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Variations (Stravinsky)
''Variations: Aldous Huxley in memoriam'' is Igor Stravinsky's last major orchestral composition, written in 1963–64. History Stravinsky began work on the ''Variations'' in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in July 1963, and completed the composition in Hollywood, California, on 28 October 1964. It was first performed in Chicago on 17 April 1965, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Craft. The score is dedicated to the memory of Stravinsky's close friend Aldous Huxley, who died on 22 November 1963 (the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated), when composition of the ''Variations'' was in progress. Although not composed for the purpose, Stravinsky's music was twice choreographed for the New York City Ballet by George Balanchine, a first version in 1966, and a second version in 1982, both times under the title ''Variations''. Analysis The ''Variations'' are based on a twelve-note row: Opinions about the form differ. According to one view, the work c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor 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 20th-century classical music, composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernism (music), 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 Saint Petersburg State University, 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 (ballet), Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913), the last of which caused a List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience respons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clive Barnes
Clive Alexander Barnes (13 May 1927 – 19 November 2008) was an English writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977, he was the dance and theater critic for ''The New York Times'', and, from 1978 until his death, the ''New York Post''. Barnes had significant influence in reviewing new Broadway productions and evaluating the international dancers who often perform in New York City. Barnes was a member of the executive committee of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. Background Barnes was born in Lambeth, London, the only child of ambulance driver Arthur Lionel Barnes (1898–1940) and Freda Marguerite, née Garratt. After their divorce when he was seven, he was raised by his mother. Barnes was educated at Emanuel School in Battersea and St Catherine's College, Oxford. He served in the Royal Air Force for two years. Career Barnes began writing dance criticism in 1949, during his time at Oxford, and afterward, he was a writer and editor for ''Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1964 Compositions
Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 – In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople meet in Jerusalem. * January 6 – A British firm, the Leyland Motors, Leyland Motor Corp., announces the sale of 450 buses to the Cuban government, challenging the United States blockade of Cuba. * January 9 – ''Martyrs' Day (Panama), Martyrs' Day'': Armed clashes between United States troops and Panamanian civilians in the Panama Canal Zone precipitate a major international crisis, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and 4 U.S. soldiers. * January 11 – United States Surgeon General Luther Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous to one's health (the first such statement from the U.S. government). * January 22 – Kenneth Kaunda is inaugurated as the first Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelve-tone Compositions By Igor Stravinsky
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded equally often in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one notePerle 1977, 2. through the use of tone rows, orderings of the 12 pitch classes. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law of the twelve tones" in 1919. In 1923, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) developed his own, better-known version of 12-tone technique, which became associated with the "Second Viennese School" composers, who were the primary users of the technique in the first decades of its existence. Over time, the technique increased greatly in popularity and eventually became widely influential ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Knussen
Stuart Oliver Knussen (12 June 1952 – 8 July 2018) was a British composer of contemporary classical music and conductor. Among the most influential British composers of his generation, his relatively few compositions are "rooted in 20th-century modernism, utbeholden to no school but his own" Early life Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra, and also participated in a number of premieres of Benjamin Britten's music. Oliver Knussen studied composition with John Lambert between 1963 and 1969, and also received encouragement from Britten. He spent several summers studying with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood in Massachusetts and in Boston. Musical life Knussen began composing at about the age of six; an ITV programme about his father's work with the London Symphony Orchestra prompted the commissioning for his first symphony (1966–1967). Aged 15, Knussen stepped in to conduct his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta is an English contemporary chamber music, chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble has headquarters at Kings Place and is Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Since its inaugural concert in 1968—giving the world premiere of Sir John Tavener’s ''The Whale (Tavener), The Whale''—the London Sinfonietta's commitment to making new music has seen it commission over 300 works, and premiere many hundreds more. The core of the London Sinfonietta is its 18 Principal Players. In September 2013 the ensemble launched its Emerging Artists Programme. The London Sinfonietta's recordings comprise a catalogue of 20th-century classics, on numerous labels as well as the ensemble's own London Sinfonietta Label. Directors David Atherton and Nicholas Snowman founded the orchestra in 1968. Atherton was its first music director, from 1968 to 1973 and again from 1989 to 1991. Snowman was its general manager from 1968 to 1972. Michael Vy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes is a British Music publisher (sheet music), music publisher, purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass instrument, brass, string instrument, string and woodwind instrument, woodwind musical instruments. Formed in 1930 through the merger of two well-established British music businesses, Boosey & Hawkes controls the copyright to much major 20th-century music, including works by Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Sergei Prokofiev, and Igor Stravinsky. It also publishes many prominent contemporary composers, including John Adams (composer), John Adams, Karl Jenkins, James MacMillan, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Steve Reich. With subsidiaries in Berlin and New York City, New York, the company also sells sheet music via its online shop. History Pre-merger Boosey & Hawkes was founded in 1930 through the merger of two respected music companies, Boosey & Company a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen (, ; June 9, 1938 – March 11, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He also performed as a pianist and conductor. Wuorinen composed more than 270 works: orchestral music, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works, and operas, such as ''Brokeback Mountain'' (2014). His work was termed serialist but he came to disparage that idea as meaningless. '' Time's Encomium'', his only purely electronic piece, received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Wuorinen taught at several institutions, including Columbia University, Rutgers University and the Manhattan School of Music. Life and career Background Wuorinen was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. His father, John H. Wuorinen, the chair of the history department at Columbia University, was a noted scholar of Scandinavian affairs, who also worked for the Office of Strategic Services, and wrote five books on his native Finland. His mother, A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward T
Edward is an English male name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortunate; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Saxon England, but the rule of the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties had effectively ended its use amongst the upper classes. The popularity of the name was revived when Henry III named his firstborn son, the future Edward I, as part of his efforts to promote a cult around Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had a deep admiration. Variant forms The name has been adopted in the Iberian peninsula since the 15th century, due to Edward, King of Portugal, whose mother was English. The Spanish/Portuguese forms of the name are Eduardo and Duarte. Other variant forms include French Édouard, Italian Edoardo and Odoardo, German, Dutch, Czech and Romanian Eduard and Scandinavian Edvard. Short forms include Ed, Eddy, Eddie, Ted, Teddy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Boretz
Benjamin Aaron Boretz (born October 3, 1934) is an American composer and Music theory, music theorist. Life and work Benjamin Boretz was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Abraham Jacob Boretz and Leah (Yullis) Boretz. He graduated with a degree in music from Brooklyn College in 1954, studied composition with Tadeusz Kassern, and later studied composition at Brandeis University with Arthur Victor Berger, Arthur Berger and Irving Fine, with Darius Milhaud at the Aspen Music Festival and School, with Lukas Foss at UCLA, and with Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions at Princeton University. Boretz was one of the first composers to work with computer-synthesized sound (Group Variations II, 1970–72). In the late 1970s and 1980s he converged his compositional and pedagogical practices in a project of real-time improvisational music-making, culminating in the formation at Bard College of the music-learning program called Music Program Zero, which flourished until 1995. He has written extensiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claudio Spies
Carlos Claudio Spies (March 26, 1925 – April 2, 2020) was a Chilean American composer. Biography Early life Born in Santiago, Chile, of German Jewish parents, Spies completed primary and secondary education in Santiago in 1941, when he passed the Bachillerato. Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch were mentors to Spies at an early age. Spies came to the United States in August 1942 to study music at New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and, after her departure for California, with Harold Shapero. He entered Harvard College in February 1947. One of his most influential teachers at Harvard was Irving Fine, and another was Otto Gombosi. He wrote his dissertation on "The concept of form in the symphonies and concertos of Strawinsky.". See also: (esp. footnote 11) He graduated in June 1950, and received the John K. Paine Traveling Fellowship, which took him to Paris, where he spent a year composing. He returned to Harvard as a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Analysis (journal)
''Music Analysis'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It is based in England and published its first issue in 1982. Although the journal "is not produced on behalf of a society, it is closely associated with the Society for Music Analysis." Its website describes ''Music Analysis'' as an "international forum for the presentation of new writing focused on musical works and repertoires." It "is eclectic in its coverage of music from medieval to post-modern times, and has regular articles on non-western music. Its lively tone and focus on specific works makes it of interest to the general reader as well as the specialist." The journal has also featured translations of articles by Theodor W. Adorno and Heinrich Schenker. The journal's first editor-in-chief was Jonathan Dunsby Jonathan Mark Dunsby (born 16 March 1953) is a British classical pianist, musicologist, author and translator, particularly known for his research in musical analysis. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
