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Unified Field
In music, unified field is the 'unity of musical space' created by the free use of melodic material as harmonic material and vice versa. The technique is most associated with the twelve-tone technique, created by its 'total thematicism' where a tone-row (melody) generates all (harmonic) material. It was also used by Alexander Scriabin, though from a diametrically opposed direction, created by his use of extremely slow harmonic rhythm which eventually led to his use of unordered pitch-class sets, usually hexachords (of six pitches) as harmony from which melody may also be created. It may also be observed in Igor Stravinsky's Russian period, such as in ''Les Noces'', derived from his use of folk melodies as generating material and influenced by shorter pieces by Claude Debussy, such as ''Voiles'', and Modest Mussorgsky. In Béla Bartók's Bagatelles, and several of Alfredo Casella's ''Nine Piano Pieces'' such as No. 4 'In Modo Burlesco' the close intervallic relationship between mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melody
A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as Timbre, tonal color. It is the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part (music), part need not be a foreground melody. Melodies often consist of one or more musical Phrase (music), phrases or Motif (music), motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a musical composition, composition in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the interval (music), intervals between pitches (predominantly steps and skips, conjunct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension (music), tension and release, continuity and coheren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as " The Five". He was an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music. Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other national themes. Such works include the opera '' Boris Godunov'', the orchestral tone poem ''Night on Bald Mountain'' and the piano suite ''Pictures at an Exhibition''. For many years, Mussorgsky's works were mainly known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have posthumously come into their own in their original forms, and some of the original scores are now also ava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitch Space
In music theory, pitch spaces model relationships between pitches. These models typically use distance to model the degree of relatedness, with closely related pitches placed near one another, and less closely related pitches placed farther apart. Depending on the complexity of the relationships under consideration, the models may be multidimensional. Models of pitch space are often graphs, groups, lattices, or geometrical figures such as helixes. Pitch spaces distinguish octave-related pitches. When octave-related pitches are not distinguished, we have instead pitch class spaces, which represent relationships between pitch classes. (Some of these models are discussed in the entry on modulatory space, though readers should be advised that the term "modulatory space" is not a standard music-theoretical term.) Chordal spaces model relationships between chords. Linear and helical pitch space The simplest pitch space model is the real line. A fundamental frequency ''f'' is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphony
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, homophony. Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term ''polyphony'' is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the ''species'' terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another. In all cases the conception was probably what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque period. The term originates from the Latin ''punctus contra punctum'' meaning "point against point", i.e. "note against note". In Western pedagogy, counterpoint is taught through a system of species (see below). There are several different forms of counterpoint, including imitative counterpoint and free counterpoint. Imitative counterpoint involves the repetition of a main melodic idea across different vocal parts, with or without variation. Compositions written in free counterpoint often incorporate non-traditional harmonies and chords, chromaticism and dissonance. General principles The term "counterpoint" has been us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consonance And Dissonance
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed, "The two concepts have never been completely explained, and for a thousand years the definitions have varied". The term ''sonance'' has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms ''consonance'' and ''dissonance' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfredo Casella
Alfredo Casella (25 July 18835 March 1947) was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor. Life and career Casella was born in Turin, the son of Maria (née Bordino) and Carlo Casella. His family included many musicians: his grandfather, a friend of Paganini, was first cello in the San Carlo Theatre in Lisbon and eventually became soloist in the Royal Chapel in Turin. Alfredo's father, Carlo, was also a professional cellist, as were Carlo's brothers Cesare and Gioacchino; his mother was a pianist, who gave the boy his first music lessons. Alfredo entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1896 to study piano under Louis Diémer and composition under Gabriel Fauré; in these classes, Lazare-Lévy, George Enescu and Maurice Ravel were among his fellow students. During his Parisian period, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla were acquaintances, and he was also in contact with Ferruccio Busoni, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. Casella developed a deep admi ... [...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 Turócszentmárton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, '' Pelléas et Mélisande''. Debussy's orchestral works include ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' (1894), ''Nocturnes'' (1897–1899) and ''Images'' (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However, harmony is generally understood to involve both vertical harmony (chords) and horizontal harmony ( melody). Harmony is a perceptual property of music, and, along with melody, one of the building blocks of Western music. Its perception is based on consonance, a concept whose definition has changed various times throughout Western music. In a physiological approach, consonance is a continuous variable. Consonant pitch relationships are described as sounding more pleasant, euphonious, and beautiful than dissonant relationships which sound unpleasant, discordant, or rough. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Counterpoint, which refers to ... [...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] |
Hexachord
In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six-note series, as exhibited in a scale (hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial theory. The word is taken from the gr, ἑξάχορδος, compounded from ἕξ (''hex'', six) and χορδή (''chordē'', string f the lyre whence "note"), and was also the term used in music theory up to the 18th century for the interval of a sixth ("hexachord major" being the major sixth and "hexachord minor" the minor sixth). Middle Ages The hexachord as a mnemonic device was first described by Guido of Arezzo, in his ''Epistola de ignoto cantu''. In each hexachord, all adjacent pitches are a whole tone apart, except for the middle two, which are separated by a semitone. These six pitches are named ''ut'', ''re'', ''mi'', ''fa'', ''sol'', and ''la'', with the semitone between ''mi'' and ''fa''. These six names are derived from the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
