|
David Drew (music Critic)
David Drew (September 19, 1930 – 25 July 2009) was a British music critic and musicologist. He was particularly known for his work on Kurt Weill, whom he "almost single-handedly rescued ..from neglect and promoted him to his present position as an important 20th-century composer". Life and career David Drew was born in Putney, southwest London, on September 19, 1930. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, Drew became music critic for the ''New Statesman'' from 1959 until 1967. In 1971 he took over as the editor of the music journal ''Tempo'', owned by Boosey and Hawkes, and then became director of publications at Boosey in 1975 and then director of new music until he left the company in 1992. Drew wrote several hundred articles for the music press. He published the authoritative catalogue of Weill's music, ''Kurt Weill: A Handbook'' (London, 1987) and, in German, edited and annotated a collection of Weill's writings, ''Kurt Weill: Ausgewählte Schriften'', and a symposium of writing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Critic
'' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of musical aesthetics. With the concurrent expansion of interest in music and information media since the turn of the 20th century, the term has come to acquire the conventional meaning of journalistic reporting on musical performances. Nature of music criticism The musicologist Winton Dean has suggested that "music is probably the most difficult of the arts to criticise." Unlike the plastic or literary arts, the 'language' of music does not specifically relate to human sensory experience – Dean's words, "the word 'love' is common coin in life and literature: the note C has nothing to do with breakfast or railway journeys or marital harmony." Like dramatic art, music is recreated at every performance, and criticism may, therefore, be dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HK Gruber
Heinz Karl "Nali" Gruber (born 3 January 1943), who styles himself HK Gruber professionally, is an Austrian composer, conductor, double bass player and singer. He is a leading figure of the so-called Third Viennese School. Career Gruber is said to be a descendant (though the descent remains obscure) of Franz Xaver Gruber, composer of the carol ''Stille Nacht'' (Silent Night). He was born in Vienna. From 1953 to 1957 Gruber was a member of the Vienna Boys' Choir, acquiring his nickname 'Nali' (from his snoring, he believes). He studied at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik, his composition teachers being Alfred Uhl, Erwin Ratz and Hanns Jelinek, and later Gottfried von Einem, with whom he also studied privately. In 1961 Gruber joined the ensemble ''die reihe'' as a double bass player, and became principal bass of the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra in 1963. In 1968, with his composer friends Kurt Schwertsik and Otto M. Zykan and the violinist Ernst Kovacic, he co-founded the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an outstanding teacher of composition and musical analysis. Messiaen entered the Conservatoire de Paris at age 11 and studied with Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, among others. He was appointed organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, in 1931, a post he held for 61 years, until his death. He taught at the Schola Cantorum de Paris during the 1930s. After the Battle of France, fall of France in 1940, Messiaen was interned for nine months in the German prisoner of war camp Stalag VIII-A, where he composed his (''Quartet for the End of Time'') for the four instruments available in the prison—piano, violin, cello and clarinet. The piece was first performed by Messiaen and fellow prisoners for an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Leigh
Walter Leigh (22 June 190512 June 1942) was an English composer. Leigh is best known for his Concertino for harpsichord and string orchestra, written in 1934. Other famous works include the overture ''Agincourt'' and ''The Frogs of Aristophanes'' for chorus and orchestra. He wrote music for documentary films and there is an unfinished sketch for a symphony.Jack Westrup, rev. Kenrick Dance'Leigh, Walter', in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001)/ref> Career Walter Leigh was born in Wimbledon. His first teacher was Harold Darke, with whom he worked from the age of eight until he was seventeen. He went to Christ's College, Cambridge, studying composition with Cyril Rootham and graduating in 1926. For two years thereafter, he studied composition under Paul Hindemith at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. In 1930, Leigh declined a teaching job and set about earning a living by accepting small commissions and becoming increasingly involved with the theatre. With V.C. Clinton-Baddeley he wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Shaw (composer)
Christopher Shaw (30 July 1924 – 27 September 1995) was a British composer. Shaw was born and lived in London, and studied at New College, Oxford, from 1942 through 1944 with R. O. Morris and Herbert Kennedy Andrews. He wrote principally choral music, of which the most notable example may be the cantata ''Peter and the Lame Man'' for soli, chorus and orchestra, recorded in 1976 by Argo Records along with three shorter pieces. He also wrote some music criticism and translated opera librettos. He died at Gatehouse of Fleet, Galloway, Scotland, aged 71. References Further reading * 'Christopher Shaw' by David Drew, in ''Musical Times'', July 1963 (the issue included Shaw's motet for voices and organ, ''A Lesson from Ecclesiastes'', as a musical supplement) * 'A Note on Christopher Shaw' by Malcolm MacDonald in Lewis Foreman, ed. ''British Music Now: A Guide to the Work of Younger Composers'' (London: Paul Elek Paul Elek (1906–1976) [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Holloway
Robin Greville Holloway (born 19 October 1943) is an English composer, academic and writer. Early life Holloway was born in Leamington Spa. From 1953 to 1957, he was a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and was educated at King's College School, where his father Robert was Head of the Art Department.Northcott, Bayan, "Robin Holloway" (August 1974). ''The Musical Times'', 115 (1578): pp. 644–646 He attended King's College, Cambridge and studied musical composition, composition with Bayan Northcott. Career In 1974, Holloway became an Assistant Lecturer in Music at the University of Cambridge, and in 1980 attained a full Lecturer position. In 1999, he became a reader in Musical Composition at Cambridge. He retired in 2011 as professor of Musical composition, Musical Composition. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Among his many pupils are Thomas Adès, Huw Watkins, Peter Seabourne, George Benjamin (composer), George Benjamin, Judith Weir, and Jonathan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Goehr
Peter Alexander Goehr (; 10 August 1932 – 26 August 2024) was a German-born English composer of contemporary classical music and academic teacher. A long-time professor of music at the University of Cambridge, Goehr influenced many notable contemporary composers, including Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson, George Benjamin (composer), George Benjamin and Robin Holloway. Born in Berlin, Goehr grew up in London surrounded by musicians, including his father, the conductor Walter Goehr. Goehr emerged as a central figure in the New Music Manchester, Manchester School of post-war British composers, including Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, in his early twenties. He joined Olivier Messiaen's masterclass in Paris in 1955. Back in England and working for the BBC, he experienced an international breakthrough in 1957 with his cantata ''The Deluge'' in 1957, conducted by his father Walter Goehr. He composed ''Little Symphony'' in 1963 as a memorial to his father, arriving at a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Markevitch
Igor Borisovich Markevitch (, ''Igor Borisovich Markevich'', , ''Ihor Borysovych Markevych''; 27 July 1912 – 7 March 1983) was a Russian composer and conductor who studied and worked in Paris and became a naturalized Italian and French citizen in 1947 and 1982 respectively. He was commissioned in 1929 for a piano concerto by impresario Serge Diaghilev of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Markevitch settled in Italy during World War II. After the war, he moved to Switzerland. He had an international conducting career from there. He was married twice and had three sons and two daughters. Early life He was born in Kiev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (today Kyiv, Ukraine) to a family of Ukrainian Cossack '' starshyna'' who were ennobled in the 18th century. His great-grandfather Andrey Markevitch was a Secretary of State at the time of Alexander II of Russia, Actual Privy Councilor in St. Petersburg and co-founder of the Russian Musical Society. Igor was the son of pianist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roberto Gerhard
Robert Gerhard i Ottenwaelder (; 25 September 1896 – 5 January 1970) was a Spanish and British composer, musical scholar, and writer, generally known outside his native region of Catalonia as Roberto Gerhard.Malcolm MacDonald. 'Gerhard, Roberto' in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001) Life Gerhard was born in Valls, near Tarragona, Spain. His father was of German and Swiss ancestry; his mother was from Alsace-Lorraine. He studied piano with Enrique Granados and composition with scholar-composer Felip Pedrell, teacher of Isaac Albéniz, Granados and Manuel de Falla. Gerhard visited Falla in Granada, but dismissed him as a possible teacher and decided to shut himself away in a Catalan farmhouse to reflect on his professional future and concentrate on his work. Seeking systematicity, he turned his gaze to German avant-garde music and decided to send a long letter to the composer Arnold Schoenberg, enclosing his compositions, on 21 October 1923, begging to be accepted as his pupil. After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola (3 February 1904 – 19 February 1975) was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions. Biography Dallapiccola was born in Pisino d'Istria (at the time part of Austria-Hungary, current Pazin, Croatia), to Italian parents. Unlike many composers born into highly musical environments, his early musical career was irregular at best. Political disputes over his birthplace of Istria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, led to instability and frequent moves. His father was headmaster of an Italian-language school – the only one in the city – which was shut down at the start of World War I. The family, considered politically subversive, was placed in internment at Graz, Austria, where the budding composer did not even have access to a piano, though he did attend performances at the local opera house, which cemented his desire to pursue composition as a career. Once back in his hometown Pisino after the war, he travelled fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolf Wagner-Régeny
Rudolf Wagner-Régeny (28 August 1903, Szászrégen, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Reghin, Romania) – 18 September 1969, Berlin) was a composer, conductor, and pianist. Born in Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, since 1920 Romania, he became a German citizen in 1930, and then East German after 1945. From 1919 to 1920 he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1920 he enrolled at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik as a student of Rudolf Krasselt and Siegfried Ochs for conducting, and for orchestration of Emil von Řezníček, and with Friedrich Koch and Franz Schreker for musical composition, graduating in 1923. He served as choirsmaster at the Volksoper Berlin from 1923–1925. In 1927 joined Laban's dance company where he conducted productions for three years. Wagner-Régeny first gained notice as a composer with his theatre pieces for Essen. In 1929 he met the designer Caspar Neher, who wrote the texts for Wagner-Régeny's best-known ope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Blacher
Boris Blacher (30 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist. Life Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (hence the use of the Julian calendar on his birth record). He spent his first years in China and in the Asian parts of Russia, and in 1919, he eventually came to live in Harbin. In 1922 he went to Berlin where he began to study first architecture, mathematics, and then music at the Berlin Hochschule fuer Musik. He found work arranging popular and film music. Two years later, he turned to music and studied composition with Friedrich Koch. His career was interrupted by National Socialism. He was accused of writing degenerate music and lost his teaching post at the Dresden Conservatory. His career resumed after 1945, and he later became president of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and is today regarded as one of the most influential mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
