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• Techniques
• Opera
• Roots of Opera

The performers in the Greek tragedy were of two distinct types: the choros and the solo actors. The choros was a group of 12 or 15 adult men drawn from the general citizenry of Athens. Its role was largely passive in the drama, usually commenting upon the action or sympathizing with the solo characters. Although the choros (and particularly its ...

• Personalities
• Contemporary Folk
• Guitar Heroes

The acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter Nick Drake (1948–74) was a tragic figure in the English folk-rock community. His beautiful if bleak songs became fully appreciated only after decades had passed since he succumbed to an overdose of anti-depressant medication. Born Nicholas Rodney Drake, he spent his childhood in Burma and on his parents’ estate in Warwickshire. A bright youth and ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

1727–79, Italian The Italian composer Tommaso Traetta reflected Gluck’s ideals for opera, in which orchestration, choral scenes, dance and solo arias were combined. One example of these principles was Traetta’s setting of an Italian translation of the text Rameau had used in his own Hippolyte et Aricie (‘Hippolytus and Aricia’, 1759), which married the French and Italian ...

• Classical
• Modern Era

The Modern Age was characterized by rapid and radical change and political turmoil. By 1918 the Russian tsar, the Habsburg emperor and the German kaiser had lost their thrones. The two Russian revolutions of 1917 resulted in a Communist government led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was fragmented to allow self-determination to the newly formed countries of Czechoslovakia ...

• Styles & Forms
• Opera
• Roots of Opera

The musical culture of ancient Greece has had a profound influence on the history of Western music. However, its legacy is particularly evident in the emergence of opera in the early seventeenth century. Even though we have little idea about what ancient Greek music actually sounded like – composers and musicians did not write their music down – there are ...

• Influences
• Classical
• Late Romantic

Between 1860 and 1918 Wagner became the most influential intellectual figure in Europe. For his Gesamtkunstwerk (‘Complete Art-Work’) he drew on a wide range of inspirations, including Greek tragedy, the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and his own historicist ideas of realizing the latent tendencies of all arts. This ensured that his music-dramas reached into almost every area ...

• Classical
• Early Romantic

The first half of the nineteenth century was essentially a period of insurgence in Europe, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the series of uprisings that rocked the continent around 1848. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was also underway, beginning in Britain, then spreading south through the rest of Europe. With these two strands of revolution came ...

• Opera
• Early Romantic

The early nineteenth century was a period of insurgence in Europe, beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 to the uprisings in 1848. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain before spreading south to the rest of Europe, was also making its mark. These two strands of revolution caused transformations in society: growing awareness of national identity, ...

• Classical
• Renaissance

‘Renaissance’ is a French word meaning ‘rebirth’. It has been used since the nineteenth century to describe the period between c. 1300 and 1600. Three hundred years is a long time for a single historical or cultural period, and the strain shows in any attempt to define the term ‘Renaissance’. The cultural phenomenon central to the Renaissance was a revival ...

• Opera
• Roots of Opera

Opera, with its unique blend of poetry, drama and music, has come a long way from its humble beginnings in ancient Greek theatre. The grandiose, all-encompassing music dramas of Verdi and Wagner may seem a world away from the era of Aristotle and Plato, but this noble civilization, which held music and theatre in high ...

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Early Baroque

Broadly speaking, empiricism, from the Greek empeiria (‘experience’), is a philosophical tradition that accepts as fact only what can be verified by observation, or experience, through the use of the five senses. Galileo Galilei’s support of Copernican theory was a result of his observation of the planet Venus through a telescope. His insistence that what he saw ...

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Late Romantic

If any city could be cited as epitomizing the sense of decline and despair in the late nineteenth century it would be Vienna. Heartland of the oldest existing European empire, its shift from the liberalism of the 1840s towards the political conservatism of the 1890s onwards was typical, as was the inability of its emperor and ruling aristocracy to ...

• Houses & Companies
• Late Baroque
• Opera

Literary clubs that were established in seventeenth-century Italy were commonly known as ‘academies’, taking their name from the Athenian garden where Plato was thought to have met with his followers. One of the most important such groups in the early eighteenth century was the Roman ‘Arcadian Academy’. It was formally established in 1690 to honour the late Queen Christina of Sweden ...

• Influences
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

Messiaen’s creative personality and influence as a teacher were fundamental to the development of new music in Europe after 1945. He was Debussy’s natural successor, taking the French master’s innovative approach to harmony and rhythm to a new plane, while sharing his openness to the music of other cultures. Although by the late 1940s the main elements of Messiaen’s ...

• Instruments
• Woodwind

The bagpipe principle is simple: instead of the player blowing directly on a reed pipe, the air is supplied from a reservoir, usually made of animal skin, which is inflated either by mouth or by bellows. The result is the ability to produce a continuous tone, and the possibility of adding extra reed-pipes to enable a single ...