Composed: 1844–53 Premiered: 1861, Pest Libretto by Béni Egressy after József Katona’s play Prologue King Endre of Hungary is away at war and his wife Gertrud and her corrupt followers have taken control at court. Act I At Gertrud’s instigation, her brother Otto intends to seduce Bánk’s wife Melinda. Rebels opposed to Gertrud have sent a message to Bánk ...
(A-dre-a’-no Ban-kya’-re) 1568–1634 Italian composer Banchieri is known for his books of music theory and for his contribution to a small, but fascinating repertory: the madrigal comedy. L’organo suonarino (‘The Sound of the Organ’, 1605), a handbook for church organists, is one of the earliest sources of practical advice for realizing a basso continuo. His madrigal comedies – collections of ...
Groups of fresh-faced young men singing catchy tunes have been one of the mainstays of commercial pop since The Beatles. In the last two decades, manufactured boy bands such as New Kids On The Block and Take That have ruled the roost. Although their musical legacy bears no comparison to that of The Fab Four’s, the devotion they inspired ...
When The Grateful Dead started attracting a large fan following on the Bay Area concert scene during the late-1960s, courtesy of free-form jams that showcased the band’s fusion of folk, rock, country and blues, it signalled that rock’n’roll was latching onto a tradition of improvization that had long been prevalent in other forms of Western music. This ...
One of country music's rare departures from down-home values, the urban cowboy phenomenon of the early 1980s was much more a fleeting trend, driven by commercial greed, than a genuine grassroots movement. The term ‘urban cowboy’ gained currency with the 1980 release Urban Cowboy, a hit Hollywood feature film of middling quality, starring John Travolta and ...
Although the 1960s Golden Age established soul as the foundation of Afro-American pop, the 1970s and 1980s saw soul’s supremacy challenged and ultimately ended by, in turn, funk, disco, electro, dance-rock, hip hop and house. In hindsight, the soul music of the 1980s went into a form of stasis, waiting for a ...
The classical period saw the rise of the ‘Harmonie’, a small wind band of up to a dozen instruments. Usually this consisted of a mixture of brass and reeds, such as horns, clarinets, oboes and bassoons: Beethoven’s octet op. 103 (1792) is written for two of each of these (the 1796 op. 71 sextet leaves out the oboes). ...
While in the US and several European countries there is a tradition of mixed wind bands, Britain developed bands made up of brass instruments with saxophone and percussion. The repertory of such ensembles tended to be arrangements of dance music, opera overtures and marches. (Twentieth-century British composers have pioneered original music for brass band.) The brass band developed ...
The music of Latin America combines influences from the traditional music of the African slaves transported between 1450 and the end of the nineteenth century, music from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers, and latterly, pop and jazz from North America. Samba is an umbrella term describing an energetic style of dancing and drumming performed at the annual ...
The banjo is a plucked stringed instrument with a circular body and fretted neck. Its roots lie in the French and British colonies of Africa, where instruments made from a hollowed-out gourd covered with animal skin, bamboo neck and catgut strings were popular. Particularly associated with celebrations and dancing, these instruments went by various names including banza and ...
(Instrumental group, 1900–17) The Eagle Band, originally led by Buddy Bolden, was an extremely popular and influential New Orleans ensemble. Frankie Duson (or Dusen) (1880–1940), a powerful tailgate trombonist, joined the band in 1906 and went on to take over the band when Bolden suffered a mental collapse the following year. Subsequently, Duson employed various Bolden ...
(Instrumental group, 1917–25) The Original Dixieland Jass Band were five young white musicians from working-class uptown New Orleans – Nick LaRocca (cornet), Larry Shields (clarinet), Eddie Edwards (trombone), Tony Spargo (real name Sbarbaro, drums) and Henry Ragas (piano). All alumni of ‘Papa’ Jack Laine’s stable of bands, they went to Chicago and then to New York, where ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1927–34) They did not invent the style, but guitarist/harpist Will Shade (a.k.a. Son Brimmer) and his rollicking aggregation were among the most popular and influential of the jug and string bands that proliferated around Memphis and Louisville, as well as in the Mississippi Delta, during the 1920s and 1930s. With various personnel coming ...
(Vocals, 1908–67) A crooner and scat singer, Billy Banks was a protégé of agency impresario Irving Mills. He headlined a handful of legendary records in 1932 by the Rhythmakers – less interesting for his vocals than for the punchy, eccentric work of the all-star band, which included Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Fats Waller ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1963–67) Harmonica player and singer Butterfield conditioned his band – Jerome Arnold (bass), Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield (guitars), Sam Lay (drums, vocals) and Mark Naftalin (keyboards) – in black Chicago clubs. They backed Dylan’s electric debut at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and helped to usher blues into the psychedelic era, with the groundbreaking East-West ...
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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