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Thomas Baker (musician)
Thomas Baker was a nineteenth-century composer and musical producer. A violinist, Baker came to the United States from England with the orchestra of Louis Antoine Jullien in 1853. His first Broadway production, ''Novelty'', opened at Laura Keene's Variety House on February 22, 1856. In 1861, Baker published the first "sheet-music publication of any black spiritual", ''Song of the Contrabands''. His efforts were later criticized as betraying a lack of knowledge of black music, for having "turned the slave song into a parlor ballad in 6/8 time". He was credited with writing the music for the 1866 stage production ''The Black Crook'', which premiered at Niblo's Garden in New York City, using a melodrama and a French ballet troupe whose venue burnt to the ground while they still rehearsed. The "result was an unprecedented triumph", and was one of the major events in the early history of the extravaganza. The production "is frequently cited as the first real precursor to the twenti ...
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History Of The American Stage - Baker, Thomas
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the ...
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Extravaganza
An extravaganza is a literary or musical work (often musical theatre) usually containing elements of burlesque, pantomime, music hall and parody in a spectacular production and characterized by freedom of style and structure. It sometimes also has elements of cabaret, circus, revue, variety, vaudeville and mime. ''Extravaganza'' may more broadly refer to an elaborate, spectacular, and expensive theatrical production. 19th-century British dramatist, James Planché, was known for his extravaganzas. Planché defined the genre as "the whimsical treatment of a poetical subject."Planché. ''The recollections and reflections of J.R. Planché (Somerset herald): a professional biography'' (1872), Vol. II, p. 43 The term is derived from the Italian word ''stravaganza'', meaning extravagance. See also *Spectacle *Victorian burlesque Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza, is a genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in Victorian era, Victorian Eng ...
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19th-century Composers
The 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 ( MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 ( MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium. The 19th century was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanding beyond its British homeland for the first time during this century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Islamic gunpowder empires fell into decline and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and almost all of Africa under colonial rule. It was also marked by the collapse of the large S ...
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Year Of Death Missing
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar year (the me ...
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Year Of Birth Missing
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar year (the mea ...
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The Seven Sisters (play)
''The Seven Sisters'' was an 1860 musical burlesque extravaganza produced at Laura Keene's Theatre in New York which ran for 253 consecutive performances, making it a tremendous success for its time. The play debuted on November 26, 1860, and ran through August 10, 1861. Though considered "rubbish" by critics, Winter, WilliamBrief Chronicles, Part I p. 180 (1889) it was an important precursor to 1866's ''The Black Crook''. Background The piece was a gamble by Keene, in the hope that the elaborate and expensive scenery of the show, as well as the singing actresses and many dancers, would draw crowds. The ''New York Clipper'' noted that the women wore "shocking low-necked dresses" and "tight-fitting clothes".Ashby, LeRoyWith Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830 pp. 109-10 (2006) The loose storyline was from an adaptation by Thomas B. DeWalden of a German piece called ''The Seven Daughters of Satan''; probably ''Die Töchter Luzifers'' ("The Daughters ...
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Aladdin
Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of the original text; it was added by the Frenchman Antoine Galland, based on a folk tale that he heard from the Syrian Maronite storyteller Hanna Diyab.Razzaque (2017) Sources Known along with Ali Baba as one of the "orphan tales", the story was not part of the original ''Nights'' collection and has no authentic Arabic textual source, but was incorporated into the book ''Les mille et une nuits'' by its French translator, Antoine Galland. John Payne quotes passages from Galland's unpublished diary: recording Galland's encounter with a Maronite storyteller from Aleppo, Hanna Diyab. According to Galland's diary, he met with Hanna, who had travelled from Aleppo to Paris with celebrated French traveller Paul Lucas, on March 25, 1709. Gal ...
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Cinderella
"Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a young woman living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between around 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.Roger Lancelyn Green: ''Tales of Ancient Egypt'', Penguin UK, 2011, , chapter "The Land of Egypt" The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in his ''Pentamerone'' in 1634; the version that is now most widely known in the English-speaking world was published in French by Charles ...
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Niblo's Garden
Niblo's Garden was a theater on Broadway and Crosby Street, near Prince Street, in SoHo, Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1823 as "Columbia Garden" which in 1828 gained the name of the ''Sans Souci'' and was later the property of the coffeehouse proprietor and caterer William Niblo. The large theater that evolved in several stages, occupying more and more of the pleasure ground, was twice burned and rebuilt. On September 12, 1866, Niblo's saw the premiere of ''The Black Crook'', considered to be the first piece of musical theater that conforms to the modern notion of a "book musical". Evolution of the building site William Niblo built Niblo's Theater in 1834 after having opened a "resort" which at first only served coffee, ice cream, lemonade and other refreshments. At the time New York was undergoing a construction boom that was extending clusters of buildings much past the locale of City Hall. The garden, surrounded by a plain board fence, covered the block bou ...
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Violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular use. The violin typically has four strings (music), strings (some can have five-string violin, five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow (music), bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical music, Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bluegrass music, and ...
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The Black Crook
''The Black Crook'' is a work of musical theatre first produced in New York City with great success in 1866. Many theatre writers have cautiously identified ''The Black Crook'' as the first popular piece that conforms to the modern notion of a musical.Reside, Doug"Musical of the Month: ''The Black Crook''" New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, June 2, 2011, accessed June 21, 2018 The book is by Charles M. Barras. The music, selected and arranged by Thomas Baker, consists mostly of adaptations, but it included some new songs composed for the piece, notably "You Naughty, Naughty Men". The story is a Faustian melodramatic romantic comedy, but the production became famous for its spectacular special effects and skimpy costumes. It opened on September 12, 1866 at the 3,200-seat Niblo's Garden on Broadway in Manhattan and ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. It was then toured extensively for decades and revived on Broadway in 1870–71, 1871–72 and many more times ...
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Spiritual (music)
Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs," work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature (but not continuation) of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres emerged from the spirituals songcraft. Prior to the end of the US ...
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