her wounds three weeks later. Legacy In retrospect, P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
