Astrée (record Label)
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Astrée (record Label)
Michel Bernstein (Paris, 1931 – Paris, October 31, 2006) was a French musical producer and founder of several record labels. Bernstein's first contact with classical music was hearing the school music teacher play Beethoven on an out-of-tune piano at the age of 15, but thereafter he took a lively interest in music and recordings. Vendôme Bernstein founded his first record label, Vendôme, in 1954, which released only 5 LPs. The first release was the world premiere recording of Debussy's Proses Lyriques, by Flore Wend a Swiss soprano living in Paris, accompanied by the pianist Odette Gartenlaub, engineered by André Charlin, and recorded at the Salle Adyar, Paris. The LP also included the Chansons de Bilitis and Ballades de François Villon, and received glowing reviews in the French magazine Disques. The next release was of the organist Pierre Cochereau playing Bach on the organ of the Église Saint-Roch. Followed by another disc of Bach, the Orgelbüchlein, with the Dani ...
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Debussy
Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, 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 (opera), Pelléas et Mélisande''. Debussy's orchestral works include ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' (1894), ''Nocturnes (Debussy), Nocturnes'' (1897–1899 ...
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Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist, and conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many consider the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as "populist" and which he called his "vernacular" style. Works in this vein include the ballets ''Appalachian Spring'', ''Billy the Kid (ballet), Billy the Kid'' and ''Rodeo (ballet), Rodeo'', his ''Fanfare for the Common Man'' and Symphony No. 3 (Copland), Third Symphony. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera, and film scores. After some initial studie ...
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Supraphon
Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, oriented mainly towards publishing classical music and popular music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers. History The Supraphon name was first registered as a trademark in 1932. The name was used for the label of domestic albums produced for export by Ultraphon company. After World War II, Ultraphon was nationalized and its name changed to ''Gramofonové závody''. In 1961, the name was changed to ''Gramofonové závody – Supraphon'' and later simplified to ''Supraphon'' in 1969. In Czechoslovakia, Supraphon was one of the three major state-owned labels, the other two being Panton and Opus. By January 2013, Supraphon was the official Czech distributor for the Warner Music Group. The Czech branch of Warner Music revived after the company acquired EMI Czech Republic. Panton is currently a division of Supraphon. Opus, operating in Slovakia, became independent after the break-up of Czechoslovakia and was acquire ...
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Miroslav Venhoda
Miroslav Venhoda (4 August 1915 in Moravské Budějovice – 10 May 1987 in Prague) was a Czech choral conductor who specialized in the performance of Renaissance and Baroque music, via his ensemble The Prague Madrigalists (''Pražští madrigalisté'' in the original language), which he founded in 1956. Trained during the 1930s at Prague's Charles University, Venhoda spent the war years as choral director and organist at the city's Strahov (Dominican) monastery; a book he published in 1946, called ''Method of Studying Gregorian Chant'', drew on this experience. He first achieved an international reputation for his LP discs with the Madrigalists, which began appearing in the early 1960s and continued till the mid-1970s. These discs, mostly for the Supraphon label, included a great many world premiere recordings of composers such as Dufay, Ockeghem, Obrecht, and Jacobus Gallus, as well as of more frequently performed masters such as Palestrina, Lassus, Monteverdi, Dowland ...
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Prague Madrigalists
The Prague Madrigalists (or Prague Madrigal Singers; in Czech: Pražští madrigalisté) is a Czech chamber music ensemble founded in 1956 as ''Noví pěvci madrigalů a komorní hudby'' (in English: New Madrigal and Chamber Music Singers) by the organist and composer Miroslav Venhoda. It was renamed to Prague Madrigalists and professionalized in 1967. The ensemble focuses on performing vocal and instrumental music of the 15th - 17th century, however, occasionally they also perform music of contemporary composers. The Prague Madrigalists were a subdivision of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra up to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Their recordings were released on labels such as Supraphon. Selected discography *Guillaume Dufay: Missae Ave regina caelorum / Ecce ancilla Domini (Supraphon, 11 0637-2) *Claudio Monteverdi: Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Supraphon, SU 3294-2) * Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic, Jacob Handl-Gallus: Missa quinis vocibus etc - Harmoniae ...
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Jean Barraqué
Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué (17 January 1928 – 17 August 1973) was a French composer and music writer. His relatively small is known for its serialism. Life Barraqué was born in Puteaux, Hauts-de-Seine. In 1931, he moved with his family to Paris. He studied in Paris with Jean Langlais and Olivier Messiaen and, through Messiaen, became interested in serialism. After completing his Piano Sonata in 1952, he suppressed or destroyed his earlier works. A book published by the French music critic André Hodeir, titled ''Since Debussy'', created controversy around Barraqué by claiming this work as perhaps the finest piano sonata since Beethoven. As the work had still not been publicly performed, and only two other works by him had at this time, the extravagant claims made for Barraqué in this book were received with some scepticism. Whilst with hindsight it is clear that Hodeir had accurately perceived the exceptional features of Barraqué's music—notably its searing Romantic in ...
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Bernard Kruysen
Bernard Kruysen (Montreux, 28 March 1933 – Rijswijk, 30 October 2000) was a Dutch classical lyric baritone. He received various French and Dutch awards, including the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He gave many concerts both in Europe and in the United States. Biography Bernard Kruysen spent much of his youth in Provence, which gave him an excellent command of the French language. He spoke and sang French without an accent. He lived there with his mother, Willy van Berkel, and his stepfather, singer Hubert Raidich. He would only see his biological father again later in life. Kruysen studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague under Herbert Raideck and was admitted at an early age to the Academy of the Dutch Opera. He later studies in Paris to work with Pierre Bernac, which quickly made him a leading interpreter of French song. Composer Francis Poulenc often accompanied him on piano. His repertoire ranged from Monteverdi to Poulenc and included composers such as Bach, Sc ...
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Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (; ; ; – ) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five (composers), The Five." He was an innovator of Music of Russia, Russian music in the Romantic music, Romantic period and strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music. Many of List of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky, Mussorgsky's works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other national themes. Such works include the opera ''Boris Godunov (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 available. Name The spelling and pronunciation of the c ...
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Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber music, chamber groups, orchestra, choir and the opera. His works typify the spirit of the Romantic era in German music. Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, to an affluent middle-class family with no musical connections, and was initially unsure whether to pursue a career as a lawyer or to make a living as a pianist-composer. He studied law at the universities of Leipzig University, Leipzig and Heidelberg University, Heidelberg but his main interests were music and Romantic literature. From 1829 he was a student of the piano teacher Friedrich Wieck, but his hopes for a career as a virtuoso pianist were frustrated by a worsening problem with his right hand, and he concentrated on composition. His early works were mainly piano pieces, inclu ...
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Duparc
Eugène Marie Henri Fouques Duparc (21 January 1848 – 12 February 1933) was a French composer of the late Romantic period. Biography Son of Charles Fouques-Duparc and Amélie de Guaita, Henri Fouques-Duparc was born in Paris. He studied piano with César Franck at the Jesuit College in the Vaugirard district and became one of his first composition pupils. Following military service in the Franco-Prussian War, he married Ellen MacSwiney, from Scotland, on 9 November 1871. In the same year, he joined Saint-Saëns and Romain Bussine to found the Société nationale de musique. Duparc is best known for his 17 mélodies ("art songs"), with texts by poets such as Baudelaire, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle and Goethe. A mental illness, diagnosed at the time as "neurasthenia", caused him abruptly to cease composing at age 37, in 1885. He devoted himself to his family and his other passions, drawing and painting. But increasing vision loss after the turn of the century eventually ...
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Danish Quartet
The Danish Quartet is a name which has been carried by four Danish quartets: Den Danske Kvartet 1935 the Danish Quartet (Danish: Den Danske Kvartet) was a quartet for flute, violin, cello and piano which was active 1935-1957. Members included: * Holger Gilbert-Jespersen (1890–1975), flute. * Erling Bloch (1904–1992), violin. * Torben Anton Svendsen (1904–1980), cello. * Holger Lund Christiansen, piano. (also accompanist to Aksel Schiøtz) The Quartet released several 78s, including Handel's Trio Sonata No.7, in C minor. Erling Bloch had earlier founded, in 1933, the Erling Bloch Quartet, a traditional string quartet comprising Erling Bloch and Lavard Friisholm, violins, Hans Kassow, viola, Torben Anton Svendsen (again), cello. Among other recordings the Erling Bloch Quartet recorded the Nielsen String Quartet No.3 in 1946. Le Quatuor Danois 1949-1983 Den Nye Danske Kvartet, known in English media as The Danish Quartet, and in their releases on the Valois label of Michel Be ...
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