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Sonatina For Violin And Harpsichord (Piston)
__NOTOC__ The Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord is a three-movement, neoclassical chamber work composed by Walter Piston in 1945, that marks the beginning of his postwar style. History Piston wrote the Sonatina just after the Second World War, and its cheerful, optimistic character marks the beginning of the composer's postwar style. It is dedicated to Alexander Schneider and Ralph Kirkpatrick, the violinist and harpsichordist who premiered the work on November 30, 1945. The published score allows the piano as a substitute for the harpsichord, and it can sound equally good that way. Analysis The composition is in three movements: * Allegro leggiero * Adagio espressivo * Allegro vivo The Sonatina is a clear example of neoclassicism in Piston's work, and shows the influence of Igor Stravinsky. The sonatina-form first movement is in B major, and is typified by a restless, exhaustive energy produced by abrupt changes to remote keys: F minor, A major, and A major. The movement conclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part (in contrast to orchestral music, in which each string part is played by a number of performers). However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances. Because of its intimate nature, chamber music has been described as "the music of friends". For more than 100 years, chamber music was played primarily by amateur musicians in their homes, and even today, when chamber music performance has migrated from the home to the concert hall, many musicians, amateur and professional, still play chamber music for their own pleasure. Playing chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required for playing solo or symphonic works. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Piston
Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Hamor Piston, a bookkeeper, and Leona Stover. He was the second of four children. Although his family was mainly of English origin, his paternal grandfather was a sailor named Antonio Pistone, who changed his name to Anthony Piston when he came to Maine from Genoa, Italy. In 1905 the composer's father, Walter Piston Sr, moved with his family to Boston, Massachusetts. Walter Jr first trained as an engineer at the Mechanical Arts High School in Boston, but was artistically inclined. After graduating in 1912, he enrolled in the Massachusetts Normal Art School, where he completed a four-year program in fine art in 1916. During the 1910s, Piston made a living playing piano and violin in dance bands and later playing violin in orchestras led by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Schneider
Abraham Alexander Schneider (October 21, 1908 – February 2, 1993) was a violinist, conductor and educator. Born to a Jewish family in Vilnius, Lithuania, he later moved to the United States as a member of the Budapest String Quartet. Early life Alexander (Sasha) was born Abram Sznejder. At 13, he almost died of tetanus after cutting his knee in an accident. The tetanus distorted his joints and recovery was long and painful. Sasha left Vilnius in 1924 and joined his brother Mischa Schneider in Frankfurt after securing a scholarship to study violin with Adolf Rebner, the principal violin tutor at the Hoch Conservatory. Career In 1927, Alexander became leader (concertmaster) of an orchestra in Saarbrücken. It was at this point that he changed his name. The conductor wanted him as leader, but wanted a German-sounding name. Abram took Schneider as a surname because his brother Mischa had already chosen it, and Alexander appealed to him as a first name. In 1929, he was appointed l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Leonard Kirkpatrick (; June 10, 1911April 13, 1984) was an American harpsichordist and musicologist, widely known for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas as well as for his performances and recordings. Life and work Kirkpatrick was born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1911 and began studying piano at a young age. He continued his piano studies in Cambridge while studying art history at Harvard University. He became interested in the harpsichord at Harvard and gave his first harpsichord recital there in 1930. After graduating in 1931, he traveled to Europe on a John Knowles Paine Fellowship. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and harpsichord revival pioneer Wanda Landowska in Paris, with Arnold Dolmetsch in Haslemere, Heinz Tiessen in Berlin, and Günther Ramin in Leipzig. In January 1933 he made his European debut in Berlin performing Johann Sebastian Bach's ''Goldberg Variations''. In 1933 he also performed several concerts in Italy, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoclassicism (music)
Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the interwar period, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint. As such, neoclassicism was a reaction against the unrestrained emotionalism and perceived formlessness of late Romanticism, as well as a "call to order" after the experimental ferment of the first two decades of the twentieth century. The neoclassical impulse found its expression in such features as the use of pared-down performing forces, an emphasis on rhythm and on contrapuntal texture, an updated or expanded tonal harmony, and a concentration on absolute music as opposed to Romantic program music. In form and thematic technique, neoclassical music often drew inspiration from music of the 18th century, though the inspiring canon belonged as frequently to the Baroque and even earlier periods as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as '' Renard'', ''L'Histoire du soldat,'' and ''Les noces'', was followed in the 1920s by a period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School (german: Zweite Wiener Schule, Neue Wiener Schule) was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late- Romantic expanded tonality and later, a totally chromatic expressionism without firm tonal centre, often referred to as atonality; and later still, Schoenberg's serial twelve-tone technique. Adorno said that the twelve-tone method, when it had evolved into maturity, was a "veritable message in a bottle", addressed to an unknown and uncertain future. Though this common development took place, it neither followed a common time-line nor a cooperative path. Likewise, it was not a direct result of Schoenberg's teaching—which, as his various published textbooks demonstrate, was highly traditional and conservative. Schoenberg's textbooks also reveal that the Second Viennese School spawned not f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inversion (music)
In music theory, an inversion is a type of change to intervals, chords, voices (in counterpoint), and melodies. In each of these cases, "inversion" has a distinct but related meaning. The concept of inversion also plays an important role in musical set theory. Intervals An interval is inverted by raising or lowering either of the notes by one or more octaves so that the positions of the notes reverse (i.e. the higher note becomes the lower note and vice versa). For example, the inversion of an interval consisting of a C with an E above it (the third measure below) is an E with a C above it – to work this out, the C may be moved up, the E may be lowered, or both may be moved. : The tables to the right show the changes in interval quality and interval number under inversion. Thus, perfect intervals remain perfect, major intervals become minor and vice versa, and augmented intervals become diminished and vice versa. (Doubly diminished intervals become doubly augmented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Davidovici
Robert Davidovici, born 1946, is a Romanian-American violinist. He took First Prize honors in the Naumburg Competition in 1972. In 1983, Davidovici tied for first place to co-win the Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. The prize was $77,000 and Davidovici received half. Robert Davidovici was born in the Transylvania region of Romania. He studied the violin with Robert Pickler in Sydney,Cfr. Philippe Borer, ''Aspects of European Influences on Violin Playing & Teaching in Australia'', MMus diss., 1988, p. 130 and passim https://eprints.utas.edu.au/18865/ with David Oistrakh and at the Juilliard School in New York City. In 1967, he was a prize winner in the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards in Australia. In 1983, Davidovici was the artist-in-residence at North Texas State University in Denton, Texas. In 1997, while he was a concertmaster in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Davidovici joined the faculty of Florida International University in Mia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Castleman
Charles Martin Castleman (born 22 May 1941) is an American violinist and teacher. Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, he began violin lessons at the age of four with Ondricek. When he was six he appeared as a soloist with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Boston Pops Orch. At nine, he made his solo recital debuts at Jordan Hall in Boston and Town Hall (New York, New York), Town Hall in New York In Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series of 1950-51 he was co-featured with Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern. He was a student of Ivan Galamian, Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (1959–63), and also received coaching from Gingold, Szering and Oistrakh. He received AB and MA degrees from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1963 he was a silver medalist at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Queen Elisabeth Concours in Brussels, and in 1966 was a bronze medalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition, Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gardner Read
Gardner Read (January 2, 1913 in Evanston, Illinois – November 10, 2005 in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts) was an American composer and musical scholar. His first musical studies were in piano and organ, and she also took lessons in counterpoint and composition at the School of Music at Northwestern University. In 1932 he was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Eastman School of Music (B.M. and M.M.), where he studied with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. In the late 1930s he also studied briefly with Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Aaron Copland. After heading the composition departments of the St. Louis Institute of Music, the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Read became Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Composition at the School of Music at Boston University. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1978. His Symphony No. 1, op. 30 (1937, premiered by Sir John Barbirolli) won first prize at the New York Philharmonic-S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compositions By Walter Piston
Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature * Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include visuals and digital space *Composition (music), an original piece of music and its creation * Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work * ''Composition'' (Peeters), a 1921 painting by Jozef Peeters * Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction * ''Compositions'' (album), an album by Anita Baker * Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video Computer science * Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones *Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions History * Composition of 1867, Austro-Hung ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
