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Holy Minimalism
Holy minimalism, mystic minimalism, spiritual minimalism, or sacred minimalism are terms, sometimes pejorative, used to describe the musical works of a number of late-twentieth-century composers of Western classical music. The compositions are distinguished by a minimalist compositional aesthetic and a distinctly religious or mystical subject focus. Origins With the growing popularity of minimalist music in the 1960s and 1970s, which often broke sharply with prevailing musical aesthetics of serialism and aleatoric music, many composers, building on the work of such minimalists as Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, began to work with more traditional notions of simple melody and harmony in a radically simplified framework. This transition was seen variously as an aspect of musical post-modernism or as neo-romanticism, that is, a return to the lyricism of the nineteenth century. Popularity In the 1970s and continuing in the 1980s and 1990s, several composers, many of whom had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and definition The term is descended from Latin, ''compōnō''; literally "one who puts together". The earliest use of the term in a musical context given by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is from Thomas Morley's 1597 ''A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music'', where he says "Some wil be good descanters ..and yet wil be but bad composers". "Composer" is a loose term that generally refers to any person who writes music. More specifically, it is often used to denote people who are composers by occupation, or those who work in the tradition of Western classical music. Writers of exclusively or primarily songs may be called composers, but since the 20th century the terms ' songwriter' or ' singer-songwriter' are more often used, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Cappella
Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance music, Renaissance polyphony and Baroque (music), Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for ''alla breve''. Early history Research suggests that singing and vocables may have been what early humans used to communicate before the invention of language. The earliest piece of sheet music is thought to have originated from times as early as 2000 BC, while the earliest that has survived in its entirety is from the first century AD: a piece from Greece called the Seikilos epi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ECM Records
ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is "the most beautiful sound next to silence", taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in '' Coda'', a Canadian jazz magazine. ECM has been distributed in the U.S. by Warner Bros. Records, PolyGram Records, BMG, and, since 1999, Universal Music, the successor of PolyGram, worldwide. Its album covers were profiled in two books: ''Sleeves of Desire'' and ''Windfall Light'', both published by Lars Müller. History The first ECM release produced by Manfred Scheffner was pianist Mal Waldron's 1969 recording '' Free at Last''. The label went on to release recordings by many prominent jazz musicians, including Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Gary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercury Music Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual Music award, music prize awarded for the best album released by a musical act from the Music of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom or Music of Ireland, Ireland. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the British Phonographic Industry and British Association of Record Dealers in 1992 as an alternative to the Brit Awards. Format and eligibility Any album released by a British or Irish artist, or by a band where over 50% of the members are British or Irish, may be submitted for consideration by their record label. There is a fee for submission. Twelve submitted albums are shortlisted for the prize, chosen based solely on their musical merit and irrespective of how popular or successful an album or act that has been submitted may have been in the previous calendar year. The shortlist is chosen by an independent panel of musicians, music presenters, music producers, music journal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Music Magazine
''BBC Music Magazine'' is a British monthly magazine that focuses primarily on classical music. The first issue appeared in September 1992. BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC, was the original owner and publisher together with Warner Music Enterprises during its initial phase. Immediate Media Company has been the publisher since 2012. Since March 1993 an edition of ''BBC Music Magazine'' has been published in North America. The content of the magazine reflects the broadcast output of BBC Radio 3, which is devoted primarily to classical music, but also broadcasts some jazz and world music. Each edition comes with an audio CD, often including BBC recordings of full-length works. The magazine features articles on subjects such as favourite conductors and trends in 21st-century classical music. The magazine's circulation was 37,530 as of 2008. Profits "are returned to the BBC". Previous editors of the magazine have included Helen Wallace and Oliver Condy. Cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphony No
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or Mahler's Second Symphony). Etymology and origins The word ''symphony'' is derived from the Greek word (), meaning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimír Godár
Vladimír Godár (born 16 March 1956, in Bratislava) is a Slovak Contemporary classical music, classical and film score composer. He is also known for his collaboration with the Czech violinist, singer, and composer Iva Bittová. As an academic, he is a writer, editor, and translator of books on historical music research. He has been active in reviving the music and reputation of 19th-century Slovak composer Ján Levoslav Bella. Godár studied composition under Juraj Pospíšil and piano under Mária Masariková at the Bratislava Conservatory. In 1979, he began work as editor of the music books department of the record label Opus (record label), OPUS, and he taught at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava from 1985. His work is little known outside Slovakia, with much of his music released by Slovart Music, Slovart. Amongst his compositions is a large-scale sonata for cello dedicated to the memory of Victor Shklovsky. Godár won the 2001 Georges Delerue Award for the sco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pēteris Vasks
Pēteris Vasks (born 16 April 1946) is a Latvian composer. Biography Vasks was born in Aizpute, Latvia, into the family of a Baptist pastor. He trained as a violinist at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, as a double-bass player with Vitautas Sereikaan at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and played in several Latvian orchestras before entering the State Conservatory in Vilnius in the neighboring Lithuania to study composition with Valentin Utkin, as he was prevented from doing this in Latvia due to Religion in the Soviet Union#Baptists, Evangelical Christians, and Pentecostals, Soviet repressive policy toward Baptists. He started to become known outside Latvia in the 1990s, when Gidon Kremer started championing his works, and he now is one of the most influential and praised European contemporary composers. Vasks' early style owed much to the aleatoric experiments of Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki and George Crumb. Later works included elements ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Otte
Hans Günther Franz Otte (3 December 1926 – 25 December 2007) was a German composer, pianist, radio promoter, and author of many pieces of musical theatre, sound installations, poems, drawings, and art videos. From 1959 to 1984 he served as music director for Radio Bremen. From the early 1960s onwards, Otte frequently presented contemporary experimental American composers in his Bremen radio festival '' Pro Musica Nova'', among them in those days completely unknown people like John Cage, David Tudor, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young. From 1959 on, Otte lived and worked in Bremen, Germany. His catalogue of compositions contains more than 100 works. Otte was born in Plauen. He studied in Germany, Italy, and at Yale University in the United States. His teachers included the composer Paul Hindemith and the pianist Walter Gieseking. Some of Otte's works, especially his extended suites for solo piano, are characterized by very minimal means but are nevertheless quite subtle and sophis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giya Kancheli
Gia Kancheli ( ka, გია ყანჩელი; 10 August 1935 – 2 October 2019) was a Georgian composer. He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and resided in Belgium in later life. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kancheli lived first in Berlin, and from 1995 in Antwerp, where he became composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic. He died in Tbilisi at age 84. Life In his symphonies, Kancheli's musical language typically consists of slow scraps of minor-mode melody against long, subdued, anguished string discords. Rodion Shchedrin called Kancheli "an ascetic with the temperament of a maximalist; a restrained Vesuvius". Kancheli wrote seven symphonies, and what he termed a liturgy for viola and orchestra, ''Mourned by the Wind''. the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yuri Temirkanov gave the American premiere of his Fourth Symphony in 1978, not long before the cultural freeze in the United States against Soviet culture. Glasnost allowed Kancheli to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina (24 October 1931 – 13 March 2025) was a Soviet and Russian composer of Modernism (music), modernist Holy minimalism, sacred music. She was highly prolific, producing numerous Chamber music, chamber, Orchestra, orchestral and Choir, choral works.Griffiths, Paul.Sofia Gubaidulina: Apostle of Inner Struggle and Redemption. ''New York Times'', 25 April 1999. Retrieved 14 March 2025 Her output has been described as exploring the tensions between Western and Eastern music, and has been characterised by "innovative use of microtonality and chromaticism, rhythm over form and use of contrasting Tonality, tonalities. Her compositions have been praised for their "emotional intensity", while she described her music as bringing ''legato'', that is, a sense of "connected flow into the fragmented ''staccato'' of life." Alongside Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt and Edison Denisov, Gubaidulina was considered one of the foremost composers of the former Soviet Union who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness (; born Alan Vaness Chakmakjian; March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000) was an American composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) and 434 opus numbers. The true tally is well over 500 surviving works, since many opus numbers comprise two or more distinct works. ''The Boston Globe'' music critic Richard Buell wrote: "Although he has been stereotyped as a self-consciously Armenian composer (rather as Ernest Bloch is seen as a Jewish composer), his output assimilates the music of many cultures. What may be most American about all of it is the way it turns its materials into a kind of exoticism. The atmosphere is hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic." Name After his mother's death (on October 3, 1930), the composer began to use the surname "Hovaness" in honor of his paternal grandfather. He stated the name change from the original Chakmakjian refl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
