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Passacaglia
The passacaglia (; ) is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is typically based on a bass- ostinato and written in triple metre. Origin The term passacaglia (; ; Italian: ''passacaglia'', ''passacaglio'', ''passagallo'', ''passacagli'', ''passacaglie'') derives from the Spanish ''pasar'' (cross, pass) and ''calle'' (street). It originated in early 17th-century Spain as a strummed interlude between instrumentally accompanied dances or songs. Despite the form's Spanish roots (confirmed by references in Spanish literature of the period), the first written examples of passacaglias are found in an Italian source dated 1606. These pieces, as well as others from Italian sources from the beginning of the century, are simple, brief sequences of chords outlining a cadential formula. The passacaglia was redefined in the late 1620s by Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi, who trans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaconne
A chaconne ( , ; ; ; earlier English: chacony) is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for Variation (music), variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass) which offers a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia. It originates and was particularly popular in the Baroque music, Baroque era; a large number of Chaconnes exist from the List of 17th-century chaconnes, 17th and List of 18th-century chaconnes, 18th centuries. The ground bass, if there is one, may typically descend stepwise from the Tonic (music), tonic to the Dominant (music), dominant pitch of the Scale (music), scale; the harmonies given to the upper parts may emphasize the circle of fifths or a derivative pattern thereof. History Though it originally emerged during the late sixteenth century in Spain, Spanish culture, having reputedly been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Caspar Kerll
Johann Caspar Kerll (9 April 1627 – 13 February 1693) was a German Baroque composer and organist. He is also known as Kerl, Gherl, Giovanni Gasparo Cherll and Gaspard Kerle. Born in Adorf in the Electorate of Saxony as the son of an organist, Kerll showed outstanding musical abilities at an early age, and was taught by Giovanni Valentini, court Kapellmeister at Vienna. Kerll became one of the most acclaimed composers of his time, known both as a gifted composer and an outstanding teacher. He worked at Vienna, Munich and Brussels, and also travelled widely. His pupils included Agostino Steffani, Franz Xaver Murschhauser, and possibly Johann Pachelbel, and his influence is seen in works by George Frideric Handel, Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach: Handel frequently borrowed themes and fragments of music from Kerll's works, and Bach arranged the ''Sanctus'' movement from Kerll's ''Missa superba'' as BWV 241, Sanctus in D major. Although Kerll was a well-known and influential compos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (; also Gerolamo, Girolimo, and Geronimo Alissandro; September 15831 March 1643) was an Italian composer and virtuoso keyboard player. Born in the Duchy of Ferrara, he was one of the most important composers of keyboard instrument, keyboard music in the late Renaissance music, Renaissance and early Baroque music, Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by many composers, including Ascanio Mayone, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, and Claudio Merulo. Girolamo Frescobaldi was appointed organist of St. Peter's Basilica, a focal point of power for the Cappella Giulia (a musical organisation), from 21 July 1608 until 1628 and again from 1634 until his death. Frescobaldi's printed collections contain some of the most influential music of the 17th century. His work influenced Johann Jakob Froberger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, and other major composers. Pieces from his celebrated collec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel (also Bachelbel; baptised – buried 9 March 1706) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secularity, secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque music, Baroque era. List of compositions by Johann Pachelbel, Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Pachelbel's Canon, Canon in D; other well known works include the Chaconne in F minor (Pachelbel), Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the ''Hexachordum Apollinis'', a set of keyboard Variation (music), variations. He was influenced by southern German composers, such as Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a musical form, formal technique where material is musical repetition, repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these. Variation is often contrasted with musical Development (music), development, which is a slightly different means to the same end. Variation depends upon ''one'' type of presentation at a time, while development is carried out upon portions of material treated in ''many'' different presentations and combinations at a time. Variation techniques Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart's Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" (1785), a French folk song known in the English-speaking world as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", exemplifies a number of common variation techniques. Here are the first eight bars of the theme: Melodic variation Mozart's first variation decorates and elaborates the plain melodic line: Rhythmic variation The fifth variat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude (; born Diderich Hansen Buxtehude, ; – 9 May 1707) was a Danish composer and organist of the Baroque music, Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal and instrumental idioms, Buxtehude's style greatly influenced other composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers of the 17th century. Life Early years in Denmark He is thought to have been born with the name Diderich Buxtehude.Snyder, Kerala J. Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck. New York: Schirmer Books, 1987. His parents were Johannes (Hans Jensen) Buxtehude and Helle Jespersdatter. His father originated from Bad Oldesloe, Oldesloe in the Duchy of Holstein, which at that time was a part of the Danish realms in Northern Germany. Scholars dispute both the year and country of Dieterich's birth, although most now accept that he was born in 1637 in He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juan Bautista Cabanilles
Juan Bautista José Cabanilles (also Juan Bautista Josep, Valencian: Joan) (6 September 1644 in Algemesí near Valencia – 29 April 1712 in Valencia) was a Spanish organist and composer at Valencia Cathedral. He is considered by many to have been the greatest Spanish Baroque composer, and has been called the Spanish Bach. Biography He probably began his musical career as a singer in a choir of a local church. Later he studied to become a priest in the cathedral at Valencia, which included lessons in music. On 15 May 1665, at 20 years of age, he was named the assistant organist of the cathedral. A year later, upon the death of his predecessor, he became the principal organist. On 22 September 1668 he was ordained as a priest. He kept his position as principal organist for 45 years, but from 1703 on his health often necessitated that a substitute be found. From 1675 to 1677 he also took charge of teaching the children in the cathedral choir. No portrait or likeness of Cabanill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georg Muffat
Georg Muffat (1 June 1653 – 23 February 1704) was a Baroque composer and organist. He is best known for the remarkably articulate and informative performance directions printed along with his collections of string pieces ''Florilegium Primum'' and ''Florilegium Secundum'' (First and Second Bouquets) in 1695 and 1698. Life Georg Muffat was born in Megève, Duchy of Savoy (now in France), of André Muffat (of Scottish descent) and Marguerite Orsyand. He studied in Paris between 1663 and 1669, where his teacher is often assumed to have been Jean Baptiste Lully. This assumption is largely based on the statement "For six years ... I avidly pursued this style which was flowering in Paris at the time under the most famous Jean Baptiste Lully." This is ambiguous (in all of the languages in which it was printed) as to whether the style was flourishing under Lully, or that Muffat studied under Lully. In any case, the style which the young Muffat learned was unequivocally Lullian and it r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernardo Pasquini
Bernardo Pasquini (7 December 1637 – 21 November 1710) was an Italian composer of operas, oratorios, cantatas and keyboard music. A renowned virtuoso keyboard player, he was one of the most important Italian composers for harpsichord between Girolamo Frescobaldi and Domenico Scarlatti, having also made substantial contributions to opera and oratorio. Biography Pasquini was born in Massa in Valdinievole (today Massa e Cozzile, in the province of Pistoia, Tuscany). He was a pupil of Mariotto Bocciantini in Uzzano (Pistoia). When he was 13, he moved to Ferrara with his uncle Giovanni Pasquini, where, at the age of 16, he would become the organist of Accademia della Morte and serve from 1653 to 1655, a prestigious post that would later serve as a launching pad for his successors. He was quickly drawn to Rome, and, in 1657, he was appointed as the organist of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa nuova). In February 1664 he was appointed organist of the basilicas of Santa Maria Maggior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University Church, a professor at the Leipzig Conservatory, Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, and a music director at the court of George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. Reger first composed mainly ''Lieder'', chamber music, choral music and works for piano and organ. He later turned to orchestral compositions, such as the popular ''Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart'' (1914), and to works for choir and orchestra such as ''Gesang der Verklärten'' (1903), ' (1909), ''Der Einsiedler'' and the ''Requiem (Reger), Hebbel Requiem'' (both 1915). Biography Born in Brand, Bavaria, Reger was the first child of Josef Reger, a school teacher and amateur musician, and his wife Katharina Philomena. The devout Catholic family moved to Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Weid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams ( ; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German classical music, German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social outlook. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Music of Germany, Teutonic inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, Handel spent his early life in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical breakdown, c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
