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Jānis Mediņš
Jānis Mediņš (October 9, 1890 – March 4, 1966) was a Latvian composer. Life He was born in Riga. He was a vital force in musical life during the short-lived first independent Latvian republic (1918—40). He almost singlehandly established in his country both the balletic genre – with ''Mīlas uzvara'' (‘Love's Victory’, 1934) – and the operatic with ''Uguns un nakts'' (‘Fire and Night’, 1913—19) and ''Dievi un cilvēki'' (‘Gods and People’, 1921). It was as a result of multiple invasions of his country that Mediņš left Latvia in 1944, eventually settling for good in Sweden. Jānis Mediņš's memoir ''Toņi un pustoņi'' (‘Tones and Semitones’, published in Stockholm in 1964), provides posterity with many details of his early years. As an old man – it was written between autumn 1962 and spring 1963 in collaboration with Jānis Rudzītis – he characterised his life as ‘rich in experience, though difficult ... having lived through Tsarist eras (La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riga
Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planning Region, Riga metropolitan area, which stretches beyond the city limits, is estimated at 847,162 (as of 2025). The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava (river), Daugava river where it meets the Baltic Sea. Riga's territory covers and lies above sea level on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201, and is a former Hanseatic League member. Riga's historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture in 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden. Riga hosted the 2006 Riga summit, 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship, and the 2006 IIHF Wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part (in contrast to orchestral music, in which each string part is played by a number of performers). However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances. Because of its intimate nature, chamber music has been described as "the music of friends". For more than 100 years, chamber music was played primarily by amateur musicians in their homes, and even today, when chamber music performance has migrated from the home to the concert hall, many musicians, amateur and professional, still play chamber music for their own pleasure. Playing chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets ''Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the ''1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no public music education system. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arensky
Anton Stepanovich Arensky (; – ) was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music. Biography Arensky was born into an affluent, music-loving family in Novgorod, Russia. He was musically precocious and had composed a number of songs and piano pieces by the age of nine. With his mother and father, he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1879, where he studied composition privately with Karl Karlovich Zikke (1850-1890) and later at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1882, Arensky became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. During his twelve years of a professorship at Moscow, Arensky counted Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Glière, Grechaninov, Goldenweiser and Medtner, along with the celebrated pianist Igumnov, among his students. In 1895, Arensky returned to Saint Petersburg as the director of the Imperial Choir, a post for which he had been recommended by Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness, dense contrapuntal textures, and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he used his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff began learning the piano at the age of four. He studied piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1892, having already written several compositions. In 1897, following the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haapsalu
Haapsalu () is a seaside resort town located on the west coast of Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Lääne County, and on 1 January 2020 it had a population of 9,375. History The name ''Haapsalu'' derives from the Estonian words ''haab'' 'aspen' and ''salu'' in the archaic sense '(forested) island' (now 'grove'). Until the first half of the 20th century, in Swedish and German the town was called ''Hapsal''. Haapsalu and the surrounding area was the center for the Estonian Swedes from the 13th century until the evacuation of almost all ethnic Swedes from Estonia prior to the Soviet invasion of Estonia during World War II in 1944. The first written record of Haapsalu dates back to 1279, when the town was chartered and became the capital of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, which it remained for the following three centuries. Buildings from those early days remain today, including an episcopal castle, which has the largest single-nave church in Estonia. Neighborhood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aspazija
Aspazija was the pen name of Elza Johanna Emilija Lizete Pliekšāne (née Elza Rozenberga; 16 March 1865 – 5 November 1943), a Latvian poet and playwright. Aspazija is the Latvian transliteration of Aspasia. Biography Aspazija was born and raised in a wealthy peasant family in the Dobele county of Courland Governorate near Jelgava in 1865, where she studied and was active in youth organizations. She left the gymnasium during the last year of her studies, and in 1886, married Wilhelm Max Valter. Later, she became interested in literature, mainly by German authors. Her first publication appeared in 1887 in the newspaper ''Dienas Lapa''. In 1891, she divorced her husband and, until 1893, worked as a private teacher in Jaunsvirlauka. In 1893, she settled in Riga and started to work as a journalist. In 1894, her first plays ''Vaidelote'' and ''Zaudētās tiesības'' were staged in Riga. In those years she met Jānis Pliekšāns (better known as Rainis), a newspaper editor, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jāzeps Vītols
Jāzeps Vītols (; 26 July 1863 – 24 April 1948) was a Latvian composer, pedagogue and music critic. He is considered one of the fathers of Latvian classical music. Biography Vītols, born in Valmiera the son of a schoolteacher, began his studies in composition in 1880 at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.Naxos profile. After graduating in 1886, he remained at the Conservatory to teach composition and reached the rank of Professor in 1901. His pupils there included Nikolai Myaskovsky and Sergei Prokofiev. Vītols was a close friend of fellow professors Alexander Glazunov and Anatoly Lyadov; he would regularly participate at Mitrofan Belyayev's "Weekly Fridays"—regular meetings of prominent Russian composers at Belyayev's home. At the time, Belyayev was Vītols' primary publisher. Besides academia, Vītols also spent time as a music critic for the ''St Petersburger Zeitung'' from 1897 to 1914. In 1918, Vītols returned from Russia to his ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Life For The Tsar
''A Life for the Tsar'' ( ) is a "patriotic-heroic tragic" opera in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. During the Soviet era the opera was known under the name '' Ivan Susanin'' ( ), due to the anti-monarchist censorship. The original Russian libretto, based on historical events, was written by Nestor Kukolnik, Egor Fyodorovich (von) Rozen, Vladimir Sollogub and Vasily Zhukovsky. It premiered on 27 November 1836 OS (9 December NS) at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg. The historical basis of the plot involves Ivan Susanin, a patriotic hero of the early 17th century who died in the expulsion of the invading Polish army for the newly elected Tsar Michael of Russia, the first of the Romanov dynasty, elected in 1613. History Composition history The plot of ''A Life for the Tsar'' had been used earlier in 1815, when Catterino Cavos, an Italian-Russian composer, had written a two-act singspiel with the same subject and title. The original title of the ope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undina (Tchaikovsky)
''Undina'' (sometimes ''Undine'' or ''Ondine'') ( ) is an opera in three acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The work was composed in 1869. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sollogub, and is based on Vasily Zhukovsky's translation of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's novella '' Ondine''. History The opera was composed during the months of January to July 1869, but Tchaikovsky destroyed the score in 1873, preserving only a few numbers from the opera. The opera has never been performed in its entirety. The only extracts that survive are: #Introduction #Aria: "Waterfall, my uncle, streamlet, my brother" (Undina) #Chorus: "Help, help! Our stream is raging" #Duet: "O happiness, O blessed moment" (Undina, Huldbrand) #Chorus: "O hours of death" (soloists, chorus) At least three of these pieces – the aria, the duet, and the final chorus – were performed at the Moscow premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 28 March 1870. Some music from the opera was subsequently re-used in Tch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smallholding
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, Family farm, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient. Still, they may be valued for providing supplemental sustenance, recreation, and general rural lifestyle appreciation (often as hobby farms). As the Sustainable food system, sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability in the developed world as well. Small-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
