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Royal Melbourne Philharmonic
Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (RMP) is a 120-voice choir and orchestra in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1853, and is reportedly Australia's oldest surviving cultural organisation. The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic is Australia's oldest musical organisation that has been continuously existing for over 150 years. Among its programmes, there have been large-scale concerts celebrating classical composers including Bach, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic is managed under the direction of Andrew Wailes, the artistic director of the orchestra. History Early years The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic was founded in 1853 and the orchestra was then called the Melbourne Philharmonic Society. One of its founders was Charles La Trobe, who was the appointed superintendent of NSW in 1839. The original purpose of creating the organization was to hold regular performances with a non-profitable basis. Britain's influence During the 19th century, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Wailes
Andrew Keith Wailes (born 7 September 1971) is an Australian conductor and music director. Winner of the Australasian International Choral Conducting Competition in Brisbane in 1999, he is the current artistic director and Chief Conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Melbourne University Choral Society, and music director and Conductor of the Box Hill Chorale. From 1999 to 2020 he served as artistic director of The Australian Children's Choir, and for a decade was Director of the Australian Catholic University Melbourne Campus Choir. He is a former president of the Australian Intervarsity Choral Societies Association, and is a former Artistic Administrator and artistic director of The Chamber Strings of Melbourne. Early life Born in Melbourne, Wailes was educated at Caulfield Grammar School, where he was active as a student musician, performing in a wide range of ensembles as a flautist and also as a singer in various ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Israel In Egypt
''Israel in Egypt'', HWV 54, is a biblical oratorio by the composer George Frideric Handel. Most scholars believe the libretto was prepared by Charles Jennens, who also compiled the biblical texts for Handel's ''Messiah''. It is composed entirely of selected passages from the Old Testament, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms. ''Israel in Egypt'' premiered at London's King's Theatre in the Haymarket on April 4, 1739 with Élisabeth Duparc "La Francesina", William Savage, John Beard (tenor), Turner Robinson, Gustavus Waltz, and Thomas Reinhold. Handel started it soon after the opera season at King's Theatre was cancelled for lack of subscribers. The oratorio was not well received by the first audience though commended in the '' Daily Post''; the second performance was shortened, the mainly choral work now augmented with Italian-style arias. The first version of the piece is in three parts rather than two, the first part more famous as "The ways of Zion do mourn", with altered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Heinze
Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze, AC (1 July 189410 June 1982) was an Australian conductor, academic, and Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music. He conducted all the orchestras run by the ABC, most particularly the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, of which he was chief conductor from 1933 to 1950. Also, he was chief conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic from 1927, becoming Honorary Life Conductor in the 1960s, and continuing his association with the RMP until 1978. In addition he was guest conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1939. Discouraged by Australian audiences' lack of interest in music, he founded Children's Concerts. He also initiated the Young Performers Awards, which continue to showcase emerging international talent. He introduced Australian audiences to the works of Anton Bruckner, Dmitri Shostakovich, Béla Bartók and William Walton, and promoted Australian composers. In 1949 he became the first Australian ever to be knighted fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberto Zelman
(Samuel Victor Albert) Alberto Zelman (15 November 18743 March 1927) was an Australian musician and conductor, and founder of one of the predecessors to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Life and career Alberto Zelman was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father, Alberto Zelman (senior), had come from Trieste via India as conductor of an opera company, and settled in Melbourne. Alberto jr. was educated at King's College, Melbourne, and showed early talent as a violinist, afterwards becoming a violin teacher. He was connected with the Melbourne Philharmonic Society for over 30 years, first as leader of the second violins in the orchestra, and from 1912 as conductor. He was leader of the British Musical Society's quartet, and after the death of George Marshall-Hall he founded (in 1906) and conducted the Albert Street Conservatorium Orchestra which, in 1927, combined with the Melbourne University Symphony Orchestra to form the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO). The MUSO was main ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belshazzar's Feast (Walton)
''Belshazzar's Feast'' is a cantata by the English composer William Walton. It was first performed at the Leeds Festival on 8 October 1931, with the baritone Dennis Noble, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Leeds Festival Chorus, conducted by Malcolm Sargent. The work has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions. Osbert Sitwell selected the text from the Bible, primarily the Book of Daniel and Psalm 137. The work is dedicated to Walton's friend and benefactor Lord Berners. Plot In the story of Belshazzar's Feast, the Jews are in exile in Babylon. After a feast at which Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, commits sacrilege by using the Jews' sacred vessels to praise the heathen gods, he is miraculously killed, the kingdom falls, and the Jews regain their freedom. List of movements Although they are not specified in the published score, there is a clear delineation between sections, as follows: # '' ntroductionThus spake Isaiah'' # ''By the waters of Babylon/If I fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantata ''Belshazzar's Feast'', the Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation marches ''Crown Imperial'' and '' Orb and Sceptre''. Born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, ''Façade'', which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist, but later became a popular ballet score. In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife Susana on the Italian island of Ischia. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a moderni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kingdom (Elgar)
''The Kingdom'', Op. 51, is an English-language oratorio composed in 1906 by Edward Elgar. It was first performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906, with the orchestra conducted by the composer, and soloists Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates and William Higley. The dedication is "''A. M. D. G.''" Elgar wrote ''The Kingdom'' for choral and instrumental forces. Overview Following ''The Dream of Gerontius'' and '' The Apostles'', the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival commissioned Elgar to produce another large oratorio for the 1906 festival. This was ''The Kingdom'', which continues the narrative of the lives of Jesus's disciples. It depicts the community of the early church, Pentecost, and the events of the next few days. Elgar had been planning a work depicting the Apostles as ordinary men, reacting to extraordinary events, for many years. His ideas outgrew the confines of a single work: parts of ''The Kingdom'' were written before ''The Apostles'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the ''Enigma Variations'', the ''Pomp and Circumstance Marches'', concertos for Violin Concerto (Elgar), violin and Cello Concerto (Elgar), cello, and two symphony, symphonies. He also composed choral works, including ''The Dream of Gerontius'', chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-consci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stabat Mater (Dvořák)
Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58 ( B. 71), is an extended setting for vocal soloists, choir and orchestra of the 20 stanzas of the Stabat Mater sequence. Dvořák sketched the composition in 1876 and completed it in 1877. It has been characterized as a sacred cantata and as an oratorio, and consists of ten movements of which only the first and the last are thematically connected. Its total performance time is around 85 minutes. The work was first performed in Prague in 1880. N. Simrock published Dvořák's Op. 58 in 1881. In 1882, Leoš Janáček conducted a performance of the work in Brno. The work was performed in London in 1883, and again, in the Royal Albert Hall, in 1884, and thus played a crucial role in Dvořák's international breakthrough as a composer. In the 21st century the Stabat Mater continues to be Dvořák's best known, and most often performed, sacred work. History How Dvořák started to compose his Stabat Mater in February ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era Czech nationalism, nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them". Dvořák displayed his musical gifts at an early age, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success, in 1873, when he was 31 years old. Seeking recognition beyond the Prague area, he submitted a score of his Symphony No. 1 (Dvořák), First Symphony to a prize competition in Germany, but did not win, and the unreturned manuscript was lost until it was rediscovered many decades ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gloria (Vivaldi)
Antonio Vivaldi wrote at least three Gloria compositions, settings of the hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo, with words probably dating back to the 4th century, and an integral part of the mass ordinary. Two of them have survived: RV 588 and RV 589. A third, RV 590, is mentioned only in the Kreuzherren catalogue and presumed lost. The RV 589 Gloria is a familiar and popular piece among sacred works by Vivaldi. It was probably written at about the same time as the RV 588, possibly in 1715. ''Introduction '' As with other choral pieces the composer, Vivaldi, wrote many ''introduzioni'' (introductory motets) that were to be performed before the Gloria itself. Four ''introduzioni'' exist for these Glorias: ''Cur Sagittas'' (RV 637), ''Jubilate, o amoeni cori'' (RV 639) (the last movement of which is compositionally tied with the first movement of RV 588), ''Longe Mala, Umbrae, Terrores'' (RV 640), and ''Ostro Picta'' (RV 642). Settings RV 588 The lesser known of the two surviving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe, giving origin to many imitators and admirers. He pioneered many developments in orchestration, violin technique and Program music, programatic music. He consolidated the emerging concerto form into a widely accepted and followed idiom, which was paramount in the development of Johann Sebastian Bach's instrumental music. Vivaldi composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other musical instruments, as well as Sacred Music, sacred choral works and more than List of operas by Antonio Vivaldi, fifty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as ''The Four Seasons (Vivaldi), the Four Seasons''. Many of his compositions were written for the all-female music ensemble of the ''Ospedale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
