1858–1944 British composer A determined and talented composer, Smyth studied in Germany and returned to England in the 1890s to well-received performances of her orchestral works and her dynamic Mass in D (1891). Although she wrote compelling songs and chamber music, her main musical attention was devoted to six operas, the most successful of which was The Wreckers ...
1858–1944, British Overcoming family resistance, Smyth studied composition at Leipzig Conservatory, where her early influences included Wagner and Berlioz and she met Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Dvořák. Her 1906 opera, The Wreckers, is now acknowledged to be an important contribution to British operatic repertoire. She has the disappointing honour of remaining the only woman to have ...
(Vocals, 1896–1977) Ethel Waters’ most significant blues releases, on Cardinal and Black Swan, were recorded in the early 1920s. Versatile and ambitious, she soon moved into a more pop-oriented direction, and she also began to work in films and theatrical productions. It was in theatre that she eventually made her greatest mark, but after a ...
(Be’-der-zhikh Sma’-ta-na) 1824–84 Czech Composer Smetana was the founding father of the Czech national musical revival. Born to middle-class parents on 2 March 1824, he showed considerable talent as a pianist by the time he was six. He went to study in Prague in 1839, subsequently making a living as a teacher and player. In 1848 he opened a music ...
1916–2006, Canadian One of the great Mozartian tenors of his age, Simoneau married French-Canadian soprano Pierrette Alarie. They went to Europe, where he sang at the Paris Opéra, Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne and London’s Covent Garden. In 1952, Simoneau sang in a historic recording of Oedipus Rex, with Stravinsky conducting and librettist Jean Cocteau as narrator. ...
As the conductor is placed in a very visible position of power over other musicians, conducting has been a particularly difficult career for women to pursue. While women have, in fact, conducted throughout history, it is still relatively rare to find them working with professional symphony orchestras. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women ...
Bessie Smith was one of the greatest vocalists of the twentieth century; her emotional delivery and exquisite phrasing has been an influence on instrumentalists as well as innumerable singers, both male and female. Many of her records, including ‘Gimmie a Pigfoot’, ‘Woman’s Trouble Blues’, ‘St. Louis Blues’ and the song that became an anthem of the Great Depression, ...
Joseph Vernon Turner was born on 18 May 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of school after sixth grade and worked with blind singers on the streets. The blues was in the air in Kansas City and when Turner joined in with the street singers he would make up blues lyrics. Turner was functionally illiterate and never learned ...
(Piano, vocals, composer, 1904–43) Thomas Wright ‘Fats’ Waller developed his playing style during the early 1920s under the tutelage of Harlem stride pianists James P. Johnson and Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith. The son of a Baptist preacher, he began playing in the church and by the age of 15 was the house organist at the Lincoln Theatre. He ...
Although it generally refers to music recorded up to the end of the Second World War, nostalgia is not a genre in the sense that the artists share inherent characteristics or sensibilities. Instead they have a special resonance, an ability to conjure up feelings and memories of a specific era. Some of them stood for harrowing times: Mae West ...
The 1920s was, without doubt, the Jazz Age. Workers and the newly burgeoning middle class turned into consumers due to relatively higher wages. The international political advantages that came from having just won a major war buttressed a ‘lost generation’ of artistic types, who took up residence in Europe. New moral codes, sophistication and cynicism abounded. Some ...
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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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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.