Master of guitar-generated sound effects, Adrian Belew (b. 1949) makes his Parker Deluxe guitar not only sing but also scream, squawk, roar, tweet and talk in elephant tongue. Best known for his time in King Crimson during the early Eighties as comic foil to Robert Fripp’s relatively nerdy straight man, Belew is one of the most ...
(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 ...
(A’-dre-an Vil-lârt) c. 1490–1562 Flemish composer Willaert was one of an important group of composers who settled in Italy and there adapted the Franco-Flemish style. He spent most of his career as maestro di cappella at St Mark’s, Venice. He gathered around him an influential group of musicians, including Rore and the great theorist Zarlino. His greatest publication was Musica ...
Fingerstyle master Adrian Legg (b. 1948) defies categorization. But though his music combines British folk, Celtic, rock, classical, blues, jazz and country sounds, Legg’s warm, soulful playing is the thread that unites the styles. Born in Hackney, London, England, Legg took the first steps of his musical journey playing the oboe ...
With the exception of Judas Priest, no metal band has been more influential than Iron Maiden. And it is no coincidence that Maiden first took flight when guitarist Adrian Smith joined the band one month into recording their second album, Killers, in 1981. Adrian Frederik ‘H’ Smith was born in Hackney, East London, in February 1957. ...
c. 1759–c. 1803, Italian Adriana Ferrarese was known as ‘La Ferrarese’ from her birthplace, Ferrara. In 1785, in London, she sang in Demetrio by Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842). Da Ponte, her mentor, wrote libretti for operas by Vicente Martín y Soler (1754–1806) and Salieri in which she took part. However, Mozart was not particularly impressed ...
Composed: 1902 Premiered: 1902, Milan Libretto by Arturo Colautti, after Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé’s play Adrienne Lecouvreur Act I Backstage at the Comédie-Française, the stage manager Michonnet tries to propose to the actress Adriana Lecouvreur, but she loves Maurizio, who is the Count of Saxony in disguise. She gives Maurizio some violets. An intercepted letter ...
1889–1983 English conductor Boult studied under Nikisch at the Leipzig Conservatory before joining the music staff at Covent Garden in 1914. In 1918 he conducted the first performance of Holst’s The Planets, soon becoming known as a champion of contemporary English music. He was musical director of the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra 1930–50 and of the London Philharmonic Orchestra ...
Renowned as the leader of avant-garde satirical group the Mothers Of Invention in the 1960s, Frank Zappa developed a singular guitar prowess that emerged in the 1970s as his band became increasingly adventurous, drawing on a wide variety of classical, jazz and rock forms while maintaining their razor-sharp wit. Zappa’s approach to playing influenced many guitarists, including ...
John Abercrombie (b. 1944) is a stylist who has managed to incorporate flavours of folk and rock along with world-music influences into his jazz-based repertoire. He was a highly influential fusion guitarist in the late Sixties and Seventies and has had an abundant career, working solo and with a multitude of collaborators, including Billy Cobham, Ralph Towner, ...
Progressive-rock pioneers King Crimson have seen a revolving door of band members through its almost 40-year existence, including such highly respected musicians as bassists Greg Lake, John Wetton and Tony Levin, drummer Bill Bruford and guitarist Adrian Belew. But one figure has remained steadfast, and that is guitarist Robert Fripp (b. 1946). Born in Wimborne Minster, ...
Keyboard percussion instruments include the western xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel, the log xylophones and marimbas of Africa and Central America, and the barred instruments played in the Indonesian gamelan. The orchestral xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel have thin wooden or metal rectangular bars laid out like a chromatic piano keyboard. The back row of bars – ...
1883–1953 English composer Bax was strongly affected by Richard Strauss, Debussy and Ravel, but the formative influence on him was a Romantic image of Ireland, first encountered through the poetry of W. B. Yeats and reflected in such tone-poems as The Garden of Fand (Fand was the goddess of the Western Sea). His music is passionate (the tone-poem ...
1848–1918 English composer Parry’s precocious musical talents earned him an Oxford music degree while still a schoolboy at Eton. From 1867 he studied with Sterndale Bennett and Macfarren at Oxford, where he became Professor of Music (1900–08); he then succeeded Sir George Grove as director of the Royal College of Music. Although he produced four symphonies and chamber music, ...
1857–1934 English composer Elgar was born at Broadheath, near Worcester. His father ran a music shop in Worcester, where Elgar embarked on a course of self-instruction that made him total master of music’s craft and one of the world’s greatest orchestrators. Brought up a Roman Catholic in a Protestant community and a tradesman’s son, Elgar never felt socially ...
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