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Ballet Composers
Ballet as a music form progressed from simply a complement to dance, to a concrete compositional form that often had as much value as the dance that went along with it. The dance form, originating in France during the 17th century, began as a theatrical dance. It was not until the 19th century that ballet gained status as a "classical" form. In ballet, the terms 'classical' and 'romantic' are chronologically reversed from musical usage. Thus, the 19th century Classical period in ballet coincided with the 19th century Romantic era in music. Ballet music composers from the 17th–20th centuries, including the likes of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Igor Stravinsky, and Sergei Prokofiev, were predominantly in France and Russia. Yet with the increased international notoriety seen in Tchaikovsky's and Stravinsky's lifetime, ballet music composition and ballet in general spread across the western world. History Until about the second half of the 19th century, the role of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully ( – 22 March 1687) was a French composer, dancer and instrumentalist of Italian birth, who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France and became a French citizenship, subject in 1661. He was a close friend of the playwright Molière, with whom he collaborated on numerous ''comédie-ballets'', including ''L'Amour médecin'', ''George Dandin ou le Mari confondu'', ''Monsieur de Pourceaugnac'', ''Psyché (play), Psyché'' and his best known work, ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme''. Biography Lully was born on November 28 or 29, 1632, in Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to Lorenzo Lulli and Caterina Del Sera, a Tuscan family of millers. His general education and his musical training during his youth in Florence remain uncertain, but his adult handwriting suggests that he manipulated a quill pen with ease. He used to say that a Franciscan friar gave him his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dance Of The Hours
''Dance of the Hours'' (Italian: ') is a short ballet and is part of the Act III finale of the opera '' La Gioconda'' composed by Amilcare Ponchielli. It depicts the hours of the day through solo and ensemble dances. The opera was first performed in 1876 and was revised in 1880. Later performed on its own, the ''Dance of the Hours'' was at one time one of the best known and most frequently performed ballets. It became even more widely known after its inclusion in the 1940 Walt Disney animated film '' Fantasia'' where it is depicted as a comic ballet featuring ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants and alligators. Description The ballet, accompanied by an orchestra, appears near the end of the third act of the opera, in which the character Alvise, who heads the Inquisition, receives his guests in a large and elegant ballroom adjoining the death chamber. The music and choreography represent the hours of dawn, day (morning), twilight and night. Costume changes and lighting effects re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. List of compositions by Ottorino Respighi, His compositions range over List of operas by Ottorino Respighi, operas, ballets, orchestral suites, choral songs, chamber music, and transcriptions of Italian compositions of the 16th–18th centuries, but his best known and most performed works are his three orchestral tone poems which brought him international fame: ''Fountains of Rome (symphonic poem), Fountains of Rome'' (1916), ''Pines of Rome'' (1924), and ''Roman Festivals (Respighi), Roman Festivals'' (1928). Respighi was born in Bologna to a musical and artistic family. He was encouraged by his father to pursue music at a young age, and took formal tuition in the violin and piano. In 1891, he enrolled at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, Liceo Musicale di Bologna, where he studied the vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harriet Hoctor
Harriet Hoctor (September 25, 1905 – June 9, 1977) was a ballerina and actress. Composer George Gershwin composed a symphonic orchestral piece ("Hoctor's Ballet") specifically for Hoctor in the film ''Shall We Dance (1937 film), Shall We Dance'' (1937). Life and career Harriet Hoctor was born in Hoosick Falls, New York, to Timothy Hoctor and Elizabeth Kearny Hoctor. She was one of four children, the others being Martin Francis ("Frank"), John, and Eloise. Harriet Hoctor never married. Early training Hoctor's maternal aunt, Annie Kearney, was a social secretary to a wealthy woman in Hoosick Falls who took an interest in young Harriet. At the age of twelve she was sent to New York City and placed under the tutelage of Russian ballet master Louis Harvy Chalif of the Normal School of Dancing. Stage By the time she was sixteen, Hoctor was touring in vaudeville on the same bill as the Duncan Sisters. She was asked to join their wikt:act, act and became a key player in their ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
