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The Snow Queen (King)
''The Snow Queen'' is a chamber opera in six scenes and a prologue by Matthew King. The libretto, by Andrew McKinnon, is based on the original 1844 allegorical fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The opera was composed in 1992 for the British soprano Jane Manning who sang the title role in the first performance with Pal Rullestad (tenor) and Tracy Chadwell (soprano) in supporting roles. The work also has significant roles for two young singers as Gerda and Kay, the heroic children in the story and a chorus of treble voices. The work is scored for a small ensemble of eight players with conductor: string trio, flute/piccolo/alto flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, piano/celesta and percussion. The pianist also has to play a melodian. At one point, the conductor is required to play a French horn. The wide-ranging musical narrative involves a plethora of musical styles. A review of the first performance described King as being "like a bright Hollywood composer with a sense of humour" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Opera
Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a Chamber music, chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's ''Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Pergolesi's ''La serva padrona'' (1733) are sometimes known as chamber operas. Other 20th-century examples include Gustav Holst's ''Savitri (opera), Savitri'' (1916). Benjamin Britten wrote works in this category in the 1940s when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small performance spaces. ''The Rape of Lucretia'' (1946) was his first example in the genre, and Britten followed it with ''Albert Herring'' (1947), ''The Turn of the Screw (opera), The Turn of the Screw'' (1954) and ''Curlew River'' (1964). Other composers, including Hans Werner Henze, Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin (composer), George Benjamin, William Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overture
Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") is a music instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which were independent, self-existing, instrumental, programmatic works that foreshadowed genres such as the symphonic poem. These were "at first undoubtedly intended to be played at the head of a programme". The idea of an instrumental opening to opera existed during the 17th century. Peri's '' Euridice'' opens with a brief instrumental ritornello, and Monteverdi's '' L'Orfeo'' (1607) opens with a toccata, in this case a fanfare for muted trumpets. More important was the prologue, consisting of sung dialogue between allegorical characters which introduced the overarching themes of the stories depicted. French overture As a musical form, the French overture first appears in the court ballet and operatic overtures of Jean-Baptist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Born to a musical family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied music under him until the latter's death in 1908. Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev soon after, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: ''The Firebird'' (1910), '' Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature and later changed the way composers understood rhythmic structure. Stravinsky's compositional career is oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Signatures
A time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, and measure signature) is an indication in music notation that specifies how many note values of a particular type fit into each measure ( bar). The time signature indicates the meter of a musical movement at the bar level. In a music score the time signature appears as two stacked numerals, such as (spoken as ''four–four time''), or a time symbol, such as (spoken as ''common time''). It immediately follows the key signature (or if there is no key signature, the clef symbol). A mid-score time signature, usually immediately following a barline, indicates a change of meter. Most time signatures are either simple (the note values are grouped in pairs, like , , and ), or compound (grouped in threes, like , , and ). Less common signatures indicate complex, mixed, additive, and irrational meters. Time signature notation Most time signatures consist of two numerals, one stacked above the other: * The ''lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman Conquest. Although the details of their early settlement and political development are not clear, by the 8th century an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity which was generally called had developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the existing Romano-British culture. By 1066, most of the people of what is now England spoke Old English, and were considered English. Viking and Norman invasions changed the politics and culture of England significantly, but the overarching Anglo-Saxon identity evolved and remained dominant even ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamelan
Gamelan (; ; , ; ) is the traditional musical ensemble, ensemble music of the Javanese people, Javanese, Sundanese people, Sundanese, and Balinese people, Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussion instrument, percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones (played with mallets) and a set of hand-drums called ''kendang'', which keep the beat (music), beat. The ''kemanak'', a banana-shaped idiophone, and the ''gangsa'', another metallophone, are also commonly used gamelan Musical instrument, instruments on Bali. Other notable instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes (similar to the Indian ''bansuri''), a bowed string instrument called a ''rebab'' (somewhat similar to the ''gadulka'' of Bulgaria), and a zither-like instrument called a ''siter'', used in Javanese gamelan. Additionally, vocalists may be featured, being referred to as ''sindhen'' for females or ''gerong'' for males.Sumarsam (1998)''Introduction to Javanese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ring Cycle
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the . The composer termed the cycle a "" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a ("preliminary evening"). It is often referred to as the ''Ring'' cycle, Wagner's ''Ring'', or simply ''The Ring''. Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the ''Ring'' cycle are, in sequence: * ''Das Rheingold'' (''The Rhinegold'') * ''Die Walküre'' (''The Valkyrie'') * ''Siegfried'' * ''Götterdämmerung'' (''Twilight of the Gods'') Individual works of the sequence are often performed separately, and indeed the operas contain dialogues that mention events in the previous operas, so that a viewer could watch any of them without having watched the previous parts and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), whereby he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like arias and recitatives. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the 16-hour, four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and social transformation. Marxism originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, and as a result, there is no single, definitive " Marxist theory". Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts. In addition to the various schools of thought, which emphasize or modify elements of classical Marxism, several Marxian concepts have been incorporated into an array of social theories. This has led to widely varying conclusions. Alongside Marx's critique of political economy, the defining ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bach Cantata
The cantatas composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, known as Bach cantatas ( German: ), are a body of work consisting of over 200 surviving independent works, and at least several dozen that are considered lost. As far as known, Bach's earliest cantatas date from 1707, the year he moved to Mühlhausen, although he may have begun composing them at his previous post in Arnstadt. Most of Bach's church cantatas date from his first years as and director of church music in Leipzig, a position which he took up in 1723. Working for Leipzig's and , it was part of Bach's job to perform a church cantata every Sunday and holiday, conducting soloists, the Thomanerchor and orchestra as part of the church service. In his first years in Leipzig, starting after Trinity of 1723, Bach regularly composed a new cantata every week, although some of these cantatas were adapted (at least in part) from work he had composed before his Leipzig era. Works from three annual cycles of cantatas for the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strophic Form
Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form, chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music. Contrasting song forms include through-composed, with new music written for every stanza, and ternary form, with a contrasting central section. Etymology Strophe is derived from the Greek word (''strophḗ'', "turn"). It is the simplest and most durable of musical forms, extending a piece of music by repetition of a single formal section. This may be analyzed as "A A A...". This additive method is the musical analogue of repeated stanzas in poetry or lyrics and, in fact, where the text repeats the same rhyme scheme from one stanza to the next, the song's structure also often uses either the same or very similar material from one stanza to the next. Format A ''modified'' strophic form varies the pattern in some stanzas (A A' A"...) somewhat like a rudimentary theme and variati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arias
In music, an aria (, ; : , ; ''arias'' in common usage; diminutive form: arietta, ; : ariette; in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompaniment, normally part of a larger work. The typical context for arias is opera, but vocal arias also feature in oratorios and cantatas, or they can be stand-alone concert arias. The term was originally used to refer to any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. Etymology The Italian term ''aria'', which derives from the Greek ἀήρ and Latin ''aer'' (air), first appeared in relation to music in the 14th century when it simply signified a manner or style of singing or playing. By the end of the 16th century, the term 'aria' refers to an instrumental form (cf. Santino Garsi da Parma lute works, ('Aria del Gran Duca'). By the early 16th century, it was in common use as meaning a simple setting of strophic poetry; melodic madrigals, free of c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
