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Serenade To Music
''Serenade to Music'' is an orchestral concert work completed in 1938 by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, written as a tribute to conductor Sir Henry Wood. It features an orchestra and 16 vocal soloists, with lyrics adapted from the discussion about music and the music of the spheres from Act V, Scene I from the play ''The Merchant of Venice'' by William Shakespeare. Vaughan Williams later arranged the piece into versions for chorus and orchestra and solo violin and orchestra. History Vaughan Williams wrote the piece as a tribute to the conductor Sir Henry Wood to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Wood's first concert."Sir Henry Wood", ''The Times'', 6 October 1938, p. 10 The solo parts were composed specifically for the voices of sixteen eminent British singers chosen by Wood and the composer. In some parts of the work, the soloists sing together as a "choir," sometimes in as many as twelve parts; in others, each soloist is allotted a solo (some soloists get multiple solo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Music of Germany, Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muriel Brunskill
Muriel Lucy Brunskill (18 December 1899 – 18 February 1980) was an English contralto of the mid-twentieth century. Her career included concert, operatic and recital performance from the early 1920s until the 1950s. She worked with many of the leading musicians of her day, including Sir Thomas Beecham, Albert Coates, Felix Weingartner and Sir Henry Wood. Early years Muriel Brunskill was born in Kendal, Westmorland, England, daughter of Edmund Capstick Brunskill."Brunskill, Muriel" ''Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008''; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 1 May 2009 She studied singing in London and Paris with |
Robert Easton (bass)
Robert Miller Easton (8 June 1898 – 26 May 1987) was a British bass of the mid-twentieth century. He was known both in the concert hall, where he sang in oratorios and other choral works, and in opera, appearing in bass roles at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and on tour. In concert and on record Easton performed many popular ballads, and was one of the original sixteen soloists in Ralph Vaughan Williams's '' Serenade to Music'', premiered and recorded in 1938. In his later years he was a respected and sought-after adjudicator for singing competitions. Life and career Easton was born in Sunderland, on 8 June 1898. He joined a church choir at the age of six, and studied at Bede Collegiate School, Sunderland. When he was seventeen he joined the army.Chesterfield Items", ''Derbyshire Times'', 24 December 1943, p. 5 He was severely wounded in the First World War, having a leg amputated. He was in hospital for more than three years, and while he was there a colleague ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass (voice Type)
A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C (i.e., E2–E4).; ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'' gives E2–E4/F4 Its tessitura, or comfortable range, is normally defined by the outermost lines of the bass clef. Categories of bass voices vary according to national style and classification system. Italians favour subdividing basses into the ''basso cantante'' (singing bass), ''basso buffo'' ("funny" bass), or the dramatic ''basso profondo'' (low bass). The American system identifies the bass-baritone, comic bass, lyric bass, and dramatic bass. The German ''Fach'' system offers further distinctions: Spielbass (Bassbuffo), Schwerer Spielbass (Schwerer Bassbuffo), Charakterbass (Bassbariton), and Seriöser Bass. These classification systems can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Henderson (baritone)
Roy Galbraith Henderson CBE (4 July 1899 – 16 March 2000) was a British baritone singer, conductor and teacher. Born in Edinburgh and raised in Nottingham, Henderson began singing in public during the First World War, entertaining his army colleagues. After the war he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, where he won numerous prizes. Professionally he came to public notice in 1925 deputising at short notice in the difficult and important baritone part in Frederick Delius's ''A Mass of Life'' at a London concert. He maintained a successful concert career for the next 27 years, taking part in the premieres of many works by British composers. Henderson appeared in opera in two seasons at Covent Garden in 1928 and 1929, and was a founding member of the company of the Glyndebourne Festival, singing there in every season from 1935 to 1939. He was also well known as a recitalist, performing classic and new songs. He made many recordings, mainly for the Decca compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Williams (baritone)
Harold John Williams MBE (3 September 18935 June 1976) was an Australian baritone and music teacher. Born in Sydney, he had a career in England and his native country, performing in opera, oratorio and concerts and giving radio broadcasts. Early years Williams was born on 3 September 1893 at Woollahra, a suburb of Sydney, the third child of Owen Williams, a Victorian-born plumber, and his Scottish wife Isabella, née Wylie. Leaving Woollahra Superior Public School at 14, Harold worked as a messenger-boy, then as a railway stores clerk. He sang with the Waverley Methodist Church choir as a boy soprano and later an amateur baritone; but he found that 'football and cricket were the most absorbing affairs of my life'. He played for Waverley Cricket Club (1906–15) and Rugby Union as a wing-three-quarter with the Eastern Suburbs team, representing New South Wales against New Zealand in August 1914.Carmody, John. "Williams, Harold John (1893 - 1976)", ''Australian Dictionary of B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second A below middle C to the A above middle C (A2 to A4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, ''Kavalierbariton'', Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, ''baryton-noble'' baritone, and the bass-baritone. History The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century, usually in French sacred polyphonic music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gwynn Parry Jones
Parry Jones (14 February 1891 – 26 December 1963), known early in his career as Gwynn Jones, was a Welsh tenor of the mid-twentieth century. Life and career Gwynn Parry Jones was born in Blaina, Monmouthshire. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and in Weimar and Milan. Among his teachers were John Coates and Albert Visetti. Jones made his debut in 1914 and shortly thereafter went on an opera and concert tour to the United States. He was returning to England aboard the RMS ''Lusitania'' in May 1915 when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat. Over 1000 passengers and crew died, but Jones was one of 761 survivors. He joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in July 1917 playing principal tenor roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''Iolanthe'', ''Princess Ida'', and '' The Yeomen of the Guard''. He then joined the Beecham Opera Company and later was a founder member of the British National Opera Company. At this time he changed his professional name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Widdop
Walter Widdop (19 April 1892 – 6 September 1949) was a British operatic tenor who is best remembered for his Wagnerian performances. His repertoire also encompassed works by Verdi, Leoncavallo, Handel and Bach. Career Widdop was born at Norland, near Halifax, Yorkshire, England."Mr. Walter Widdop – A Fine English Tenor", ''The Times'', 7 September 1949, p. 7 As a teenager, he worked in a woollen mill and sang in a church choir. He also won a number of singing prizes in his native county, earning praise for his "God-given" voice, which was honed by a local teacher, Arthur Hinchcliffe. He served with the British Army during World War One and married in 1917. In 1923, Widdop made the first of many broadcasts for the BBC. In the same year, he made his professional operatic debut as Radames in Verdi's ''Aida'' with the British National Opera Company, in Leeds. He made his London debut the following year, in the title role in Wagner's ''Siegfried'' at the Royal Opera House, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Titterton
Frank Titterton (31 December 1893, in Handsworth – 24 November 1956, in London) was a well-known British lyric tenor of the mid-twentieth century. He was noted for his musicianship. Titterton trained originally as an actor and was a member of The Pilgrim Players (which became the Birmingham Repertory Theatre) run by Sir Barry Jackson. He began to sing as an amateur, appearing in operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan and others in Birmingham before studying singing with Ernesto Beraldi and Charles Victor in London. He then left his stage career to work as a song recitalist and in Oratorio in Britain and Holland. He later became a sought-after singing teacher in London. Titterton's career was mainly in the concert hall, though he was also a prolific broadcaster and recording artist for Vocalion, Broadcast, Columbia and Decca. Most titles were recorded under his own name, but he also used the pseudonyms 'Francesco Vada' and 'Norton Collyer'. Like many British singers of his era he spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heddle Nash
William Heddle Nash (14 June 189414 August 1961) was an English lyric tenor who appeared in opera and oratorio. He made numerous recordings that are still available on CD reissues. Nash's voice was of the light tenor class known as "tenore di grazia". The critic J. B. Steane referred to him as "the English lyric tenor ''par excellence'', without equal then or now." He appeared in tenor roles in operas by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Puccini among others, at the Royal Opera House, and the Glyndebourne Festival. His operatic career lasted from 1924 to 1958. As a concert singer, Nash was known for his performances in oratorio, and in particular in the title role of Elgar's ''The Dream of Gerontius'', making the first gramophone recording of the work, in 1945. Biography Early years Nash was born in the South London district of Deptford on 14 June 1894, the son of William Nash, master builder, and his wife, Harriet Emma ''née'' Carr.Baker, Anne Pimlott"Nash, (William) Heddle (189 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word ''wikt:teneo#Latin, tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the [tenor was the] structurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
