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Classical Music.
Classical music is a broad term that refers to mainstream music produced in, or
rooted in the traditions of European Music composed over a millennia,
encompassing a long period from around the 9th century to the early twentieth
Century. Though major works are best recognised as emanating between 1550 and
1900, which is known as the common practice period, anything it seems written
before 1920 is considered Classic by some.
Classic European music is generally distinguished from most other non-European
popular music of the times by its arrangement of staff notation, in use since
about the 16th century. Instead of just music, compositions were designed to
lift ones heart or impinge on the emotion, as music was the only entertainment
that could be enjoyed en masse.
The public taste for and appreciation of formal classical music of this type
waned in the early 1900s, particularly in the USA & the UK as the 'Pop' of
the day took its place. In fact Classical Music was indeed the 'Pop' of its day;
Mozart was a Pop sensation. But even the genius Mozart could never have
envisaged the true popularity of Modern Pop.
The term 'Classical Music' did not,
ironically, emerge in popular culture until the late 19th & early 20th century,
as it was some snobbish attempt to totally distinguish the period from Johann
Sebastian Bach, to Beethoven, as some Golden-Age.
The earliest reference to 'Classical Music'
recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from the 1830's. Ironically again,
many early critics felt that 'Classical' was a badly chosen term even for
mainstream and avant-garde music written since the latter part of the 19th
century. Nevertheless, when the listener hears a great composition, they know
whether it is Classic or not. |
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Classical Music
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Giacomo Puccini -
Puccini was born in Lucca on the 22nd of December 1858, he was the last
of the great Italian composers. Puccini, along with his brother Michele,
who died young, were the fifth generation of a family of professional
musicians and composers, living and working in and around Lucca, Tuscany
Italy. All the previous generations of Puccini's were basically church
composers and organists at Lucca's Cathedral - San Martino. The Opera -
A dramatic work in which all or most of the text is set to music. Opera
first originated in Florence in the early 17th century as the result of
attempts to revive Greek tragedy and to reproduce its musical elements.
These became the aria, recitative, and chorus of operatic convention.
The earliest opera still in the modern repertory is Monteverdi’s Orfeo
(1607). Opera Seria is the Italian style of opera developed by such
composers as Scarlatti and Handel and characterized by a heroic or
mythological plot. Opera Buffa is a form of comic opera containing some
spoken dialogue. It developed in the early 18th century and was
originally performed between the acts of opera Seria. |
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Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
(1756–91) Austrian composer, born in Salzburg, the son of the violinist
and composer Leopold Mozart (1719–87). Mozart showed extraordinary
musical talent at the age of four; in 1762 his father took him on a tour
of Germany and to Paris and London. |
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Dvorak He
studied with Antonin Liehmann and at the Prague Organ School (1857-9). A
capable viola player, he joined the band that became the nucleus of the
new Provisional Theatre orchestra, conducted from 1866 by Smetana.
Private teaching and mainly composing occupied him from 1873. He won the
Austrian State Stipendium three times (1874, 1876-7), gaining the
attention of Brahms, who secured the publisher Simrock for some of his
works in 1878. Foreign performances multiplied, notably of the Slavonic
Dances, the Sixth Symphony and the Stabat mater, and with them further
commissions. Particularly well received in England, Dvorak wrote The
Spectre's Bride (1884) and the Requiem Mass (1890) for Birmingham, the
Seventh Symphony for the Philharmonic Society (1885) and St. Ludmilla
for Leeds (1886), besides receiving an honorary doctorate from
Cambridge. He visited Russia in 1890, continued to launch new works in
Prague and London and began teaching at the Prague Conservatory in 1891
(where Joseph Suk was among his most gifted pupils). Before leaving for
the USA he toured Bohemia playing the new Dumky Trio. As director of the
National Conservatory in New York (1892-5) he taught composition,
meanwhile producing the wellknown Ninth Symphony ('From the New World'),
the String Quartet in F, the String Quintet in E-flat and the Cello
Concerto. Financial strain and family ties took him back to Prague,
where he began to write symphonic poems and finally had his efforts at
dramatic music rewarded with the success of the fairytale opera Rusalka
(1901). The recipient of honours and awards from all sides, he remained
a modest man of simple tastes, loyal to his Czech nationality. |
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Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685–1750) German composer and keyboard
player, the greatest member of a large musical family. He became a chorister in
Lüneburg and in 1703 a violinist at the Weimar court, later becoming organist
there. In 1707 he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach (1684–1720); after her
death he married Anna Magdalena Wilcken (1701–60). Among his greatest works are
the St John Passion (1723), the St Matthew Passion (1729), and the Mass in B
minor (1733–38), as well as over 200 cantatas. His pieces for orchestra include
violin and harpsichord concertos and the Brandenburg Concertos (1721). For the
harpsichord and clavichord he composed a collection of 48 preludes and fugues
entitled the Well-Tempered Clavier (Part I, 1722; Part II, 1744) and the
Goldberg Variations (1742). Bach’s music did not become widely known until
Mendelssohn revived it. |
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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), the second-oldest child of the court musician
and tenor singer Johann van Beethoven, was born in Bonn. Ludwig's father drilled
him thoroughly with the ambition of showcasing him as a child prodigy. Ludwig
gave his first public performance as a pianist when he was eight years old. At
the age of eleven he received the necessary systematic training in piano
performance and composition from Christian Gottlob Neefe, organist and court
musician in Bonn. Employed as a musician in Bonn court orchestra since 1787,
Beethoven was granted a paid leave of absence in the early part of 1787 to study
in Vienna under Mozart. he was soon compelled to return to Bonn, however, and
after his mother's death had to look after the family.
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Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich
(1840–93) Russian composer. He became professor at the Moscow conservatoire in
1866. Among his compositions are six symphonies, including the Pathétique
(1893), three piano concertos (one unfinished), a violin concerto, string
quartets, the opera Eugene Onegin (1877–78), and the ballets Swan Lake (1876–77)
and the Nutcracker (1891–92). |
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Vivaldi, Antonio
(1678–1741) Italian composer and violinist. Besides operas and sacred music,
Vivaldi wrote over 450 concertos, including a set of four violin concertos
entitled The Four Seasons. |
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Elgar, Sir Edward
(1857–1934) British composer of choral works, two symphonies, concertos for
violin and cello, and chamber music. His best-known works are the Dream of
Gerontius (1900), the Enigma Variations (1899), and the Pomp and Circumstance
marches (1901–30). |
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