1802–39, French Adolphe Nourrit, the French tenor, made his debut at the Paris Opéra in 1821, singing Pylade in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. Nourrit remained at the Opéra until 1837, singing, among other roles, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Rossini’s Otello. Nourrit was a brilliant all-round performer, charming his audiences with his subtle, ...
The son of the Brussels wind-instrument maker Charles-Joseph Sax, Adolphe Sax (1814–94) studied the clarinet at the Conservatoire in Brussels. Accordingly, his first experiments with instruments were designs for improving the clarinet and then plans for a bass clarinet. Sax patented the saxhorn in 1845. He took the existing valved brass instruments and came up with the idea of ...
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 ...
Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the most popular literary figure in Europe in the 1820s. His adventurous tales set in chivalrous times captured an atmosphere of romance and mysticism, and exploited the vogue for Scottish subjects which was enveloping Europe. Rossini’s La donna del lago (‘The Lady of the Lake’, 1819), was the first successful opera derived from Scott’s works. ...
The Opéra-Comique company was established in 1714 to offer French opera as an alternative to the Italian opera that dominated the continent at the time. After several misadventures, which included a bankruptcy, the Opéra-Comique settled at the Salle Feydeau in 1805. Here, its essentially radical approach to opera soon became clear. At this time, composers such as ...
Commonly pitched in B flat like the standard orchestral clarinet, but sounding an octave below it, the bass clarinet began life as an eighteenth-century instrument that looked faintly like a dulcian, though with an upward-pointing bell. Adolphe Sax (1814–94) and L. A. Buffet (fl. 1839–43) both worked on the instrument in the nineteenth century. Sax developed one with ...
Attempts were made in the nineteenth century to turn the bassoon into a metal instrument: Charles and Adolphe Sax experimented with brass bassoons and the latter patented such an instrument, with 24 keys, in 1851. There were rival arrangements of keys (which implied different ways of fingering) available in the nineteenth century. There continue to be French and German ...
As ensemble music became more popular during the sixteenth century there was increased demand for wind instruments that could elegantly negotiate the lower ranges. Large versions of wind instruments intended for the higher registers lacked volume and agility and were often difficult to play. Various elements of existing instruments – the bass recorder’s crook and the shawm’s double reed, for ...
Bugle Best known in its military guise, the bugle is one of the simplest of brass instruments in terms of construction, but it is very difficult to play. The single tube of metal has no valves to help create different notes, so players have to do all the work by changing their embouchure – a combination of the ...
The history of musical instruments has always been very closely linked to the history of music itself. New musical styles often come about because new instruments become available, or improvements to existing ones are made. Improvements to the design of the piano in the 1770s, for instance, led to its adoption by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ...
Unusually among musical instruments, a specific date has been posited for the invention of the clarinet. Johann Christoph Denner of Nuremberg has been claimed as the man who, in 1700, devised and built the first of these instruments. Like all the best stories, however, the history of the clarinet is shrouded in mystery. The instrument attributed ...
An electric guitar usually has a solid wooden body with no acoustic resonance. All the sound is created by the vibration of strings being translated into electrical signals by pickups and then amplified. History The modern electric guitar has its origins in the Hawaiian or steel guitar, particularly popular in the 1920s and 1930s. These instruments were the first examples ...
The flugelhorn developed from the bugle, a signalling horn used in the Middle Ages and made out of bull or ox horn. This developed into a large, semicircular hunting horn made of brass or silver that was used by the military during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). History Wrapping the horn around itself once, so the bell pointed ...
Bass Drum The dominant feature of every military band is its big bass drum. Throughout the history of percussion instruments, this drum has been the mainstay of time-keeping, whether it is used for a marching army or in a late-twentieth century heavy metal band. Early versions of the bass drum (it was certainly known in Asia around 3500 BC) ...
The early part of the nineteenth century was a rich period for the development of instruments; many designs dating from this period are now established as the standard forms. The brass world was no exception. Adolphe Sax A man with business acumen and a fascination with design, Adolphe Sax was quick to seize on these developments. Having found major success ...
AUTHORITATIVE
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...
CURATED
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.