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String Quartets
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. The string quartet was developed into its present form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, whose works in the 1750s established the ensemble as a group of four more-or-less equal partners. Since that time, the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form; writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert each wrote a number of them. Many Romantic and early-twentieth-century composers composed string quartets, including Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, Janáček, and Debussy. There was a slight lull in string quartet composition later in the 19t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fitzwilliam Quartet
The Fitzwilliam Quartet or Fitzwilliam String Quartet (FSQ) is a British string quartet. The group was founded in 1968 by four Cambridge undergraduates. There have been a number of changes in personnel over the years, but Alan George from the original quartet is still a member as of 2019. It currently consists of Alan George, viola; Sally Pendlebury, violoncello; and Lucy Russell and Marcus Barcham Stevens, violins. The Fitzwilliam Quartet was one of the first of a long line of quartets to have emerged under the guidance of Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music. They became well known through their close personal association with Dmitri Shostakovich, who befriended them following a visit to York to hear them play. He entrusted them with the Western premières of his last three quartets, and before long they had become the first group to perform and record all fifteen. These recordings gained international awards, and secured for the quartet a worldwide concert schedule an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School () was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late- Romantic expanded tonality and later, a totally chromatic expressionism without a firm tonal centre, often referred to as atonality; and later still, Schoenberg's serial twelve-tone technique. Twelve tone Composition was revolutionized by Arnold Schoenberg. Using this technique when composing he made sure he used all 12 notes in a chromatic scale when forming a melody, this would be called the "Primeseries". This series would later be enhanced in his compositions through permutations such as, Retrogrades, Inversions, Transformations etc. How this happens is, Schoenberg taking the pitches of the Primeseries and through his "Magic Square" of permutations takes said pitches and depending on which permutation he is utilizing, creates a new s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallinn String Quartet In Tel Aviv (cropped)
Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and administratively lies in the Harju County, Harju ''Counties of Estonia, maakond'' (county). Tallinn is the main governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located northwest of the country's second largest city, Tartu, however, only south of Helsinki, Finland; it is also west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, north of Riga, Latvia, and east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical Names of Tallinn in different languages, name Reval. “Reval” received Lübeck law, Lübeck city rights in 1248; however, the earliest evidence of human settlement in the area dates back nearly 5,000 years. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass * Woodwinds, such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and occasional saxophone * Brass instruments, such as the French horn (commonly known as the "horn"), trumpet, trombone, cornet, and tuba, and sometimes euphonium * Percussion instruments, such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam and mallet percussion instruments Other instruments such as the piano, harpsichord, pipe organ, and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone as soloist instruments, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments, and guitars. A full-size Western orchestra may sometimes be called a or phil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonata Rondo Form
Sonata rondo form is a musical form often used during the Classical and Romantic music eras. As the name implies, it is a blend of sonata and rondo forms. Structure Sonata and rondo forms Rondo form involves the repeated use of a theme (sometimes called the "refrain") set in the tonic key, alternating with episodes, resulting in forms such as ABACA (the five-part rondo) or ABACADA (the seven-part rondo). In a rondo, the refrain (A) may be varied slightly. The episodes (B, C, D, etc.) are normally in a different key than the tonic. Sonata form is a classical form composed of three main sections, namely exposition, development, and recapitulation. A sonata may begin with an introduction, which is commonly slower than the remainder of the movement. After that, there is an exposition, whose purpose is to present the movement's main thematic material. This takes the form of one or two themes or theme groups, the second of which is commonly in a related key. The exposi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rondo Form
The rondo or rondeau is a musical form that contains a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") which alternates with one or more contrasting themes (generally called "episodes", but also referred to as "digressions" or "couplets"). Some possible patterns include: ABACA, ABACAB, ABACBA, or ABACABA (with the letter 'A' representing the refrain). The rondo form emerged in the Baroque period and became increasingly popular during the Classical period. The earliest examples of compositions employing rondo form are found within Italian operatic arias and choruses from the first years of the 17th century. These examples use a multi-couplet rondo or "chain rondo" (ABACAD) known as the Italian rondo. Rondo form, also known in English by its French spelling rondeau, should not be confused with the unrelated but similarly-named forme fixe rondeau, a 14th- and 15th-century French poetic and chanson form. While the origins of rondo form are to be found in Italian opera, it was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minuet And Trio
A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually written in Triple metre, time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accompanies the dance, which subsequently developed more fully, often with a longer musical form called the minuet and trio, and was much used as a Movement (music), movement in the early classical symphony. While often stylized in instrumental forms, composers of the period would have been familiar with the popular dance. Dance The name may refer to the short steps, ''pas menus'', taken in the dance, or else be derived from the ''branle à mener'' or ''amener'', popular group dances in early 17th-century France. The minuet was traditionally said to have descended from the ''bransle de Poitou'', though there is no evidence making a clear connection between these two dances. The earliest treatise to mention the possible co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closely Related Key
In music, a closely related key (or close key) is one sharing many common tones with an original key, as opposed to a distantly related key (or distant key). In music harmony, there are six of them: four of them share all the pitches except one with a key with which it is being compared, one of them shares all the pitches, and one shares the same tonic. Such keys are the most commonly used destinations or transpositions in a modulation,Schonbrun, Marc (2006). ''The Everything Music Theory Book'', p.76. . because of their strong structural links with the home key. Distant keys may be reached sequentially through closely related keys by chain modulation, for example, C to G to D. For example, "One principle that every composer of Haydn's day Classical music era">lassical_period_(music).html" ;"title="/nowiki>Classical period (music)">Classical music era/nowiki> kept in mind was over-all unity of tonality. No piece dared wander too far from its tonic (music), tonic key, and n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonic (music)
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree () of the diatonic scale (the first note of a scale) and the tonal center or final resolution tone that is commonly used in the final cadence in tonal (musical key-based) classical music, popular music, and traditional music. In the movable do solfège system, the tonic note is sung as ''do''. More generally, the tonic is the note upon which all other notes of a piece are hierarchically referenced. Scales are named after their tonics: for instance, the tonic of the C major scale is the note C. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord in these styles of music. In Roman numeral analysis, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "" if it is major and by "" if it is minor. These chords may also appear as seventh chords: in major, as M7, or in minor as 7 or rarely M7: The tonic is distinguished from the root, which is the reference note of a chord, rathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonata Form
The sonata form (also sonata-allegro form or first movement form) is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th century (the early Classical music era, Classical period). While it is typically used in the first Movement (music), movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement. The teaching of sonata form in music theory rests on a standard definition and a series of hypotheses about the underlying reasons for the durability and variety of the form—a definition that arose in the second quarter of the 19th century. There is little disagreement that on the largest level, the form consists of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation; however, beneath this general structure, sonata form is difficult to pin down to a single model. The standa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately as stand-alone pieces, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section (music), section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena". Sources [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer who was one of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century. He combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra-modernism" into a distinctive style with a personal harmonic and rhythmic language, after an early neoclassical phase. His compositions are performed throughout the world, and include orchestral, chamber music, solo instrumental, and vocal works. Carter was the recipient of many awards – he was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his string quartets. He also wrote the large-scale orchestral triptych '' Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei''. Carter was born in New York City. He developed an interest in modern music in the 1920s. He was later introduced to Charles Ives, and he soon came to appreciate the American ultra-modernists. After studying at Harvard University with Edward Burlingame Hill, Gustav Holst and Walter Piston, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
