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Christmas Story (Schütz)
The ''Christmas Story'' (''Weihnachtshistorie''), SWV 435, is a musical setting of the Nativity in German by Heinrich Schütz, probably first performed in 1660 in Dresden. It was published as ''Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi'' (''Historia'' of the birth of Jesus Christ). History and words ''Christmas Story'' is a '' Historia'', a setting of the Gospel intended to be performed during a service instead of the Gospel reading. The original title read: ''Historia der freuden- und gnadenreichen Geburt Gottes und Marien Sohnes Jesu Christi'' (''Historia'' of the joyful und blessed birth of Jesus Christ, son of God and Mary). Schütz had composed a ''Resurrection Story'' (Auferstehungshistorie) already in 1623, when he had taken the position of ''Kapellmeister'' at the court of the Elector of Saxony. The music was probably first performed in a Christmas service at the court chapel of Johann Georg II, Elector of Saxony, in Dresden in 1660. Schütz mentions the elector in the long titl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the Early Baroque. Most of his surviving music was written for the Lutheran church, primarily for the Electoral Chapel in Dresden. He wrote what is traditionally considered the first German opera, '' Dafne'', performed at Torgau in 1627, the music of which has since been lost, along with nearly all of his ceremonial and theatrical scores. Schütz was a prolific composer, with more than 500 surviving works. He is commemorated as a musician in the Calendar of Saints of some North American Lutheran churches on 28 July with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Early life Schütz was born in Köstritz, the eldest son of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantor (church)
In Christianity, the cantor, sometimes called the precentor or the protopsaltes (; from ), is the chief singer, and usually instructor, employed at a church, with responsibilities for the choir and the preparation of the Mass or worship service. Generally, a cantor must be competent to choose and conduct the vocals for the choir, to start any chant on demand, and to be able to identify and correct the missteps of singers placed under them. A cantor may be held accountable for the immediate rendering of the music, showing the course of the melody by movements of the hand(s) (''cheironomia''), similar to a conductor. Western Christianity Roman Catholicism Before and after the Second Vatican Council, a ''cantor'' in the Roman Catholic Church was the leading singer of the choir, a ''bona fide'' clerical role. The medieval cantor of the papal Schola Cantorum was called ''Prior scholae'' or '' Primicerius''. In medieval cathedrals, the cantor or precentor directed the music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing 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 '' 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 enor was thestructurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that sang such parts. All other voices were normal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, and disease, while some areas of what is now modern Germany experienced population declines of over 50%. Related conflicts include the Eighty Years' War, the War of the Mantuan Succession, the Franco-Spanish War, and the Portuguese Restoration War. Until the 20th century, historians generally viewed it as a continuation of the religious struggle initiated by the 16th-century Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire. The 1555 Peace of Augsburg attempted to resolve this by dividing the Empire into Lutheran and Catholic states, but over the next 50 years the expansion of Protestantism beyond these boundaries destabilised the settlement. While most modern commentators accept differences over religion and Imperial authority were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basso Continuo
Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part are called the ''continuo group''. Forces The composition of the continuo group is often left to the discretion of the performers (or, for a large performance, the conductor), and practice varied enormously within the Baroque period. At least one instrument capable of playing chords must be included, such as a harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, regal, or harp. In addition, any number of instruments that play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol, or bassoon. In modern performances of chamber works, the most common combination is harpsichord and cello for instrumental works and secular vocal works, such as operas, and organ and cello for sacred music. A double bass may b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate. Nearly all trombones use a telescoping slide mechanism to alter the pitch instead of the valves used by other brass instruments. The valve trombone is an exception, using three valves similar to those on a trumpet, and the superbone has valves and a slide. The word "trombone" derives from Italian ''tromba'' (trumpet) and ''-one'' (a suffix meaning "large"), so the name means "large trumpet". The trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like the trumpet, in contrast to the more conical brass instruments like the cornet, the euphonium, and the French horn. The most frequently encountered trombones are the tenor trombone and bass trombone. These are treated as non-transposing instruments, reading at concert pitch in bass clef, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B or C trumpet. Trumpet-like instruments have historically been used as signaling devices in battle or hunting, with examples dating back to at least 1500 BC. They began to be used as musical instruments only in the late 14th or early 15th century. Trumpets are used in art music styles, for instance in orchestras, concert bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as in popular music. They are played by blowing air through nearly-closed lips (called the player's embouchure), producing a "buzzing" sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the instrument. Since the late 15th century, trumpets have primarily been constructed of brass tubing, usually bent twice into a rounded rectangular shape. There are many disti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recorder (musical Instrument)
The recorder is a family of woodwind musical instruments in the group known as ''internal duct flutes'': flutes with a whistle mouthpiece, also known as fipple flutes. A recorder can be distinguished from other duct flutes by the presence of a thumb-hole for the upper hand and seven finger-holes: three for the upper hand and four for the lower. It is the most prominent duct flute in the western classical tradition. Recorders are made in various sizes with names and compasses roughly corresponding to various vocal ranges. The sizes most commonly in use today are the soprano (also known as descant, lowest note C5), alto (also known as treble, lowest note F4), tenor (lowest note C4), and bass (lowest note F3). Recorders were traditionally constructed from wood or ivory. Modern professional instruments are almost invariably of wood, often boxwood; student and scholastic recorders are commonly of molded plastic. The recorders' internal and external proportions vary, but the bore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viola Da Gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic ''rebab'' and the medieval European vielle,Otterstedt, Annette. ''The Viol: History of an Instrument. ''Kassel: Barenreiter;-Verlag Karl Votterle GmbH & Co; 2002. but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian ''viole'' and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish '' vihue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 (some can have five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a 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 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 in jazz. Electric violins with solid bodies and piezoelectri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carus-Verlag
Carus-Verlag is a German music publisher founded in 1972 and based in Stuttgart. Carus was founded by choral conductor Günter Graulich and his wife Waltraud with an emphasis on choral repertoire. The catalogue currently includes more than 26,000 works (January 2016). The company produces the standard editions of the complete works of Josef Rheinberger and Max Reger.''Harald Wanger, Rheinberger-Archivar, Organist, Pädagoge'' Harald Wanger, Franz-Georg Rössler, Robert Allgäuer - 2003 p. 48 Carus-Verlag, Musikalische Schätze abseits bekannter Pfade - Harald Wanger und der Carus-Verlag "Für den Carus-Verlag ist die Verbindung zu Harald Wanger und dem Josef Rheinberger-Archiv ein Glücksfall." Record label The company also produces CDs to accompany some of its printed editions. Currently the publishers are working on recordings accompanying the complete editions of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (22 November 17101 July 1784), the second child and eldest s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baroque Instruments
Musical instruments used in Baroque music were partly used already before, partly are still in use today, but with no technology. The movement to perform music in a historically informed way, trying to recreate the sound of the period, led to the use of historic instruments of the period and to the reconstruction of instruments. The following table lists instruments, classified as brass instruments, woodwinds, strings, and basso continuo. The continuous bass is played by a group of instruments, depending on the given situation. Many instruments have an Italian or French name which is used as a common name also in English. The use of instruments by composers is shown in examples mostly by Johann Sebastian Bach. Table of instruments Baroque instrumentation The typical orchestra of the Baroque period is based on string instruments (violin, viola) and continuo. A continuous bass is the rule in Baroque music; its absence is worth mentioning and has a reason, such as describin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
