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Serenade For Tenor, Horn And Strings
The ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings'', Op. 31, is a song cycle written in 1943 by Benjamin Britten for tenor, solo horn and a string orchestra. Composed during the Second World War at the request of the horn player Dennis Brain, it is a setting of a selection of six poems by English poets on the subject of night, including both its calm and its sinister aspects. The poets Britten chose to set for the Serenade range from an anonymous 15th-century writer to poets from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Britten's partner – the tenor Peter Pears – and Brain were the soloists at the first performance. They later recorded the work, which has received subsequent recordings by tenors, horn players, orchestras and conductors from Britain, continental Europe, America and Australia. Background and first performance Britten and his partner, Peter Pears, returned to Britain in April 1942 after three years in the United States. A few weeks later Britten was commissioned by the BBC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of ''Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon'', but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of the earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantiga de amigo, Cantigas de amigo by the 13th-century Galicians, Galician jongleur Martin Codax. Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft's ''The Briefe Discourse'' (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th Century examples in England. A song cycle is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sick Rose
"The Sick Rose" is a poem by William Blake, originally published in ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' as the 39th plate; the incipit of the poem is O Rose thou art sick. Blake composed the poem sometime after 1789, and presented it with an illuminated border and illustration, typical of his self-publications. Since the 20th century, the poem has been the subject of scrutiny by scholars for its oblique and enigmatic meaning, and bizarre, suggestive imagery. Text :O Rose thou art sick, :The invisible worm :That flies in the night, :In the howling storm, :Has found out thy bed :Of crimson joy: :And his dark secret love :Does thy life destroy. Analysis Nathan Cervo describes the poem as "One of the most baffling and enigmatic in the English language". The rose and worm in the poem have been seen as "figures of humanity", although Michael Riffaterre doubts the direct equivalence of Man as a worm; when Blake makes this comparison in other places, Riffaterre notes, he is expl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bugle
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, normally having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure. History The bugle developed from early musical or communication instruments made of animal horns, with the word "bugle" itself coming from "buculus", Latin for bullock (castrated bull). The earliest bugles were shaped in a coil – typically a double coil, but also a single or triple coil – similar to the modern horn, and were used to communicate during hunts and as announcing instruments for coaches (somewhat akin to today's automobile horn). Predecessors and relatives of the bugle included the post horn, the Pless horn (sometimes called the "Prince Pless horn"), the bugle horn, and the shofar, among others. The ancient Roman army used the buccina. The first verifiable formal use of a brass bugle as a military signal device was the ''Halbmondbläser'', or half-moon bugle, used in Hanover in 1758. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equal Temperament
An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, which gives an equal perceived step size as pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency. In classical music and Western music in general, the most common tuning system since the 18th century has been twelve-tone equal temperament (also known as 12 equal temperament, 12-TET or 12-ET; informally abbreviated to twelve equal), which divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equal 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. In Western countries the term ''equal temperament'', without qualification, generally means 12-TET. In modern times, 12-TET is usually tuned relative to a standard pitch of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmonic Series (music)
A harmonic series (also overtone series) is the sequence of harmonics, musical tones, or pure tones whose frequency is an integer multiple of a ''fundamental frequency''. Pitched musical instruments are often based on an acoustic resonator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous modes simultaneously. At the frequencies of each vibrating mode, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling each other to form standing waves. Interaction with the surrounding air causes audible sound waves, which travel away from the instrument. Because of the typical spacing of the resonances, these frequencies are mostly limited to integer multiples, or harmonics, of the lowest frequency, and such multiples form the harmonic series. The musical pitch of a note is usually perceived as the lowest partial present (the fundamental frequency), which may be the one created by vibration over the full length of the string or air co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Budd (opera)
''Billy Budd'', Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel '' Billy Budd'' by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, the opera received its premiere at the Royal Opera House (ROH), London, on 1 December 1951. Britten later revised the work into a two-act opera, with a prologue and an epilogue. The revised version received its first performance at the ROH, Covent Garden, London, on 9 January 1964. Composition history E. M. Forster had an interest in the novella, which he discussed in his Clark lectures at Cambridge University. Forster had admired Britten's music since 1937 when he attended a performance of the play ''The Ascent of F6'' (for which Britten wrote incidental music). Forster met Britten in October 1942, when he heard Peter Pears and Britten perform Britten's '' Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'' at the National Gallery. In 1948, Britten and Forster discussed whether Forster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Ceremony Of Carols
''A Ceremony of Carols,'' Op. 28, is an extended choral composition for Christmas by Benjamin Britten scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. The text, structured in eleven movements, is taken from ''The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems'', edited by Gerald Bullett. It is principally in Middle English, with some Latin and Early Modern English. It was composed in 1942 on Britten's sea voyage from the United States to England. Britten composed the music at the same time as the '' Hymn to St. Cecilia'' and in similar style. Originally conceived as a series of unrelated songs, it was later unified into one piece with the framing processional and recessional chant in unison based on the Gregorian antiphon "Hodie Christus natus est". A harp solo based on the chant, along with a few other motifs from "Wolcum Yole", also serves to unify the composition. In addition, the movements "This Little Babe" and "Deo Gracias" have the choir reflecting harp-like effects by emplo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Musical Times
''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country. It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainzer's Musical Times and Singing Circular'', but in 1844 he sold it to Joseph Alfred Novello (who also founded ''The Musical World'' in 1836), and it was published monthly by the Novello and Co. (also owned by Alfred Novello at the time).. It first appeared as ''The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular'', a name which was retained until 1903. From the very beginning, every issue - initially just eight pages - contained a simple piece of choral music (alternating secular and sacred), which choral society members subscribed to collectively for the sake of the music. Its title was shortened to its present name from January 1904. Even during World War II it continued to be published regularly, making it the world's oldest continuously publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville
Edward Charles Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville (13 November 1901 – 4 July 1965) was a British music critic, novelist and, in his last years, a member of the House of Lords. Musically gifted as a boy, he was attracted as a young man to a literary life and wrote a series of semi-autobiographical novels in the 1920s and 1930s. They made little impact, and his more lasting books are a biography of the essayist Thomas De Quincey and ''The Record Guide'', Britain's first comprehensive guide to classical music on record, first published in 1951. As a critic and a member of the board of the Royal Opera House, he strove to promote the works of young British composers, including Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. Britten worked with him on a musical drama for radio and dedicated to him one of his best known works, the ''Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings''. Biography Early years Sackville-West was born at Cadogan Gardens, London, the elder child and only son of Major-General ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On This Island
''On This Island'' is a book of poems by W. H. Auden, first published under the title ''Look, Stranger!'' in the UK in 1936, then published under Auden's preferred title, ''On this Island'', in the US in 1937. It is also the title of one of the poems in the collection. The book contains thirty-one poems. The opening "Prologue" ("O Love the interest itself in thoughtless heaven") is followed by short and long poems including "Hearing of harvests", "O what is that sound", "Out on the lawn", "Brothers who when the sirens roar", "Love had him fast", "A shilling life", "Our hunting fathers", and others, ending with an "Epilogue" ("Certainly our city"). The title of Auden's typescript was ''Thirty-One Poems''. Auden's UK publisher Faber & Faber asked him to supply a better title, but he was traveling in Iceland and inaccessible, so the publisher titled the book ''Look, Stranger!'' Auden disliked the title and asked his American publisher Random House to title the book ''On This Island ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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