(Hints Ho’-lig’-âr) b. 1939 Swiss composer and oboist Holliger’s work is characterized by a constant striving to push the boundaries of the expressive possibilities offered by all instruments. His scores often contain detailed instructions with regard to embouchure and breathing, finger pressure, placing of the bow etc. His interest in extreme situations and states of being is evident also ...
1928–2007, German A master of electronic composition, Stockhausen forged a unique path by creating and reinventing musical forms while recasting the fundamentals of musical content. One of his works lasts 24 hours. Another mixes electronic sounds with the voice of a boy soprano. As composer-conductor Pierre Boulez said: ‘He invented a new kind of relationship between music’s components. He ...
(Hints Kärl Groo-bâr) b. 1943 Austrian composer Gruber studied with Alfred Uhl (1909–92) and Hanns Jelinek (1901–69). He began by working in a serial idiom but soon, along with his composer colleagues Kurt Schwertsik and Otto M. Zykan, devised a more eclectic musical language (under the designation ‘MOB and tone art’ – Tonart being German for tonality), drawing in ...
(Kärl’-hints Shtôk’-hou-zen) 1928–2007 German composer Stockhausen studied with Frank Martin (1890–1974) and then with Messiaen in Paris, where he met Boulez. Stockhausen’s use of serialism differs from Boulez’s: whereas the latter wanted to find a means of creating relations between diverse elements, the former was concerned to provide a smooth path between extremes. This can be clearly seen in ...
(Hans Vâr’-ner Hent’-se) 1926–2012 German composer Henze’s musical education was interrupted by the Second World War, but after the conflict ended, he took composition lessons with Wolfgang Fortner and René Leibowitz. Those studies introduced him to Schoenberg’s 12-note technique, which he continued to employ to his own ends; but it was Stravinsky who exerted the strongest influence on ...
After the devastation wrought in Europe by World War II, the urgent task of rebuilding the continent’s war-torn urban fabric demanded radical solutions. These were found in the centralized urban planning advocated before the war by architects such as Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Writing in 1953, the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) created an explicit analogy ...
Wagner’s Ring cycle is made up of four works – Das Rheingold (‘The Rhinegold’, 1851–54), Die Walküre (‘The Valkyrie’, 1851–56), Siegfried (1851–57; 1864–71) and Götterdämmerung (‘Twilight of the Gods’, 1848–52; 1869–74). Although there have been other, even more ambitious projects in the history of opera – Rutland Boughton’s cycle of choral dramas based on the Arthurian legends and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ...
‘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 ...
(On-rikh Gor’-rets-ke) 1933–2010 Polish composer As a young composer, Górecki made a name for himself as a leading member of the Polish avant-garde in works such as Scontri (1960) for orchestra. During the following decade he moved towards a more emotionally expressive and modal musical language, incorporating elements of Polish traditional and sacred music. The Symphony No. 3 (Symphony ...
(Koort Vil) 1900–50 German/American composer Weill was influenced by his teacher Busoni, by Stravinsky and by the ideal of Zeitoper (opera on contemporary subjects and themes). In his early, successful stage pieces, including Der Protagonist (‘The Protagonist’, 1926) and Royal Palace (1927), he soon moved towards a style, related to jazz and cabaret, that made him ...
His contemporaries Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck might receive more time in the spotlight, but guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (b. 1945) has been similarly influential and innovative during his 40-plus-year career. Born in Weston-Super-Mare, England, in April 1945, Blackmore was given his first guitar at the age of 11 and began taking classical lessons, ...
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