Hymn To St Peter
''Hymn to St Peter'' ( Op. 56a) is a cantata for treble soloist, SATB choir and organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1955. The piece was the last Britten composed before he first travelled to Asia. He set the text from the gradual of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul to music which was based on the plainsong of the ''Alleluia'' from the hymn. The piece starts with a sombre organ theme in B Flat and when the choir joins in it is initially in unison before breaking into harmonies. After a nimble interlude that recalls children's play, the piece returns to the original theme, ending with a coda played by the organ alone. The piece was first performed at the quincentenary celebrations of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich on 20 November 1955. It was subsequently performed by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers and has frequently been sung with children's voices. History The period between 1954 and 1963 proved one of Britten's most productive. However, 1955 was not a year dominated by c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of the term changed over time, from the simple single-voice madrigal of the early 17th century, to the multi-voice "cantata da camera" and the "cantata da chiesa" of the later part of that century, from the more substantial dramatic forms of the 18th century to the usually sacred-texted 19th-century cantata, which was effectively a type of short oratorio. Cantatas for use in the liturgy of church services are called church cantata or sacred cantata; other cantatas can be indicated as secular cantatas. Several cantatas were, and still are, written for special occasions, such as Christmas cantatas. Christoph Graupner, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach composed cycles of church cantatas for the occasions of the liturgical yea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears ( ; 22 June 19103 April 1986) was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years. Pears' musical career started slowly. He was at first unsure whether to concentrate on playing piano and organ, or singing; it was not until he met Britten in 1937 that he threw himself wholeheartedly into singing. Once he and Britten were established as a partnership, the composer wrote many concert and operatic works with Pears's voice in mind, and the singer played roles in more than ten operas by Britten. In the concert hall, Pears and Britten were celebrated recitalists, known in particular for their performances of lieder by Schubert and Schumann. Together they recorded most of the works written for Pears by Britten, as well as a wide range of music by other composers. Working with other musicians, Pears sang an extensive repertoire of music from four centuries, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Minnesota Press
The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. It had annual revenues of just over $8 million in fiscal year 2018. Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its books in social theory and cultural theory, critical theory A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from s ..., race and ethnic studies, urbanism, feminist criticism, and media studies. The University of Minnesota Press also publishes a significant number of translations of major works of European and Latin American thought and scholarship, as well as a diverse list of works on the cultural and natural heritage of the state and the upper Midwest region. Journals The University of Minnesota Press's catalog of academic journals totals thir ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Treble Voice
A treble voice is a voice which takes the treble part. In the absence of a separate descant part, this is normally the highest- pitched part, and otherwise the second highest. The term is most often used today within the context of choral music in reference to youthful singers. The American Choral Directors Association defines a treble as "a singer, both male and female, ages eight to sixteen". While the term treble is gender neutral, the term is widely used in place of the term boy soprano within the United Kingdom. The term became widely used by English composers of polyphonic choral music during the English pre-Reformation and Reformation eras. At this time choral music written for the Church of England was often voiced in five parts with TrMATB (Treble, Meane, Alto, Tenor, Bass) being one of the most common voicings utilized by Thomas Tallis and his contemporaries. In the Baroque era the term treble was used differently than it is today. The term was used in operas, cantata ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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D Major
D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Characteristics According to Paolo Pietropaolo, D major is Miss Congeniality: it is persistent, sunny, and energetic. D major is well-suited to violin music because of the structure of the instrument, which is tuned G D A E. The open strings resonate sympathetically with the D string, producing a sound that is especially brilliant. This is also the case with all other orchestral strings. Thus, it is no coincidence that many classical composers throughout the centuries have chosen to write violin concertos in D major, including those by Mozart ( No. 2, 1775, No. 4, 1775); Ludwig van Beethoven (1806); Paganini ( No. 1, 1817); Brahms (1878); Tchaikovsky (1878); Prokofiev ( No. 1, 1917); Stravinsky (1931); and Korngold (1945). ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pentatonic
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day. There are two types of pentatonic scales: those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic). Types Hemitonic and anhemitonic Musicology commonly classifies pentatonic scales as either ''hemitonic'' or ''anhemitonic''. Hemitonic scales contain one or more semitones and anhemitonic scales do not contain semitones. (For example, in Japanese music the anhemitonic ''yo'' scale is contrasted with the hemitonic ''in'' scale.) Hemitonic pentatonic scales are also called "ditonic scales", because the largest interval in them is the ditone (e.g., in the scale C–E–F–G–B–C, the interval found between C–E and G–B). (This should not be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Unison
In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or perfect unison (also called a prime, or perfect prime)Benward & Saker (2003), p. 53. may refer to the (pseudo-) interval formed by a tone and its duplication (in German, ''Unisono'', ''Einklang'', or ''Prime''), for example C–C, as differentiated from the second, C–D, etc. In the unison the two pitches have the ratio of 1:1 or 0 half steps and zero cents. Although two tones in unison are considered to be the same pitch, they are still perceivable as coming from separate sources, whether played on instruments of a different type: ; or of the same type: . This is because a pair of tones in unison come from different locations or can have different "colors" (timbres), i.e. come from different musical instruments or human voices. Voices w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gamelan
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones played by mallets and a set of hand-played drums called '' kendhang/Kendang'', which register the beat. The kemanak (a banana-shaped idiophone) and gangsa (another metallophone) are commonly used gamelan instruments in Bali. Other instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed instrument called a ''rebab'', a zither-like instrument '' siter'' (in Javanese ensemble) and vocalists named '' sindhen'' (female) or ''gerong'' (male).Sumarsam (1998)''Introduction to Javanese Gamelan'' Middletown. Although the popularity of gamelan has declined since the introduction of pop music, gamelan is still commonly played in many traditional ceremonies and other modern activities in Indon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pipe Organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks'', each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops. A pipe organ has one or more keyboards (called '' manuals'') played by the hands, and a pedal clavier played by the feet; each keyboard controls its own division, or group of stops. The keyboard(s), pedalboard, and stops are housed in the organ's ''console''. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain notes for as long as the corresponding keys are pressed, unlike the piano and harpsichord whose sound begins to dissipate immediately after a key is depressed. The smallest ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Festival Te Deum (Britten)
The ''Festival Te Deum'', Op. 32, a sacred choral piece by the English composer Benjamin Britten, is a setting of the ''Te Deum'' from the ''Book of Common Prayer''. It was composed in 1944 to celebrate the centenary of St Mark's Church, Swindon, and was first performed there in 1945. History The ''Te Deum'' is one of the standard canticles of Anglican Morning Prayer. Benjamin Britten set it in 1934 (his ''Te Deum in C''). He wrote the ''Festival Te Deum'', scored for treble solo, four-part choir (SATB) and organ, on 8–9 November 1944. It takes about five minutes to perform. The work was commissioned for the centenary of St Mark's Church, Swindon, an Anglo-Catholic church with a strong choral tradition. It was first performed there during a service on 24 April 1945 by the choir of St Mark's with choristers from three other Swindon churches (St John's, St Saviour's, and St Luke's). The soloist was Peter Titcombe, the organist was G.W. Curnow, and the conductor was J.J. G ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Missa Brevis (Britten)
The ''Missa Brevis'' in D, Op. 63, is a setting of the Latin mass completed by Benjamin Britten on Trinity Sunday, 1959.Roseberry, 11. Set for three-part treble choir and organ, it was first performed at London's Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral on 22 July of the same year.Roseberry, 11. Britten composed the mass for George Malcolm's retirement as organist and choirmaster at Westminster:Roseberry, 11. the printed dedication reads "For George Malcolm and the boys of Westminster Cathedral Choir". It remained Britten's only liturgical setting of the mass. Malcolm's live recording, from a service at the cathedral, lasts ten minutes. Liturgy Britten's ''Missa Brevis'' contains only four movements, omitting the Credo, hence the name ''brevis'', short. The omission is notable because Mass at Westminster Cathedral would have included this movement. The piece rather seems predisposed towards the liturgy of the Church of England or the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, which o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |