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Haute-contre
The ''haute-contre'' (plural ''hautes-contre'') was the primary French operatic tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century. History This voice was predominantly used in male solo roles, typically heroic and amatory ones, but also in comic parts, even '' en travesti'' (see apropos the portrait reproduced below and representing Pierre Jélyotte made up for the female title role of Rameau's ''Platée ''Platée'' is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Adrien-Joseph Le Valois d'Orville. Rameau bought the rights to the libretto ''Platée ou Junon jalouse'' (''Plataea, or Juno Jealous'') by Jacques Autr ...''). Lully wrote 8 out of 14 leading male roles for the voice; Charpentier, who was an haute-contre himself, composed extensively for the voice-part, as did Rameau and, later, Gluck. The leading ''hautes-contre'' of the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Countertenor
A countertenor (also contra tenor) is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types, generally extending from around G3 to D5 or E5, although a sopranist (a specific kind of countertenor) may match the soprano's range of around C4 to C6.A sopranist is a term, widely used falsely, used to describe a countertenor whose vocal range is so high it is equivalent to that of a soprano. Countertenors often have tenor or baritone chest voices, but sing in falsetto or head voice much more often than they do in their chest voice. The nature of the countertenor voice has radically changed throughout musical history, from a modal voice, to a modal and falsetto voice, to the primarily falsetto voice that is denoted by the term today. This is partly because of changes in human physiology ( increase in body height) and partly because of fluctuations in pitch. The term first came into use in England during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Legros
Joseph Legros, often also spelt Le Gros, (7 September or 8 September 1739 – 20 December 1793) was a French singer, impresario and composer of the 18th century. He is usually regarded as the most prominent ''haute-contre'' of his generation, though his acting is reputed to have been mediocre. He is best remembered for his association with the composers Gluck and Mozart. Biography Legros was born at Monampteuil, Laon. After initial training as a choirboy, when his voice broke Legros developed the voice of a ''haute-contre'', a type of French high tenor that was typically used for the heroic male lead in French operas of the period. Legros made his début at the Paris Opéra in 1764 in a revival of Mondonville's '' Titon et l'Aurore'' and became the leading ''haute-contre'' at the Opéra, a status he held until his retirement in 1783, caused in part by his increasing obesity. Legros began his operatic career singing the principal roles in revivals of the operas by Jean-Baptist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below middle C to the G above middle C (i.e. B2 to G4) in choral music, and from the second B flat below middle C to the C above middle C (B2 to C5) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of tenor include 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 noted 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 normally calculated in relation to the ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Poirier
François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter * François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; 1694–1778), French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher * François Beauchemin (born 1980), Canadian ice hockey player for the Anaheim Ducks * François Blanc (1806–1877), French entrepreneur and operator of casinos * François Bonlieu (1937–1973), French alpine skier * François Cevert (1944–1973), French racing driver * François Chau (born 1959), Cambodian American actor * François Clemmons (born 1945), American singer and actor * François Corbier (1944–2018), French television presenter and songwriter * François Coty (1874–1934), French perfumer * François Coulomb the Elder (1654–1717), French naval architect * François Coulomb the Younger (1691–1751), French naval architect * François Couperin (1668� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphony, symphonic, concerto, concertante, chamber music, chamber, operatic, and choir, choral repertoires. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Classical music, Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed Child prodigy, prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenore Contraltino
The ''tenore contraltino'' is a specialized form of the tenor voice found in Italian opera around the beginning of the 19th century, mainly in the Rossini repertoire, which rapidly evolved into the modern "romantic" tenor. It is sometimes referred to as ''tenor altino'' (or ''contraltino'') in English books. Vocal features It is a type of tenor voice with a compass not much wider than that of the coeval baritenor, but able to sustain far higher tessiture. It means that the basic range remained substantially the classic one, from C3 to C5: only the best baritenors, however, were able to reach up to such heights and used to pass anyway to the falsettone (or strengthened falsetto) register about G4; for tenori contraltini, on the other hand, the threshold of the passage to the falsettone register rose two or three semitones, and they could so easily reach C5 but often up to E5, or even, exceptionally, to F5. The real difference, however, consisted in the tessitura, or the pitch r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angelo Amorevoli
Angelo Maria Amorevoli (16 September 1716 – 15 November 1798) was a leading Italian tenor in Baroque opera. Biography Angelo Amorevoli began singing in opera seria when he was just thirteen: in 1729 he sang in revivals of the musical dramas, ''Amore e gratitudine'', probably by Flavio Carlo Lanciani, and '' Ottone in villa'' by Antonio Vivaldi. The following year he was on the stage in Rome for Porpora’s operas ''Mitridate'' and ''Siface'', and in Venice for Hasse’s ''Dalisa''. From 1731 to 1735 he took part in major operatic productions in Turin, Milan, and other towns of northern Italy. From 1736 to 1740 he moved to Naples, where he took part in eleven premières, one of which was Sarro’s ''Achille in Sciro'', the drama that inaugurated the Teatro di San Carlo on 4 November 1737. In 1739 he traveled to Vienna, where he attracted a lot of attention, primarily with his interpretation of Vivaldi's ''Feraspe''. On 26 December 1740 he took part in the inauguration of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jérôme Lalande
Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He is known for having estimated a precise value of the astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) using measurements of the transit of Venus in 1769. Biography Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse (department (administrative division), département of Ain) to Pierre Lefrançois and Marie‐Anne‐Gabrielle Monchinet. His parents sent him to Paris to study law, but as a result of lodging in the Hôtel Cluny, where Joseph-Nicolas Delisle had his observatory, he was drawn to astronomy, and became the zealous and favoured pupil of both Delisle and Pierre Charles Le Monnier. Having completed his legal studies, he was about to return to Bourg to practise as an advocate, when Le Monnier obtained permission to send him to Berlin, to make observations on the lunar parallax in concert with those of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille at the Cape of Good Hope. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitch (music)
Pitch is a perception, perceptual property that allows sounds to be ordered on a frequency-related scale (music), scale, or more commonly, pitch is the quality that makes it possible to judge sounds as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melody, melodies. Pitch is a major auditory system, auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration (music), duration, loudness, and timbre. Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective Psychoacoustics, psychoacoustical attribute of sound. Historically, the study of pitch and pitch perception has been a central problem in psychoacoustics, and has been instrumental in forming and testing theories of sound representation, processing, and perception in the auditory system. Perception Pitch and frequency Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on their percep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airs De Cour
The ''air de cour'' was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650. From approximately 1610 to 1635, during the reign of Louis XIII, this was the predominant form of secular vocal composition in France, especially in the royal court. Features The first use of the term ''air de cour'' was in Adrian Le Roy's ''Airs de cour miz sur le luth'' (Book on Court Tunes for the Luth), a collection of music published in 1571. The earliest examples of the form are for solo voice accompanied by lute;Buelow, 2004, p. 156 towards the end of the 16th century, four or five voices are common, sometimes accompanied (or instrumental accompaniment may have been optional); and by the mid-17th century, most ''airs de cour'' were again for solo voice with accompaniment. Beginning in 1608, ''airs de cour'' were often taken from '' ballets de cour'', a form of ballet which was quickly becoming popular at the French co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
