1619–67, Italian Venetian-born Barbara Caterina Strozzi, singer and composer, was the daughter of the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi by one of his servants. Although she was the principal singer at the Accademia degli Unisoni in Perugia, which had been founded by her father in 1634, her most important contribution to music was as one of ...
(Bâr’-bra Strot-se) 1619–64 Italian composer and singer In the 1630s, Strozzi was a central figure of the Venetian Accademia degli Unisoni, established by her adopted (or perhaps natural) father, the poet Giulio Strozzi, to provide a forum for her renowned vocal performances. A pupil of Cavalli, she published eight volumes of over 100 madrigals, motets, ...
(Vocals, bass, steel guitar, banjo, saxophone, b. 1948) Born in Texas and raised in California, Mandrell is an all-round instrumentalist. Starting in The Mandrell Family Band, she was playing steel guitar in Las Vegas nightspots by the time she was 16 – by which time she had also appeared regularly on the Johnny Cash ...
The story of classical music is not bound up simply with the traditions of any one country: it is tied up with the cultural development of Europe as a whole. This section attempts to pick out the composers from each successive age who, looked at from one point of view, exerted the greatest influence on their contemporaries and subsequent ...
1639–82, Italian Alessandro Stradella was in his native Rome, writing intermezzi and other music for revivals of operas by Cavalli and Cesti, when he became embroiled in a quarrel with the Catholic authorities. He then had to leave Rome and decamped to Genoa, where he arrived in 1678. By that time, Stradella had composed several operas ...
(A-lel’-san’-dro Stra-del’-la) 1644–82 Italian composer By the age of 20 Stradella was composing for the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden, who appointed him servitore di camera (servant of the chamber). He enjoyed the patronage of several leading families, but was forced to leave Rome briefly in 1669 after attempting to embezzle money from the church. An ill-judged affair with one ...
In the late Baroque era music both consolidated earlier developments and looked forward to the new styles of the classical era. The output of the two greatest composers of the time, J. S. Bach and Handel, reflects the general trends in music. The main forms – notably the sonata, concerto and opera – became longer and more complex ...
More sophisticated diplomatic relations between states in the late Baroque era resulted in a time of relative peace – for a short period at least – during which the arts flourished. As in the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, writers, artists and musicians turned to the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome for their standards and their inspiration. At ...
Major changes occurred in country music during the 1970s and 1980s, and country icons came and went as the music escaped from the stereotypical image of the 1960s, when it had been gingham dresses for the ladies and rhinestone suits for the men. Now country music had a new face: Dolly Parton’s extravagant dress sense and the shaggy-haired Outlaw ...
‘The Knight of the Rose’ For the follow-up to Elektra, Strauss declared he wanted to write a Mozart opera. Despite Hofmannsthal’s protests about a light, Renaissance subject set in the past, the librettist soon came up with a scenario that delighted Strauss. The correspondence between librettist and composer was good-natured and respectful. Each made suggestions to the other ...
Donizetti’s three-act comic opera, Don Pasquale, full of fun and infectious humour, was first performed at the Théâtre Italien in Paris on 3 January 1843. There was no hint here of Donizetti’s failing health, but as time proved, Don Pasquale was among the last of his remarkable total of 67 operas. The first performance was a ...
‘Julius Cesar in Egypt’ Handel’s operas usually revolve around the voices and particular gifts of the singers that were available to him. Giulio Cesare in Egitto was created in 1724 as a vehicle for Senesino and Cuzzoni, although the characteristic trademark of Handel’s best operas is that the emotions and experience of the characters are not sacrificed to the virtuosity ...
Mozart had long admired the inspired synthesis of French and Italian opera in Gluck’s ‘reform’ works. His greatest opera seria, Idomeneo, premiered in Munich on 29 January 1781, draws much from Gluck, especially the hieratic scenes of Alceste (another opera concerned with human sacrifice). Yet its harmonic daring, orchestral richness and lyrical expansiveness are entirely Mozart’s ...
c. 1620–c. 1660, Italian Singer Anna Renzi created the part of Ottavia, the neglected wife of Emperor Nero in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, in 1642, and she sang many other operatic roles in Venice. Renzi was one of the first female opera singers and also one of the first, if not the first, singers to ...
A founding member of the band Pentangle, Bert Jansch (b. 1943) was born in Glasgow. He was heavily influenced by the guitarist Davey Graham and folk singers such as Anne Briggs. He has recorded 25 albums and toured extensively, influencing artists like Jimmy Page, Ian Anderson, Nick Drake and Neil Young. Jansch earned a Lifetime Achievement Award ...
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