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Requiem (Saint-Saëns)
The Requiem, full title ''Messe de Requiem'', Op. 54, is a Requiem Mass composed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1878 for soloists, choir and orchestra. He composed it in memory of his friend and patron, Albert Libon, and conducted the first performance on 22 May 1878 at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, with Charles-Marie Widor as the organist. It was first published the same year. History Camille Saint-Saëns composed the Requiem in memory of his friend and patron, Albert Libon, who had died in 1877. Libon had been a director of the postal service in Paris. He was interested in music and left Saint-Saëns 100,000 francs in his will () which enabled the composer to retire f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano Concerto No. 2 (Saint-Saëns), Second Piano Concerto (1868), the Cello Concerto No. 1 (Saint-Saëns), First Cello Concerto (1872), ''Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns), Danse macabre'' (1874), the opera ''Samson and Delilah (opera), Samson and Delilah'' (1877), the Violin Concerto No. 3 (Saint-Saëns), Third Violin Concerto (1880), the Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns), Third ("Organ") Symphony (1886) and ''The Carnival of the Animals'' (1886). Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from 1858, La Madeleine, Paris, La Madeleine, the official church of the Second French Empire, Fren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity. It is a non-transposing instrument and typically its music is written in the bass and tenor clefs, and sometimes in the treble. There are two forms of modern bassoon: the Buffet (or French) and Heckel (or German) systems. It is typically played while sitting using a seat strap, but can be played while standing if the player has a harness to hold the instrument. Sound is produced by rolling both lips over the reed and blowing direct air pressure to cause the reed to vibrate. Its fingering system can be quite complex when compared to those of other instruments. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature, and is occasionally heard in pop, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana
The Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana (OSI; literal translation, Orchestra of Italian Switzerland) is a Swiss orchestra based in Lugano. The orchestra's primary concert venue is the ''Auditorio RSI''. The OSI also gives a concert series at the Sala Teatro. History The precursor ensemble of the OSI, consisting of approximately 30 musicians, was founded in 1933 under the auspices of the Italian Swiss Radio. In 1935, the orchestra acquired the name ''Orchestra della Radio Svizzera Italiana'', giving its first concert on 2 January 1935. Later, with the advent of television, the orchestra's name evolved to ''Orchestra della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana'' (Radio Television Orchestra of Italian Switzerland). The orchestra took on its current name in 1991. For the orchestra, Richard Strauss composed his ''Duet-Concertino'' in F major, TrV 293 (o.op.AV 147). Other composers who directed their compositions with the OSI included Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Frank Martin, Paul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Françoise Pollet
Françoise Pollet (born 10 September 1949 in Boulogne Billancourt) is a French soprano. She made her debut in 1983 at the Lübeck Opera as Marschallin in the Rosenkavalier of Richard Strauss.Aspects de la mélodie française: Concours international de musique Gérard Streletski, Françoise Andrieux - 2008 Page 9 "Françoise Pollet, soprano - France Lauréate du concours international de chant de Genève, elle débute sa carrière en 1983 au sein de la troupe de l'opéra de Lübeck dans le rôle de la Maréchale (Rosenkavalier de Richard Strauss)." Selected recordings * Saint-Saëns, '' Requiem, Psaume XVIII, Françoise Pollet, soprano,'' Orchestre National d'Ile de France, Choeur Vittoria d'Ile de France, conducted by Jacques Mercier. CD ADDA 1989 * Berlioz, '' Les Troyens,'' Françoise Pollet, Didon, The Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Charles Dutoit. 4 CD Decca 1994 * Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 â ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Villisech
Jacques Villisech was a French bass-baritone in opera and concert. He was an early specialist singing Baroque music in historically informed performance. Career Villisech was an actor and singer in the theatre company of Jean-Louis Barrault. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, and continued his studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Academy Chigiana in Siena. He was a prize-winner at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. In opera, he appeared in both serious and comic bass parts, such as the title role in Massenet's ''Don Quichotte'', Don Basile in Rossini's ''The Barber of Seville, Il barbiere di Siviglia'', Geronimo in Cimarosa's ''Il matrimonio segreto'', and Prince Gremin in Tchaikovsky's ''Eugene Onegin (opera), Eugene Onegin''. Villisech performed in 1965 the bass arias in the St John Passion discography#Harnoncourt, pioneering recording of Nikolaus Harnoncourt of Bach's ''St John Passion'', with Kurt Equiluz as the Evangelis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oratorio De Noël
The ''Oratorio de Noël'', Op. 12, by Camille Saint-Saëns, also known as his Christmas Oratorio, is a cantata-like work scored for soloists, chorus, organ, strings and harp. While an organist at La Madeleine, Saint-Saëns wrote the Christmas oratorio in less than a fortnight, completing it ten days before its premiere on Christmas 1858. The vocal score of this oratorio was prepared later by the composer and organist Eugene Gigout, a colleague of Saint-Saëns. Performing forces The work is scored for five soloists (soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone), SATB mixed chorus, organ, harp, and strings in the standard five sections. The women of the chorus divide into four parts in one movement. The organ plays a significant role in the work, often playing alone, while the harp is limited to three movements. Text Saint-Saëns chose several verses from the Latin Vulgate Bible for the text of the work. "While these texts are not from a single source, it is clear that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecilian Movement
The Cecilian Movement for church music reform began in Germany in the second half of the 1800s as a reaction to the liberalization of the Enlightenment. The Cecilian Movement received great impetus from Regensburg, where Franz Xaver Haberl had a world-renowned school for church musicians. Their theoretical ideas were formulated by Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, Johann Michael Sailer, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut. Institutionalization Although the movement traced its roots back to the 15th-century , which in turn inspired the formation during the 18th century in Munich, Passau, Vienna, and other places of Caecilien-Bündnisse (Cecilian Leagues) with the goal of promoting the a cappella singing of sacred music (in keeping with the edicts of the Council of Trent), the Cecilian movement proper is considered to have been established only in the 19th century. Franz Xaver Witt, a priest trained in Regensburg, published a call for reform of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina ( – 2 February 1594) was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe. Primarily known for his masses and motets, which number over 105 and 250 respectively, Palestrina had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint. According to '' Grove Music Online'', Palestrina's "success in reconciling the functional and aesthetic aims of Catholic church music in the post-Tridentine period earned him an enduring reputation as the ideal Catholic composer, as well as giving his style (or, more precisely, later generations’ selective view of it) an iconic stature as a model of perfect achievement." Biography Palestrina was born in the town of Palestrina, near Rome, then part of the Papal States to N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphony
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, homophony. Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term ''polyphony'' is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the ''species'' terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another. In all cases the conception was probably what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choir (architecture)
A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church tabernacle. In larger medieval churches it contained choir-stalls, seating aligned with the side of the church, so at right-angles to the seating for the congregation in the nave. Smaller medieval churches may not have a choir in the architectural sense at all, and they are often lacking in churches built by all denominations after the Protestant Reformation, though the Gothic Revival revived them as a distinct feature. As an architectural term "choir" remains distinct from the actual location of any singing choir – these may be located in various places, and often sing from a choir-loft, often over the door at the liturgical western end. In modern churches, the choir may be located centrally behind the altar, or the pulpit. The back-choir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipe Organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks'', each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops. A pipe organ has one or more keyboards (called '' manuals'') played by the hands, and a pedal clavier played by the feet; each keyboard controls its own division, or group of stops. The keyboard(s), pedalboard, and stops are housed in the organ's ''console''. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain notes for as long as the corresponding keys are pressed, unlike the piano and harpsichord whose sound begins to dissipate immediately after a key is depressed. The smallest po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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