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Passacaglia Op
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 transform ... [...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] |
Leo Sowerby
Leo Salkeld Sowerby (1 May 1895 – 7 July 1968) was an American composer and church musician. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1946 and was often called the “Dean of American church music” in the early to mid-20th century. His many students included Florence Price and Ned Rorem. Biography Leo Sowerby, son of Florence Gertrude Salkeld and John Sowerby, was born on 1 May 1895, in Grand Rapids, Michigan,United States Federal Census, Grand Rapids ward 4, Kent, Michigan; roll 722; page 15A; enumeration district: 0060; FHL microfilm: 1240722. where he began to compose at the age of 10. His interest in the organ began at the age of 15, and he was self-taught at the instrument. He studied composition with Arthur Olaf Andersen at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.Harold Gleason, "Leo Sowerby". American Organ Music (LP Record). Catharine Crozier, organ. Rochester, New York: Kendall Recording Corporation. KRC-LP 2555. Early recognition came when his Violin Concerto ... [...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] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
Johann Kuhnau
Johann Kuhnau (; 6 April 16605 June 1722) was a German polymath, known primarily as a composer today. He was also active as a novelist, translator, lawyer, and music theorist, and was able to combine these activities with his duties in his official post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, which he occupied for 21 years. Much of his music, including operas, masses, and other large-scale vocal works, is lost. His reputation today rests on his ''Biblical Sonatas'', a set of programmatic keyboard sonatas published in 1700, in which each sonata depicted in detail a particular story from the Bible. After his death, Kuhnau was succeeded as Thomaskantor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography Much of the biographical information on Kuhnau is known from an autobiography published by Johann Mattheson in 1740 in his ''Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte''. Kuhnau's Protestant family were originally from Bohemia, and their name was Kuhn. Kuhnau was born in Geising, present-day Saxony. His musical talents wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottlieb Muffat
Gottlieb Muffat (25 April 1690 – 9 December 1770), son of Georg Muffat, served as ''Hofscholar'' under Johann Fux in Vienna from 1711 and was appointed to the position of third court organist at the ''Hofkapelle'' in 1717. He acquired additional duties over time including the instruction of members of the Imperial family, among them the future Empress Maria Theresa. He was promoted to second organist in 1729 and first organist upon the accession of Maria Theresa to the throne in 1741. He retired from official duties at the court in 1763. Compositions Muffat's compositional output is primarily limited to keyboard music. He shows considerable skill as a contrapuntist in the short liturgical fugues published in his first collection ''72 Versetl sammt 12 Toccaten'' (Vienna, 1726). These pieces reflect a conservative approach to liturgical music in that they are organized in the order of the church tones with an introductory toccata and a regular number of versets for each to ... [...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] |
Daniel Gregory Mason
Daniel Gregory Mason (November 20, 1873 – December 4, 1953) was an American composer and music critic. Biography Mason was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He came from a long line of notable American musicians, including his father Henry Mason, and his grandfather Lowell Mason. His cousin, John B. Mason, was a popular actor on the American and British stage. Daniel Mason studied under John Knowles Paine at Harvard University from 1891 to 1895, continuing his studies with George Chadwick and Percy Goetschius. He also studied with Arthur Whiting and later wrote a biographical journal article about him.Mason, D. G. "Arthur Whiting". ''The Musical Quarterly''. 23 (January 1937), pp. 26-36. In 1894 he published his Opus 1, a set of keyboard waltzes, but soon after began writing about music as his primary career. He became a lecturer at Columbia University in 1905, where he would remain until his retirement in 1942, successively being awarded the positions of assistant profe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
