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Unendliche Melodie
"Music of the Future" ("") is the title of an essay by Richard Wagner, first published in French translation in 1860 as "La musique de l'avenir" and published in the original German in 1861. It was intended to introduce the librettos of Wagner's operas to a French audience at the time when he was hoping to launch in Paris a production of ''Tannhäuser'', and sets out a number of his desiderata for true opera, including the need for 'endless melody'. Wagner deliberately put the title in quotation marks to distance himself from the term; ''Zukunftsmusik'' had already been adopted, both by Wagner's enemies, in the 1850s, often as a deliberate misunderstanding of the ideas set out in Wagner's 1849 essay, ''The Artwork of the Future'', and by his supporters, notably Franz Liszt. Wagner's essay seeks to explain why the term is inadequate, or inappropriate, for his approach. Background Early use of the term, and its anti-Wagnerian overtones The earliest public use of the pejorative Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard 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 Aria, arias and Recitative, recitatives. He described this vision in a List of prose works by Richard Wagner, series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comédie-Italienne
Comédie-Italienne () or Théâtre-Italien () are French names which have been used to refer to Italian-language theatre and opera when performed in France. The earliest recorded visits by Italian players were ''commedia dell'arte'' companies employed by the French court under the Italian-born queens Catherine de' Medici and Marie de' Medici. These troupes also gave public performances in Paris at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, probably the earliest public theatre to be built in France. The first official use of the name Comédie-Italienne was in 1680, when it was given to the ''commedia dell'arte'' troupe at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to distinguish it from the French troupe, the Comédie-Française, which was founded that year, and just as the name Théâtre-Français was commonly applied to the latter, Théâtre-Italien was used for the Italians. Over time French phrases, songs, whole scenes, and eventually entire plays were incorporated into the Comédie-Italienne's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian Violin, violinist, Conducting, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century. Joachim studied violin early, beginning in Buda at age five, then in Vienna and Leipzig. He made his debut in London in 1844, playing Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto (Beethoven), Violin Concerto, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting. He returned to London many times throughout life. After years of teaching at the Leipzig Conservatory and playing as principal violinist of the Gewandhausorchester, he moved to Weimar in 1848, where Franz Liszt established cultural life. From 1852, Joachim served at the court of Hanover, playing principal violin in the opera and conducting concerts, with months of free time in summer for concert tours. In 1853, he was invited by Robert ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (which includes his " Wedding March"), the '' Italian'' and '' Scottish'' Symphonies, the oratorios '' St. Paul'' and ''Elijah'', the ''The Hebrides (overture), Hebrides'' Overture, the mature Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn), Violin Concerto, the Octet (Mendelssohn), String Octet, and the melody used in the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Mendelssohn's ''Songs Without Words'' are his most famous solo piano compositions. Mendelssohn's grandfather was the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, but Felix was initially raised without religion until he was baptised aged seven int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron, Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also served briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate hims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eduard Sobolewski
Johann Friedrich Eduard Sobolewski (born Königsberg (Królewiec), October 1, 1804 or 1808 Nicholas Slonimsky, ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians''. 6th edition, 1978, p. 1623. - died St. Louis, May 17, 1872) was a violinist, composer, and conductor. Sobolewski studied with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin, and with Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden between 1821 and 1824. He became music director at the Königsberg Theater in 1830. He was the founder and conductor of the Philharmonische Gesellschaft, which he established in 1838, as well as the founder of the Königsberg Musikalische Akademie, established 1843. From 1847 to 1853 he led the Königsberg Theater, after which he led the theater in Bremen. In 1859 he emigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and quickly founded the city's Philharmonic Society Orchestra alongside efforts to stage operas. In 1860 he moved to St. Louis and became conductor of their Philharmonic Society from 1860 to 1866. He was professor of vocal music fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was the elder brother of Nikolai Rubinstein, who founded the Moscow Conservatory. As a pianist, Rubinstein ranks among the great 19th-century keyboard virtuosos. He became most famous for his series of historical recitals, seven enormous, consecutive concerts covering the history of piano music. Rubinstein played this series throughout Russia and Eastern Europe and in the United States when he toured there. Although best remembered as a pianist and educator (most notably as the composition teacher of Tchaikovsky), Rubinstein was also a prolific composer; he wrote 20 operas, the best known of which is '' The Demon''. He composed many other works, including five piano concertos, six symphonies and many solo piano works along with a substantial output of works for chamber ensemble. In 1865 Rubinstein married Vera de Tschikouanov, a maid of honor a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart and Richard Wagner, Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le diable'' and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera 'decisive character'. Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard that helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer began his musical career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera, spending several years in Italy studying and composing. His 1824 opera ''Il crociato in Egitto'' was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hector Berlioz
Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the ''Symphonie fantastique'' and ''Harold en Italie, Harold in Italy'', choral pieces including the Requiem (Berlioz), Requiem and ''L'Enfance du Christ'', his three operas ''Benvenuto Cellini (opera), Benvenuto Cellini'', ''Les Troyens'' and ''Béatrice et Bénédict'', and works of hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" ''Roméo et Juliette (Berlioz), Roméo et Juliette'' and the "dramatic legend" ''La Damnation de Faust''. The elder son of a provincial physician, Berlioz was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession. His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Ritter
Alexander Sascha Ritter (7 June 1833 – 12 April 1896) was a German composer and violinist. He wrote two operas - ''Der faule Hans'' and ''Wem die Krone?'', a few songs, a symphonic waltz and two symphonic fantasias. Ritter died in Munich. Life and career He was born in Narva, Estonia. He studied in Frankfurt am Main under Joachim Raff. In 1854 he married Wagner's niece Franziska (1829–1895). They had a daughter Hertha, who in 1902 became the wife of the Austrian composer Siegmund von Hausegger. Ritter had a strong influence on Richard Strauss. He persuaded him to abandon the conservative style of his youth, and begin writing tone poems; he also introduced Strauss to the essays of Richard Wagner and the writings of Schopenhauer. He encouraged Strauss to write his first opera ''Guntram Saint Gontrand ( 532 in Soissons – 28 March 592 in Chalon-sur-Saône), also called Gontran, Gontram, Guntram, Gunthram, Gunthchramn, and Guntramnus, was the king of the Kingdom of Orléa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felix Draeseke
Felix August Bernhard Draeseke (7 October 1835 – 26 February 1913) was a composer of the " New German School" admiring Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. He wrote compositions in most forms including eight operas and stage works, four symphonies, and much vocal and chamber music. Life Felix Draeseke was born in the Franconian ducal town of Coburg, Germany. He was attracted to music early in life and wrote his first composition at age 8. He encountered no opposition from his family when, in his mid-teens, he declared his intention of becoming a professional musician. A few years at the Leipzig Conservatory did not seem to benefit his development, but after one of the early performances of Wagner's ''Lohengrin'' he was won to the camp of the New German School centered on Franz Liszt at Weimar, where he stayed from 1856 (arriving just after Joachim Raff's departure) to 1861. In 1862 Draeseke left Germany and made his way to Switzerland, teaching in the Suisse Romande in the area ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Cornelius
Carl August Peter Cornelius (24 December 1824 – 26 October 1874) was a German composer, writer about music, poet and translator. Life He was born in Mainz to Carl Joseph Gerhard (1793–1843) and Friederike (1789–1867) Cornelius, actors in Mainz and Wiesbaden. From an early age he played the violin and composed, eventually studying with Tekla Griebel-Wandall and composition with Heinrich Esser in 1841. He lived with his painter uncle Peter von Cornelius in Berlin from 1844 to 1852, and during this time he met prominent figures such as Alexander von Humboldt, the Brothers Grimm, Friedrich Rückert and Felix Mendelssohn. His early compositions included chamber and church music and secular songs, among which stands the Stabat Mater for soloists, choir, and orchestra, composed in 1849. Cornelius's first mature works (including the opera ''Der Barbier von Bagdad'') were composed during his brief stay in Weimar (1852–1858). His next place of residence was Vienna, where he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
