Flute Concerto (Rorem)
The Flute Concerto is a composition for solo flute and orchestra by the American composer Ned Rorem. The work was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and was composed between August 2001 and May 2002. Its world premiere was given by the flutist Jeffrey Khaner and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Roberto Abbado at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts on December 4, 2003. Composition Structure The piece has a duration of roughly 25 minutes and is cast in six movements: #The Stone Tower #Leaving – Traveling – Hoping #Sirens #Hymn #False Waltz #Résumé and Prayer Rorem commented on the movement titles in the score program notes, writing, "I don't believe that non-vocal music can be proved to "mean" anything precise, like Love or Death or Fright, much less Yellow or Tuesday or Lake. But sometimes it's helpful and fun to ascribe (usually after the fact) names to separate movements." He continued: Instrumentation The work is scored for a solo flute and an o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Western Concert Flute
The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in American English), or simply a flute player. This type of flute is used in many ensembles, including concert bands, military bands, marching bands, orchestras, flute ensembles, and occasionally jazz bands and big bands. Other flutes in this family include the piccolo, the alto flute, and the bass flute. A large repertory of works has been composed for flute. Predecessors The flute is one of the oldest and most widely used wind instruments. The precursors of the modern concert flute were keyless wooden transverse flutes similar to modern fifes. These were later modified to include between one and eight keys for chromatic notes. "Six-finger" D is the most common pitch for keyless wooden transverse flutes, which continue to be use ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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French Horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist. Pitch is controlled through the combination of the following factors: speed of air through the instrument (controlled by the player's lungs and thoracic diaphragm); diameter and tension of lip aperture (by the player's lip muscles—the embouchure) in the mouthpiece; plus, in a modern horn, the operation of valves by the left hand, which route the air into extra sections of tubing. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves (similar to a trumpet's) and the Vienna horn uses double-pis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Concertos By Ned Rorem
A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement (e.g., lento or adagio) preceded and followed by fast movements (e.g. presto or allegro), became a standard from the early 18th century. The concerto originated as a genre of vocal music in the late 16th century: the instrumental variant appeared around a century later, when Italians such as Giuseppe Torelli started to publish their concertos. A few decades later, Venetian composers, such as Antonio Vivaldi, had written hundreds of violin concertos, while also producing solo concertos for other instruments such as a cello or a woodwind instrument, and concerti grossi for a group of soloists. The first keyboard concertos, such as George Frideric Handel's organ concertos and Johann Seba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the sixth-highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century under Medill's grandson, Robert R. McCormick, it achieved a reputation as a crusading paper with a decidedly more American-conservative anti-New Deal outlook, and its writing reached other markets through family and corporate relationships at the ''New York Daily News'' and the '' Washington Times-Herald.'' The 1960s saw its corporate parent owner, Tribune Company ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gramophone (magazine)
''Gramophone'' is a magazine published monthly in London, devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie who continued to edit the magazine until 1961. It was acquired by Haymarket in 1999. In 2013 the Mark Allen Group became the publisher. The magazine presents the Gramophone Awards each year to the classical recordings which it considers the finest in a variety of categories. On its website ''Gramophone'' claims to be: "The world's authority on classical music since 1923." This used to appear on the front cover of every issue; recent editions have changed the wording to "The world's best classical music reviews." Its circulation, including digital subscribers, was 24,380 in 2014. Listings and the ''Gramophone'' Hall of Fame Apart from the annual Gramophone Classical Music Awards, each month features a dozen recordings as Gramophone Editor's Choice (now Gramophone Choice). Then, in the a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Violin Concerto (Rorem)
The Violin Concerto is a composition for solo violin and chamber orchestra by the American composer Ned Rorem. The work was commissioned by the Springfield Symphony Orchestra for the violinist Jaime Laredo and composed in 1984. It was first performed by Laredo and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Gutter in the Symphony Hall, Springfield, on March 30, 1985. Composition Structure The concerto has a duration of approximately 22 minutes and is cast in six movements: #Twilight #Toccata – Chaconne #Romance Without Words #Midnight #Toccata – Rondo #Dawn Instrumentation The work is scored for solo violin and a chamber orchestra consisting of flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, trumpet, timpani, and strings. Reception The music critic Donal Henahan of ''The New York Times'' gave the piece moderate praise, remarking that "the work proved to be immediately digestible and pleasant enough of its genial type." He added, "In its best moment ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pedal Harp
The pedal harp (also known as the concert harp) is a large and technologically modern harp, designed primarily for use in art music. It may be played solo, as part of a chamber ensemble, or in an orchestra. It typically has 47 strings with seven strings per octave, giving a range of six and a half octaves. In this type of harp the pedals alter the pitch of the strings, so that the pedal harp can easily play works written in any key. This is particularly important in the harmonically complex music of the Romantic period and later 20th-century classical music. Parts Body and strings A pedal harp typically stands about high, is deep, and wide at the bass end of the soundboard. It weighs about . The body of the harp consists of a straight upright pillar, sometimes adorned with a crown at the top; a soundboard, which in most harps is pear-shaped with additional width at the bottom, although some older instruments have soundboards that are straight-sided but widening toward t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musical keyboard, keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Thus timpani are an example of kettle drums, also known as vessel drums and semispherical drums, whose body is similar to a section of a sphere whose cut conforms the head. Most modern timpani are ''pedal timpani'' and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a ''timpani stick'' or ''timpani mallet''. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century. Today, they are used in many types of ensembles, including concert bands, marching bands, orchestras, and even in some rock bands. ''Timpani'' is an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |