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Sophie Daneman
Sophie Daneman is a British soprano specializing in the baroque repertoire. Biography Sophie Daneman, a daughter of the actor Paul Daneman, studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She became known during the 1990s with the baroque music ensemble Les Arts Florissants, spearhead of the movement led by William Christie, with whom she interpreted mainly great names of the French baroque such as Montéclair, Rameau, Charpentier, Mondonville and Couperin. In addition to William Christie, Daneman worked under the direction of numerous choir directors, such as Christopher Hogwood, Robert King, Gérard Lesne, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, and Nicholas McGegan. Selected discography Daneman has recorded for the labels Erato, Harmonia Mundi, EMI Classics and Virgin Records. With Les Arts Florissants * 1992: ''Jephté'' by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair * 1993: ''Castor et Pollux'' by Jean-Philippe Rameau (a sequel to Hébé/ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) = 1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word '' sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" '' |
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Maria François Herreweghe, Knight Herreweghe (born 2 May 1947) is a Belgian conductor and choirmaster. Herreweghe founded La Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale Gent and is renowned as a conductor, with a repertoire ranging from Renaissance to early Romantic classical music. He specialises in Baroque music, with a particular focus on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Early life Herreweghe was born in Ghent as the first of three children to Edward Raymond Frans (1919–2006) and Elza Maria Augusta Herreweghe (née van Herrewege; 1919–1976). He received his first piano lessons from his mother. In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher. Career In 1970, Herreweghe founded the Collegium Vocale Gent with a group of fellow students. Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Harvey
Peter Michael St Clair Harvey (16 September 19442 March 2013) was an Australian journalist and broadcaster. Harvey was a long-serving correspondent and contributor with the Nine Network from 1975 to 2013. Career Harvey studied his journalism cadetship with the Sydney newspaper ''The Daily Telegraph'' and won a Walkley Award in 1964. He worked at radio stations 2UE and 2GB before moving to London and working for BBC Radio. He then went on to ''The Guardian'' (where he received the British Reporter of the Year Award for a series of articles about the sale of confidential information) and the American ''Newsweek'' magazine as a reporter in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Harvey changed to television when he joined the Nine Network in 1973 and served as its news director in the network's Canberra bureau for many years. One of his first major stories was the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in November 1975. It was from this work, and his regular political reporting o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Classical to Romantic music, transition from the Classical period (music), Classical period to the Romantic music, 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 Hearing loss, deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodora (Handel)
''Theodora'' ( HWV 68) is a dramatic oratorio in three acts by George Frideric Handel, set to an English libretto by Thomas Morell. The oratorio concerns the Christian martyr Theodora and her Christian-converted Roman lover, Didymus. It had its first performance at Covent Garden Theatre on 16 March 1750. Not popular with audiences in Handel's day, ''Theodora'' is now recognised as a masterpiece. It is usually given in concert, being an oratorio, but is sometimes staged. Context, analysis, and performance history Handel wrote ''Theodora'' during his last period of composition. He was sixty-four years old when he began working on it in June 1749. He had written the oratorios ''Solomon'' and ''Susanna'' the previous year. ''Theodora'' would be his penultimate oratorio. ''Theodora'' differs from the former two oratorios because it is a tragedy, ending in the death of the heroine and her converted lover. It is also Handel's only dramatic oratorio in English on a Christian subject. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acis And Galatea (Handel)
''Acis and Galatea'' ( HWV 49) is a musical work by George Frideric Handel with an English text by John Gay. The work has been variously described as a serenata, a masque, a pastoral or pastoral opera, a "little opera" (in a letter by the composer while it was being written), an entertainment and by the New Grove Dictionary of Music as an oratorio. The work was originally devised as a one-act masque which premiered in 1718. Handel later adapted the piece into a three-act serenata for the Italian opera troupe in London in 1732, which incorporated a number of songs (still in Italian) from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, his 1708 setting of the same story to different music. He later adapted the original English work into a two-act work in 1739. ''Acis and Galatea'' was the pinnacle of pastoral opera in England. Indeed, several writers, such as musicologist Stanley Sadie, consider it the greatest pastoral opera ever composed. As is typical of the genre, ''Acis and Galatea'' was writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leçons De Ténèbres (Couperin)
The ''Leçons de ténèbres pour le mercredi saint'' ("''Tenebrae Readings for Holy Wednesday''") are a series of three vocal pieces composed by François Couperin for the liturgies of Holy Week, 1714, at the Abbaye royale de Longchamp. Couperin's ''Leçons de ténèbres'' use the Latin text of the Old Testament Book of Lamentations, in which Jeremiah deplores the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Musical settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet were common in the Renaissance, famous polyphonic examples being those by Thomas Tallis, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Lassus, and Carlo Gesualdo. Leçons de ténèbres were a particular French subgenre of this music with other similar settings being composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel Delalande and others. Those by Couperin are for two high vocalists and basso continuo. They are composed of three lessons (two other sets of three for Thursday and Friday having been lost)."Je ne donne à présent que les trois d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Fêtes D'Hébé
''Les fêtes d'Hébé, ou Les talens lyriques '' (''The Festivities of Hebe, or The Lyric Talents'') is an ''opéra-ballet'' in a prologue and three ''entrées'' (acts) by the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau. The libretto was written by Antoine Gautier de Montdorge (1707–1768). The work was first performed on 21 May 1739 by the Académie royale de musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris. Performance history ''Les fêtes d'Hébé'' was Rameau's second ''opera-ballet''; his first, ''Les Indes galantes'', had appeared in 1735. It was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 21 May 1739. The famous dancer Marie Sallé appeared as Terpsichore in the third entrée. Montdorge was a friend of Rameau's patron Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière. His libretto came in for heavy criticism and the second ''entrée'' had to be revised with the aid of Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, who had written the words for Rameau's first opera, ''Hippolyte et Aricie''. In spite of the weak libr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Médée (Charpentier)
''Médée'' is a '' tragédie mise en musique'' in five acts and a prologue by Marc-Antoine Charpentier to a French libretto by Thomas Corneille. It was premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on December 4, 1693. ''Médée'' is the only opera Charpentier wrote for the Académie Royale de Musique. The opera was well reviewed by contemporary critics and commentators, including Sébastien de Brossard and Évrard Titon du Tillet, as well as Louis XIV whose brother attended several performances, as did his son; however, the opera only ran until March 15, 1694, although it was later revived at Lille.Powell Roles Synopsis Prologue A celebration of the glory of King Louis XIV. Act 1 Jason and Médée (Medea), pursued by the people of Thessaly because of Médée's crimes, have sought refuge in Corinth. Médée is worried that Jason is growing distant from her. Jason claims he needs to win the good graces of the princess Créuse so her doting father, King Créon, will pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castor Et Pollux
''Castor et Pollux'' (''Castor and Pollux'') is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 24 October 1737 by the Académie royale de musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris. The librettist was Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard, whose reputation as a salon poet it made. This was the third opera by Rameau and his second in the form of the ''tragédie en musique'' (if the lost ''Samson'' is discounted). Rameau made substantial cuts, alterations and added new material to the opera for its revival in 1754. Experts still dispute which of the two versions is superior. Whatever the case, ''Castor et Pollux'' has always been regarded as one of Rameau's finest works. Composition history Charles Dill proposes that Rameau had composed the 1737 opera just after working with Voltaire on the opera "Samson" that was never completed, after which he composed "Castor et Pollux" implementing Voltaire's aesthetics. For example, Voltaire sought the presentation of static tableaus that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwide success over time, with the success of platinum performers Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Devo, Tangerine Dream, Genesis, Phil Collins, OMD, the Human League, Culture Club, Simple Minds, Lenny Kravitz, the Sex Pistols, and Mike Oldfield among others, meaning that by the time it was sold, it was regarded as a major label, alongside other large international independents such as A&M and Island Records. Virgin Records was sold to EMI in 1992. EMI was in turn taken over by Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2012 with UMG creating the Virgin EMI Records division. The Virgin Records name continues to be used by UMG in certain markets such as Germany and Japan. Virgin Records America Virgin Records America, Inc. was the company's North American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EMI Classics
EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged in 1996, its recorded music division became the EMI Group. Following the European Commission's approval of the takeover of EMI Group by Universal Music in September 2012, EMI Classics was listed for divestment. The label was sold to Warner Music Group, which absorbed EMI Classics into Warner Classics in 2013. Classical recordings were formerly simultaneously released under combinations of Angel, Seraphim, Odeon, Columbia, His Master's Voice, and other labels, in part because competitors own these names in various countries. These were moved under the EMI Classics umbrella to avoid the trademark problems. Prior to this, compact discs distributed globally bore the Angel Records recording angel logo that EMI owned globally. Releases created for distribution in spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
