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String Orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first and second violin players (each usually playing different parts), the viola, the cello, and usually, but not always, the double bass. String orchestras can be of chamber orchestra size ranging from between 12 (4 first violins, 3 second violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and 1 bass = 12) and 21 musicians (6 first violins, 5 second violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos and 2 double basses= 21) sometimes performing without a conductor. It could also consist of the entire string section of a large symphony orchestra which could have 60 musicians (16 first violins, 14 second violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos and 8 double basses = 60; '' Gurre-Lieder'' calls for 84: 20.20.16.16.12). Repertoire The repertoire includes several works by Mozart (including '' Eine klei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hereford String Orchestra Spring Concert 2010
Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population of 53,112 in 2021 it is by far the largest settlement in Herefordshire. An early town charter from 1189, granted by Richard I of England, describes it as "Hereford in Wales". Hereford has been recognised as a city since time immemorial, with the status being reconfirmed as recently as October 2000. It is now known chiefly as a trading centre for a wider agricultural and rural area. Products from Hereford include cider, beer, leather goods, nickel alloys, poultry, chemicals and sausage rolls, as well as the famous Hereford breed of cattle. Toponymy The Herefordshire edition of Cambridge County Geographies states "a Welsh derivation of Hereford is more probable than a Saxon one" but the name "Hereford" is also said to come f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led him to be called "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet". Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their Eszterháza Castle. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely, and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and the elder brother of composer Michael Haydn. Biography Early life Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, a village that at that time stood on the border with Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen (; June 9, 1938 – March 11, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He performed his works and other 20th-century music as pianist and conductor. He composed more than 270 works, including orchestral music, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works, and operas such as ''Brokeback Mountain''. Salman Rushdie and Annie Proulx have collaborated with him. Wuorinen's work has been called serialist, but he came to disparage that term as meaningless. His '' Time's Encomium'', his only purely electronic piece, received the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Wuorinen also taught at several institutions, including Columbia University and Manhattan School of Music. Life and career Background Wuorinen was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. His father, John H. Wuorinen, the chair of the history department at Columbia University, was a noted scholar of Scandinavian affairs, who also worked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variations On A Theme Of Frank Bridge
Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals or the differences between populations ** Human genetic variation, genetic differences in and among populations of humans * Magnetic variation, difference between magnetic north and true north, measured as an angle * ''p''-variation in mathematical analysis, a family of seminorms of functions * Coefficient of variation in probability theory and statistics, a standardized measure of dispersion of a probability distribution or frequency distribution * Total variation in mathematical analysis, a way of quantifying the change in a function over a subset of \mathbb^n or a measure space * Calculus of variations in mathematical analysis, a method of finding maxima and minima of functionals Arts * Variation (ballet) or pas seul, solo dance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simple Symphony
The ''Simple Symphony'', Op. 4, is a work for string orchestra or string quartet by Benjamin Britten. It was written between December 1933 and February 1934 in Lowestoft, using material that the composer had written as a young teenager, between 1923 and 1926. It received its first performance in 1934 at Stuart Hall in Norwich, with Britten conducting an amateur orchestra. The piece is dedicated to Audrey Alston (Mrs Lincolne Sutton), Britten's viola teacher during his childhood. The piece is based on eight themes which Britten wrote during his childhood (two per movement) and for which he had a particular fondness. He completed his final draft of this piece at age twenty. Instrumentation *1st violins *2nd violins *Violas *Cellos *Double basses Borrowed themes The symphony has four movements, each quoting themes from two earlier works by Britten: :I. Boisterous Bourrée ::– Suite No. 1 in E for piano (18 October 1925), second movement (Bourrée: Allegro vivace) ::– Song (Son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece '' The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the ''a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musique Funèbre
''Musique funèbre'' ( pl, Muzyka żałobna; ''Funereal Music'' or ''Music of Mourning'') is a composition for string orchestra by the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, completed in 1958. History Lutosławski began composing ''Musique funèbre'' in late 1954 and completed it in 1958. The piece is scored for a small string orchestra of four violins, two violas, two cellos, and two basses. Its first performance occurred on March 26, 1958 in Katowice by the National Polish Radio Orchestra under the direction of Jan Krenz, who commissioned the piece to honor its dedicatee, Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ... . It received a notable performance later that year at the Warsaw Autumn Festival . In 1959 it won both the Polish Composers' Union Prize as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witold Lutosławski
Witold Roman Lutosławski (; 25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among the major composers of 20th-century classical music, he is "generally regarded as the most significant Polish composer since Szymanowski, and possibly the greatest Polish composer since Chopin". His compositions—of which he was a notable conductor—include representatives of most traditional genres, aside from opera: symphonies, concertos, orchestral song cycles, other orchestral works, and chamber works. Among his best known works are his four symphonies, the Variations on a Theme by Paganini (1941), the Concerto for Orchestra (1954), and his cello concerto (1970). During his youth, Lutosławski studied piano and composition in Warsaw. His early works were influenced by Polish folk music and demonstrated a wide range of rich atmospheric textures. His folk-inspired music includes the Concerto for Orchestra (1954)—which first brought him international ren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo (ballet)
''Apollo'' (originally ''Apollon musagète'' and variously known as ''Apollo musagetes'', ''Apolo Musageta'', and ''Apollo, Leader of the Muses'') is a neoclassical ballet in two '' tableaux'' composed between 1927 and 1928 by Igor Stravinsky. It was choreographed in 1928 by twenty-four-year-old George Balanchine, with the composer contributing the libretto. The scenery and costumes were designed by André Bauchant, with new costumes by Coco Chanel in 1929. The scenery was executed by Alexander Shervashidze, with costumes under the direction of Mme. A. Youkine. The American patron of the arts Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge had commissioned the ballet in 1927 for a festival of contemporary music to be held the following year at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The story centres on Apollo, the Greek god of music, who is visited by three Muses: Terpsichore, muse of dance and song; Polyhymnia, muse of mime; and Calliope, muse of poetry. The ballet takes Classical antiqui ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divertimento For String Orchestra (Bartók)
Divertimento for String Orchestra Sz.113 BB.118 is a three-movement work composed by Béla Bartók in 1939, scored for full orchestral strings. Paul Sacher, a Swiss conductor, patron, impresario, and the founder of the chamber orchestra ''Basler Kammerorchester'', commissioned Bartók to compose the Divertimento, which is now known to be the pair's last collaborative work. Divertimento The term "Divertimento" (Italian for "diversion") denotes a work primarily designed for the entertainment of both the listeners and the performers. The divertimento was popularized in the Classical period by Haydn, Boccherini, and Mozart. This is a neo-classical work constructed around modal tonalities, but it cannot simply be defined as a modernist work or a strictly neoclassical work. One of the most evident neoclassical characteristics is the treatment of texture. Frequently, a small group of soloists contrasts the whole orchestra, greatly varying the work's texture. This is reminiscent of the Bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. Biography Childhood and early years (1881–98) Bartók was born in the Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a Catholic of Bunjevci origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók's father (1855–1888) was also named Béla. Bartók's mother, Paula (née Voit) (1857–1939), also spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmár ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
