(Experimental vocal/instrumental group, 1973–94) Founded in Sheffield by Krautrock fans Chris Watson, Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. The trio manipulated tapes and played conventional instruments against and over them. Signed to Rough Trade in 1978, an underground hit ‘Nag Nag Nag’ emerged. The group became more interested in danceable beats, but still retained an experimental edge. ...
Cabaret thrived on sensuality, wit and an intimacy between performer and audience. Its essence lies in intimate, escapist venues, where charismatic artists perform with ad-hoc backing from piano, brass and bass. Unlike the popularist music hall, cabaret was born from experimentation and a desire to explore the space between mass entertainment and the avant-garde. A French ...
(Singer-songwriter, piano b. 1958) Catherine ‘Kate’ Bush CBE was the first female singer to top the UK charts with a self-penned song (‘Wuthering Heights’, 1978). She is a versatile and sometimes surreal songwriter whose work involves adventurous sound experimentation. The subject matter of her songs has embraced everything from Emily Brontë’s characters to controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (‘Cloudbusting’, 1985). Often ...
Krautrock, which emanated from West Germany during the late-1960s, fused The Velvet Underground’s white noise experiments and Pink Floyd’s psychedelic rock with the free-form jazz aesthetic and funk-based rhythms. Avoiding the dull virtuosity of progressive rock and the sanitised R&B pop of the late-1960s, Krautrock’s grand vision of reinventing the rock guitar as well as exploring the untapped possibilities ...
The very name, ‘Classical Era’, speaks for itself: it proclaims a period that is regarded as ‘Standard, first-class, of allowed excellence’, with manifestations that are ‘simple, harmonious, proportioned, finished’, to quote a dictionary definition. The period from 1750 to roughly 1820 is widely recognized as one of exceptional achievement in music – it is the ...
A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who have come together to play music. In theory, an ensemble could contain any number of instruments in any combination, but in practice, certain combinations just don’t work very well, either for musical reasons or because of the sheer practicality of getting particular instruments and players ...
The Enlightenment was a great wave of thought in the eighteenth century that combated mysticism, superstition and the supernatural – and to some extent the dominance of the church. Its origins lie in French rationalism and scepticism and English empiricism, as well as in the new spirit of scientific enquiry. It also affected political theory in the writings of ...
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 ...
Rock, jazz, soul; each of these genres, while containing a multiplicity of various offshoots, is defined by some kind of unifying theme. But this miscellaneous section, as any record collector will know, is where everything else ends up. Most of the styles within this ‘genre’ have little in common save the fact that they do ...
This section encompasses styles that were, at least initially, designed to work in tandem with other forms of expression, deepening or enhancing their impact. The scores of musical theatre are woven into stories played out by the characters on stage. A film soundtrack is composed to interlock with the action on a cinema screen, while cabaret songs ...
Carmen is the opera that has ensured Bizet’s lasting fame but which, somewhat uniquely, was partly fashioned by pressures from the directorate of the commissioning theatre, the Opéra-Comique. The revenue from this theatre was largely dependent on attracting the bourgeoisie, providing an evening out for chaperoned couples with an eye on marriage. Thus a setting including a ...
First performed as an incomplete work on 2 June 1937 in Zurich, this opera boasts a Berg libretto that is based on two Frank Wedekind tragedies: Erdgeist (‘Earth Spirit’, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (‘Pandora’s Box’, 1904). Following the composer’s death, controversy arose as to the fate of the incomplete third act. Berg’s widow asked Schoenberg, Webern ...
Composed between 1917 and 1922 and first performed in Berlin on 14 December 1925, this work features Berg’s own libretto, based on the Georg Büchner play Woyzeck. Written a century earlier, the play recounts the true story of a soldier, barber and drifter who is executed for murder. Büchner may have read about Johann Christian Woyzeck as ...
European culture lay in ruins after the end of World War II. There were many who, in company with the philosopher Theodor Adorno, felt that Nazi atrocities such as Auschwitz rendered art impossible, at least temporarily. Others, though, felt that humanity could only establish itself anew by rediscovering the potency of art, including opera. On ...
1671–1748, French Librettist Danchet was born on 7 September 1671 at Riom in Auvergne. His first theatrical text, Vénus (1698), was privately performed at Paris. This was also his first collaboration with composer André Campra (1660–1744). Between 1698 and 1735 Danchet and Campra produced several pastorals, ballets and opéra ballets, and 11 tragedies lyriques including Hésione (1700), ...
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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.
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